5.8? People are idiots..

The film is particularly well shot... and John Turturro carries the film in every single scene. I feel embarrassed for anyone who is of the opinion that this is the worst film they have seen. It’s easily my preferred Refn.

This is a pretty strong 7/10 in my book, and if I ever watch it again I'm likely to appreciate it more and upgrade. You want the obvious, you'll get the obvious. This requires a more selective audience, and while it's not likely to appeal to everyone, those who appreciate challenging films will probably find it worthwhile.

Agree

7.5/10

Love it

I've seen this about three times now and I've appreciated it more and more each time. Truly wonderful atmosphere that sticks in the mind long after viewing; the various settings all feel very real and palpable, what with all the rural snow-covered scenery and the shabby early-00's shopping mall and that eerie hotel and of course the house across the street, or even the small old motel where Harry is questioned by cops earlier in the film. Somehow these places come alive in the memory. Extra points for choosing rural Wisconsin to unfold this tale (where Turturro's gloom matches his surroundings) instead of, say, sunny L.A. or the familiar urban jungle of NYC. Lots of indelible images, too: the diner mural of an American flag slowly dissolving into the first scene with Peter, the unsettling yet completely abstract image of his wife's supposed killer, the scarlet-shrouded hotel, Harry driving away at the end and the camera lingering on the landscape. Maybe the most fascinating sequence of the film is at the end: the chillingly ambiguous credits sequence showing the multiple surveillance camera views of the mall on the day of the murder; a perfect picture of our own strange surveillance society, where innocent people can be gunned down or snatched up or violated or who knows what, never found again or their assailant never brought to justice but all the while these cold cameras keep recording the scene impersonally, neutrally, passively and often rendering the human figures a mere conglomeration of pixels, an abstract smudge of dots, now chillingly unrecognizable and unidentifiable, lost to the void...

Surely the film is a bit too derivative, especially in the second half, of directors like Lynch and Kubrick, and films like Lost Highway, The Pledge, Blow-Up, Blow-Out, The Shining, perhaps Manhunter and some of Egoyan's early films. But it's still original enough to make for compelling viewing, and the overall technical credentials -- wonderful acting by all the leads and even bit parts, haunting score by Brian Eno and great overall sound design, immaculate cinematography by Larry Smith, etc -- gives it a haunting sheen that raises it far above most films, psychological thrillers or otherwise, of its decade.

Aesthetically, Fear X is at least a 9/10, but more generally it's a solid 8/10; far from perfect (then again, what is?) but more films this thoughtful, restrained, and formally imaginative need to be made.

You just can't trust sheeple to be able to articulate, much less get close enough to touch, their true feelings of awe when they are presented with a work of art like FearX.

Most people need action and sequences set up so the story is laid out for them. They have yet to appreciate the true meaning of artistic cinema. The way the shot lingers for long periods of time on a living room setting, for one, is something sheeple just don't know how to feel.

We have achieved a spiritual plane of existence that allows us to see true beauty for what it is. While sheeple saw a slow moving piece that didn't tie anything up at the end, we saw a movie drenched in mood. Saturated with feeling, and hauntingly creepy. This film was a fine work of art the sheeple will just never understand.

I pity them. They're stuck with romantic comedies, and run of the mill thrillers, and worst of all, screwball comedies. While they're laughing and ooh'ing and ahh'ing over their favorite actor flavor of the month, we are free to enjoy the select few works of art that they don't possess the sophistication necessary to appreciate.

It's nice to see you artsy fartsy snobs who think your taste in dull movies makes you somehow more intelligent than mere peasants, we're gullible enough to read through this joke of a post.


Regards,

The problem is that when it came out it seemed soooo derivative. Too many 'beats' seemed like he was swingin' on David Lynch's nut-sack.

If one is watching it again now, as I just did, it plays much better. But when it came out the copycatness was repulsive.

Same thing watching Equilibrium (2002) aping The Matrix (1999). No shame. Like a 1980s Japanese product.

I just looked, and think the voting demographics doesn't disagree. Younger people who were 12 or whatever when it came out probably would not have been Mulholland Drive (2001) fans and feel such pangs. Its up to 6.0 now years after the OP, and I predict it will slowly rise over the decades and peak out at ~7.1, closer to where it probably belongs.

7.5 for sure.
One of those movies I've watched (and I watched a lot) which I still remember.
Btw, the guys working on light are the same ones working on Kubrick movies.

I'm watching it now. A good low budget vehicle for John Turturro. I bit comical as usual playing a Mall cop, but a serious topic: he's trying to find his wife's murderer.
Please don't go by IMDB ratings for anything! All it determines is what most not too bright IMDB folks voted; nothing at all to do with quality!