PopHorror Let's Get Scared
For my debut article here on PopHorror, I thought it only fitting to review a film that I’ve had my eye on for several months now called Fear Clinic. What sold me on this? For starters, Robert Englund is in this movie. As a lifetime Nightmare on Elm Street fan, I’m always eager to see what Robert Englund is up to these days. Also, the title alone also lends itself to a lot of suggestion. What happens at this clinic? Is fear some kind of omnipresent enemy to the people/patients that reside here? What are their methods in dealing with their instigated phobias? For me, the potential for this film was irresistible. I didn’t see any boundaries that couldn’t be explored and I couldn’t wait to see it. Did it live up to my expectations?
Fear Clinic began as a five-episode web series in 2009 that gained enough attention to merit a feature-length film in 2015. Now, while the web series itself focused more on one character’s phobias at a time, the filmmakers decided to use one specific incident that all of the characters had in common, making their phobias somewhat incidental. Isn’t fear the point of the film? Why push it into the background? Furthermore, I wasn’t sold on the patients’ actual phobias. Sure, Sara has nyctophobia, the fear of the dark, so she’s got a flashlight. Yeah, Caylee has sitophobia, the fear of food/eating, but we never see her confront food of any sort. The nurse has claustrophobia, the fear of tight spaces, but she never really exhibits any signs of it – other than a forced line of exposition.
However, the film allows for further development of Dr. Peter Andover (Robert Englund), showing him as a once revered but now broken scientist struggling with his work after something mysteriously went wrong. This brings up one of the several problems I have with Fear Clinic; it doesn’t take chances with itself. Here I saw boundless possibilities. Like Nightmare on Elm Street, this film had a license to do whatever it wanted. However, unlike NOES, it chose to stick with what looked good on the surface. There were some pretty decent effects here and there, an awesome lead actor and a captivating concept, but really that’s where the pros ended for me.
Fear Clinic has two stories going for it. One is a shooting at a diner that our characters are trying to cope with, with their phobias loosely tied into the whole thing. The second is Dr. Andover’s continued struggle after a complication with a former patient from the “something went wrong” plotline. Again, these two elements are connected by nothing more than their obvious representation. As the physician, Dr. Andover looks help his patients overcome their most crippling phobias by way of the chamber and a box of sorts which, in addition to reminding me a lot of Altered States, immerses the patient into a kind of trance.
While their phobias are an issue, they don’t seem like the issue. The diner shooting is the inciting incident and is the point where the plot develops. There is a minor spin on what “fear” actually is, but I won’t spoil it. In fact, I feel it’s this spin that ruins yet another aspect of the movie. So many things seemed to be gift-wrapped for Fear Clinic, and yet it turned out to be incredibly predictable. That’s the big issue here. I was hoping for the unexpected.
The aforementioned web series brought together a lot of familiar faces including Danielle Harris, Lisa Wilcox, Kane Hodder and Tory Kittles, just to name a few. Some continued star power gives the film recognition with Fiona Dourif as Sara and Slipknot’s Corey Taylor as Bauer.
Final Thoughts:
With its fair share of jump scares, lack of direction, relatively weak performances, tired clichés and the always popular yet completely pointless sex scene, I feel Fear Clinic faltered on more levels than it should have. With a rough budget of $1 million and a little more than two weeks of filming, it’s easy to notice the rushed efforts. In the end, I can sum it up simply by saying it failed in its delivery. I watched every scene hoping for something great, something that would make me say, “Holy shit! That was awesome!” But instead, I found myself saying, “That’s it?” While it wasn’t entirely bad, it wasn’t good, either. Definitely borrow it before you buy it and don’t expect too much. It’s a good “turn off the brain” kind of movie. Until I return… stay scared!
