THE PLOT THUS FAR
A doctor works to cure patients suffering from crippling phobias by placing them inside his invention which induces and controls hallucinations.
WHAT WE THOUGHT
“Fear Clinic” is an interesting film about PTSD and the other sort of things that produce crippling phobias. There are shades of institutional horror and “Final Destination” all over the film. Unfortunately, those films don’t overextend themselves as much as this feature. I feel like I’m coming at it way after the fact, since I didn’t follow the original series on Fear. But, how much more could I be missing?
Apparently, this movie was based on a cult show. What I get is that it’s a feature about a crazy doctor who puts trauma patients into a Virtual Reality bed and makes them relive the worst moments in their lives. Hell, it’s pretty messed up even for a horror film. That being said, it’s not like we care about these one dimensional characters other than the lead villain. Which is sad, because a tiny armada of classic and new horror stars are assembled to be fodder. Plus, I think I saw the guy from Slipknot playing an orderly. It’s hard to tell who he was, since I became so accustomed to those nifty masks. Somehow, I’ll deal and keep watching the movie.
The Blu-Ray comes with a behind-the-scenes featurette as the sole special feature. The 1080p transfer plays dark, but it works. The Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track supports the dialogue and breaks up the FX into all channels. I want to shake the hand of whomever at Starz/Anchor Bay made the decision to switch to Dolby TrueHD, as I’ve yet to hear a bad mix since the changeover went down. Stellar work all around and it’s well worth a purchase for the interested.
RELEASE DATE: 02/10/2015 (only at Best Buy)