Watch Fear X For Free

Too much of everything

Thanks for the memories!

Memorable, crazy movie

Good concept, poorly executed.

"Fear X" (2003) is a quite weird psycho-thriller by the highly experimental Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn who is known for other controversial art house films like "Valhalla Rising" (2009) and "Only God Forgives" (2013). "Fear X" feels like an unfinished movie that seems to offer a lot of food for thought at first contact but only leads to two possible conclusions after the almost abrupt ending. Many viewers will be disappointed by the lack of a proper conclusion while others may find exactly this aspect very creative. In my opinion, the movie lacks the detailed descriptions and out-thought storytelling qualities of comparable art house directors like David Lynch. If you are not into slow paced art house movies, you are going to waste your time. If you are honestly interested in this genre, there are other classics like "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" (1972), "Lost Highway" (1997), "Audition" (1999), "In the Mood for Love" (2000) and "Memento" (2001) you should have watched and appreciated before you venture into the more liberal territory of "Fear X".As for the story, I invite you to discover it by yourself and don't want to give any more details than these: A depressed security guard can't forget about the murder of his wife that happened at his workplace some time ago when the young woman was gunned down along with a police officer by an unknown in the parking lot of a shopping mall. The desperate man is still looking for any possible detail to reconstruct the mysterious murder in order to understand why his wife had to die. A mysteriously discovered photograph leads him to a place where his wife and him had been on vacation several months earlier and his arrival will create a lot of nervous tension in town.As a fan of the art house genre, there are several things I appreciated and disliked about this movie. The first negative aspect is that the movie has a complete absence of crime scenes. The movie would have kicked off in a much more dynamical way if the director had shown us the initial crime that is later shown on blurry surveillance camera footage only. An even bigger problem is the lack of details in the plot that could have delivered some food for thought. Apart of the two main characters, all other appearances remain peripheral even though some of them actually had some potential. Many little scenes don't add anything to the plot at all. These scenes aren't there to confuse us either or to tell us more about the characters, I feel like them being really unnecessary. As I said before, there are two ways to analyze this movie in the end but I don't want to spoil this film for you as you need to experience it on your own to make up your own mind about it. One of these two options would induct a couple of massive plot holes though which would make this film appear quite amateurish.The movie also has its strong points though. The movie doesn't feature too many dialogues and the actors have to work a lot with their facial expressions. This approach is experimental and intriguing and the actors and actresses actually do a very convincing job. The movie's strongest point is its bleak and slightly surreal atmosphere. This point is supported by a minimalist soundtrack by Brian Eno, a clever choice of settings including many dark rooms and the use of the colour red in many scenes and the slow paced acting and storytelling. Even though nothing really happened in some scenes, the movie got me on the edge of my seat like an atmospheric horror movie. Some surreal elements of the film also added a nice psychological suspense that turned somehow out to be the main guiding line of this film.In the end, this movie pretty much offers as many positive as negative points. I liked to experience this movie once but I guess I wouldn't watch it again or recommend it to many people. I felt that this movie had a lot of potential and especially the first two thirds of the film very actually intriguing but the last third and the hollow ending were a negative surprise in my opinion. This movie is for patient art house cinephiles and fans of the controversially discussed director only.

Before Nicholas Winding Refn blew up into the big time with intense, stylish stuff like Bronson, Drive and Valhalla Rising, and after he made his bloody emergence into cinema with Pusher, he made another film that no one seems to remember or even even like all that much. It's easy to see why Fear X wasn't that well received or remembered: it's choppy and confusing, even by Refn's terms, and doesn't pull it's third act into a cohesive resolution, instead favoring a disconcertingly surreal descent into subconscious, abstract imagery, which we all know (the careers of Lynch and others are examples) is an aesthetic not always absorbed by the most open of minds when it comes to the masses. Now that we got that out of the way, here's my take. I adore the film. It's a skitchy Midwestern nightmare that starts of gently gnawing at the fringes of your perception with a sense of dread that's intangible in its possibility, an outcome as vast and unknowable as the desolate prairie setting that calls to mind the fear and degradation of Fargo without an ounce of its good humour, black or otherwise. John Turturro inhabits this setting with a twitchy, anxious aura, suggesting a haunted mindscape beneath those famous curls. And well he should be haunted, considering his wife recently disappeared without a trace. For him, not knowing what happened is worse than any kind of grisly answer, for its a sick hollowness that chokes out any room for him to grieve. He works by day as a mall security guard, busting shoplifters and scanning snowy surveillance screens to distract himself. Then, his co-worker (Stephen Eric Mcintyre) hands him a videotape that may contain answers and be the first breadcrumb in a trail leading to his wife's killer, and possibly his solace. In a lot of films and shows like these, the protagonist ventures to a small town with sordid secrets simmering just beneath the crust of the cheerful looking pie held by the pretty waitress at the local diner. Some artists find their own groove without riffing on other's work too much, and some fall flat-footed into derivative motions. Refn is bold yet subtle in his direction once Turturro arrives in the town, and casts a deceptively innocuous yet insidiously creepy spell over the proceedings. It's essentially where the film really exits utero and manifests, the danger before that was only glimpsed on the horizon now a very real possibility, like waking up from a bad dream into a worse reality. Turturro is met with cold stares and grim greetings, especially by a deputy who becomes predatory upon seeing part of the clues he has brought with him, vaguely tied to a local resident. From there he is led to a suspicious Sheriff (James Remar), and the sheriff's wife (Deborah Kara Unger). Remar may have been involved in his wife's death, and he plays with the curtain of his performance wonderfully, pulling it back ever so slightly in scenes with Unger (some of his best work) and stirring up confusion while menacing Turturro. It's an unheralded best from him and a rare occasion where he gets to be subtle and eerie, as opposed to his usual brash, cocky characters. Unger is similar to Remar in the sense that she has made a point over the course of her career in picking obscure, challenging and unique roles to play. In playing a couple here they feel kind of star-crossed just by the nature of their careers, fed by their smoldering chemistry. The film proceeds like any thriller would, with only intangible hints at the weirdness to come, until the last half of the third act, where it abandons logic completely and dives headlong into a dreamlike abyss of surreality, without a readily discernible warning or narrative signpost. Is Turturro unstable? Or is it Remar? Or are events just taking a turn fpr the supernatural as a result of the town messing with people's psyches, a la The Shining? We will never know, and honestly I doubt Refn did, or ever will either. It's him in the sandbox, free from logic or consequence, and hate it with all your might if you wish, but you can't deny it's a psychologically galvanizing experience that toys with your perception and spooks to the core. The film deals with themes of not knowing, and open ended tragedy masked by confusion and spiraling 'what ifs'. Perhaps Refn implemented all the metaphysical hoo-hah as an extreme metaphor for Turturro's consciousness, fractured and torn by the absence of resolution to the point of madness. Or maybe Refn just likes making weird stuff. That's the eternal debate with artists like him and Lynch: do they have some plan, a secret marauders map to the strangeness that they present to us on screen which only they are privy too, or are they simply making it up as they go along, hurling paint at the canvas until they are satisfied with the result, regardless of comprehending it? We'll never know, and that for me is the beauty of it. With Fear X Refn crafts a polarizing thriller that is the very proto - example of 'love it or hate it'. It's definitely not for everyone. But love it or hate it, there's no escaping it's power.

Fear X is a psychological-thriller that focuses mostly on atmosphere. Harry, a security guard, tries to discover the true circumstances surrounding the murder of his wife. He also sees visions, that act as psychic pointers of sorts.Very well directed, Fear X has some of the eerie ambiance of the films of Atom Egoyan, a bit of the distorted wonderland feel of the films of David Lynch, and some of the enigma of Antonioni's Blow Up. What is lacking is the meaning cultivated in the works of the afore-mentioned directors. There simply isn't much meaning apart from the rather simplistic notion that Harry should get on with his life.This doesn't mean that there aren't interesting themes floating around the film. They just aren't explored thoroughly. One theme is the constant monitoring, which is then magnified and abstracted to a point of paranoia. As a security guard, Harry monitors the shopping mall he works in. His co-worker friend also monitors the place via multiple cameras, from which then he gets the tapes and hands them to Harry. At home, Harry obsessively watches the tapes assembling an abstract mosaic of suspects and motives.Another theme is the mystique lying beneath what seems an ordinary everyday-life existence: the investigation by the police seemingly carrying some secret meaning, the prostitution ring in the hotel, Lieutenant Peter Northrup operating in a secret society of sorts etc. Sadly, the metaphysical aspects in the ending are obscure and unclear, but Harry seems to be moving on with his life (if he's not dead, which again is not clear).In general, the atmosphere makes up for the anemic meaning.

rented this movie cause blockbuster has a "special"> 3 for $5.99. anyway, the beginning was very brilliant. the brooding, grieving security guard was believably portrayed by john torturro. i could feel the grief driving him slowly insane. it was a very good portrayal of an introvert dealing with such a loss. the 1st hour or so i was riveted by his pain, but then something happened. i guess the director misplaced his notes or something but from the moment harry set foot in that sleazy hotel, the movie went soaring downhill. especially the part with the cops having their meeting to deal with peter killing harry's wife. peter was such a wuss! he wasn't believable as an assassin. too guilt ridden. but to me, this movie had an appropriate ending. he was dropped off at his car in the middle of no where, he tossed all those pics into the wind & then drove off into the sunset! he was finally free, he had revenge! he had an answer. what more of an ending was needed? the guy was a tortured soul & he was driving away to start fresh or become a serial cop killer. the end.