FEAR THE NIGHT - Mark Reviews Movies

Fear the Night, Quiver Distribution

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Review by Mark Dujsik | July 20, 2023

Over the course of his career (which has picked up steam in just the past two years, apparently), writer/director Neil LaBute has become regarded and/or infamous for stories that revolve around some fairly off-putting characters. Most of them are men, of course, with maybe an exception or two thrown into the mix, but the focus on such male specimens of bad attitude and behavior could give one the impression that the filmmaker either doesn't know much or doesn't care much about women in his stories.

Fear the Night becomes a most obvious exception in LaBute's oeuvre, then, in that it is entirely led by women. The only men here are scummy figures in the background who eventually show their true colors, as a night that was supposed to be a fun one for the women becomes a terrifying game of cat-and-mouse on a remote farm somewhere in California.

Putting this movie into the context of LaBute's other output, it's somewhat fascinating to watch the filmmaker almost attempt to quell any criticism or suggestion of sexism within his work in a single, 90-minute genre effort. As a thriller, though, the movie treads far-too-familiar ground, while never fully making a convincing case for itself.

The setup, which takes a while to establish, features a group of three sisters and their mostly shared friends taking a trip to the siblings' family farmhouse for a weekend. The occasion is a bachelorette party for the youngest sister, but LaBute is so busy introducing us to assorted characters and their shaky relationship with middle sister Tes (Maggie Q) that the screenplay almost seems to forget to establish these characters, their actual connections to each other, and the purpose of this getaway, until the plot is more or less underway.

The central point is that Tes, an Army veteran who served in Iraq and has struggled with assorted issues since returning home, is an outsider among the group. Her older sister Beth (Kat Foster) is irritated that Tes goes looking through her attic for a family photo album, annoyed that Tes so regularly swears around her currently absent daughter, and frustrated that the middle sibling can only talk to people with skepticism or outright scorn.

The rest of the friends—some of whom are at Beth's house, another pair meeting with them down the road, and a final one already at the farm with the bride-to-be—mostly return the favor. Once it becomes clear that the majority these characters exist to be stalked and hunted and/or killed later in the story, it's a bit too easy to become cynical and perceive LaBute's sense of character development more as a numbers game than as any real consideration for these women.

Before all of that, though, Tes, Beth, and a trio of the eldest sister's friends display the bad blood between the veteran and the rest of the bunch, before a stop at a gas station to meet a couple of other pals results in Tes having a standoff with a trio of men. They're led by Perry (Travis Hammer), another veteran, and after the three make untoward comments at some of the other women, Tes soundly puts them in their place.

Will this coincidental encounter pay off later? The bigger question is just how contrived the reason behind and means of that payoff turn out to be.

Following a lot more setup involving the soon-to-be-sold farm's local caretakers and a mysterious phone conversation that Tes overhears (awkwardly hiding in a house that she believes she has every right to be in), we finally meet youngest sister Rose (Highdee Kuan) and a final friend. The one benefit to how long LaBute takes in getting to the action, while establishing a pseudo-paranoid atmosphere by way of the always-on-edge Tes, is that the start of the lengthy standoff, which makes up the second half or so of the movie, is a genuine shock.

Suddenly, the survivors find themselves under siege by a group of masked men (Who could they possibly be?), armed with bows, arrows, and hunting knives. Taking control of the situation, Tes orders everyone to stay low, look for anything that could be used as a weapon, and prepare themselves to fight for their lives.

Obviously, there are plenty of obstacles—no cellphone signal, no landline, all but one of the cars being rendered inoperable—and challenges—mainly that Tes is the only member of the group with training for and a history of any kind of fighting. LaBute sets up all of those, too, in ways that sometimes feel telegraphed. Amidst the darkness of the farm and facing off against threatening silhouettes in relative silence, though, there is a palpable air of tension to the proceedings, and LaBute devises a series of suspense and action sequences that mostly feel logical within the confined setting.

Q's performance, as a woman hardened by her past and rediscovering some sense of purpose under the circumstances, is quite good, too. It is obvious, though, that the screenplay primarily cares about her, as well as the heightened gender conflict on display, and simply lets the multiple other characters survive or die on a whim, for the requirements of the plot, and to whittle down these connections until only the most important ones remain. That quality surely undoes any larger ambitions that Fear the Night might possess.

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