The time has come and the Fear Clinic has opened its doors! (CONTAINS SPOILERS!)

Fear Clinic’s  (directed by Robert Hall) plot line is centralized around the survivors of a grisly event, a restaurant shooting that left six dead and others injured. These survivors rely on Dr. Andover’s to help cure them of their fear- but while they struggle with their inner phobias, Dr. Andover is struggling with his own creation-the fear chamber.

Of course, the star of the movie is Robert Englund who does a fantastic job with playing the doctor that wants to pure the world of a human’s most hated emotion, fear. Dr. Andover’s project is a success originally. His patients recover without their phobias following them and his research seems break-through. However, after many weeks out of their chamber their fears start revealing again and they demand to be admitted into the chamber.

But the stars struck me in this movie were Bonnie Morgan, Thomas Dekker, Fiona Dourif and Corey Taylor.

Bonnie Morgan (Paige) is one of the first patients we see in the fear chamber but as things start going wrong, she finds herself drifting away from reality, and eventually enters a comatose-like state before she passes away.  Morgan played a very unique part in the movie. She has a certain kind of grace and we are saddened for her because she lost her life so early in the movie. But as she returns and  with every step she makes you hear a loud crack as if her bones are breaking and bending. She is literally a tortured soul in the afterlife facing her fears for eternity. Andover starts hallucinating Paige in her eternity of phobias. Andover becomes devastated by the loss and thought he had the cure and as times past, the Fear Clinic closes.

Fiona Dourif (Sara) comes to the Fear Clinic to ask questions to Dr. Andover since her phobia of the dark started coming back and taking over her life with hallucinations. She too was a victim of the shooting.  But as Bauer (Corey Taylor) who is an employee of the Fear Clinic insisted that it was closed,  Bauer insists that the Fear Clinic is closed and is no longer admitting patients, closed after Andover’s frustrations. Sara demands that she see Andover and in no time the rest of the shooting survivors return to the clinic with the same problems: their fear has returned. Then as you guessed it, the side effects of the fear chamber cause complete chaos in the clinic.

Dourif plays an excellent role and is probably the best actress in the whole movie. The audience can feel the panic anytime the lights are turned off on her and just by the sobs and screams she let out, you knew what she was experiencing. I enjoyed how they made her the one that wants to focus on helping the patients but you can sense she has her own weaknesses.

 

Thomas Dekker portrayed the character of Blake exceptionally. We felt a strange pity for Blake when he was shown in the wheelchair and did not speak but his body language and facial expressions did not need words. Blake’s character is originally locked in his own body and mind. Dekker’s acting changes Blake’s mind and body as Blake gains more expressive outlets with finally able to speak and move. By this time, Dekker changes his means of expression: switching from angry staring and horrified screams to stuttered words and tense body language.

Last but not least we have Corey Taylor who plays Bauer. This is Taylor’s first acting debut in a movie (minus all the music videos he has with Stone Sour and Slipknot). He’s pretty much a smartass with a mustache but he pulls the part off very well. He’s invested in the Clinic as much as he’s invested in a paycheck. Bauer is stuck taking care of the patients but while taking care of the patients, Bauer maintains a suspenseful and creepiness towards the female patients.  Taylor adds the comic relief that this suspenseful film needs. But Taylor is not immune to the fear of the clinic and soon enough gets swallowed in by the release of fear from the Fear Chamber.

There is no slow moment in this movie or a moment where you are waiting for this movie to pick up.  Right as the movie starts and as soon as it ends, you’re waiting for more and questioning what you just watched.

When I first started the movie, I thought I would be able to guess everything that would happen. But I was dead wrong, the movie had so many shocking twist and turns and many things that I needed to rewind and look back on. I was expecting a lot of gore in this movie. The movie kept it simple with using fears and phobias instead of using blood and guts. But there are still some aspects of classic gore.  It’s not gore porn we see in current horror movies but it’s simple things that would send shivers down our spines (like someone ripping apart their skin because they feel spiders underneath them).

But after I turned off the movie, my mind was racing. It was probably the best horror movie I have seen in a very long time. It’s not one that you can just turn on and ignore it but one you really have to think through it. The true horror is what the human mind can create.

The movie also stars, Brandon Beemer, Angelina Armani, Cleopatra Coleman, Kevin Gage and Felisha Terrell

Fear Clinic is available on Amazon Prime now! Available on iTunes January 30 and DVD on February 10.