BE AFRAID (2017)

Studio:       Samuel Goldwyn Films
Director:    Drew Gabreski
Writer:       Gerald Nott
Producer:  P. James Keitel, Sam Curphey, Jay Lavely, Drew Gabreski
Stars:     Brian Krause, Jaimi Paige, Louis Herthum, Jared Abrahamson, Michelle Hurd, Michael Leone, Noell Coet, Callie Thorne, Kevin Grevioux

Review Score:

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Summary:

A family uncovers a small town conspiracy connecting their sleep paralysis nightmares to a string of missing children.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Over his wife Christine’s protests, Dean Booth takes a gun outside in search of the shadow people he claims are threatening his family. Upstairs in the house, the couple’s seven-year-old daughter Emms vanishes from her bed.

Four Years Later – Dr. John Chambers moves his pregnant wife Heather and six-year-old son Nathan to the small town of Clarion. Nathan begins having encounters with a shadow man in his bedroom, which his parents initially dismiss as imaginary, while John starts suffering from sleep paralysis nightmares.

Having dropped out of college, John’s grown son from his previous marriage, Ben, comes to stay at the house.

John and Ben are alarmed when they find Dean Booth asking Nathan where his daughter is while the boy plays alone in the woods. Police Chief Martin Collins responds, and assures the Chambers family that Dean is merely still grieving for Emms. John and Heather notice tow truck driver Annabelle Fletcher observing the commotion at their home from a distance.

Nathan follows a vision of Emms, who leads him to an abandoned railroad tunnel.

Ben takes a liking to convenience store clerk Nikki Collins, who is Annabelle Fletcher and Martin Collins’ daughter, and the two teens begin a romance. John briefly confronts Annabelle outside the convenience store about being at his house the previous day.

While John and Ben are out driving, Christine Booth flags them down to come help her suicidal husband. John finds Dean Booth ranting about his daughter and the shadow people. Dean warns John to not let “them” see him or else they will come for him too. Dean tells John to protect his family, apologizes to Christine, and then shoots himself in the head.

Heather confronts Annabelle when she finds her at the elementary school asking Nathan about Dean Booth. Nathan sees a sketch of the shadowy hat man among Annabelle’s things and identifies it as the figure who comes into his bedroom.

Ben and Nikki go on a date at the river. Nikki tells Ben about an abduction experience as a child. Ben tells Nikki how he died briefly, as he was in the same car when a drunk driver killed his mother.

Nathan continues seeing the shadow man in his room. John continues experiencing sleep paralysis nightmares.

Nathan goes into a trance and heads toward the tunnel. In the midst of a miscarriage, Heather sends Ben after Nathan. Ben gets his brother back home. Heather loses her baby.

Before leaving Clarion for good, Christine Booth tells John her suspicion that the town has been working against her family since Emms went missing. Christine gives John her husband’s journal, which contains more sketches of the shadow man.

Ben picks up Nikki at an outdoor party, where he ends up in a confrontation with Nikki’s ex-boyfriend Jimmy Perkins. Jimmy dares Ben to enter the railroad tunnel alone, which Ben does. Jimmy and his friend Darren sneak behind Ben and begin beating him, but a monster in the dark suddenly kills both bullies.

While John tries getting information out of him over a drink, Martin Collins is called to the crime scene at the tunnel. As Ben is taken into custody, John promises his son that their family will soon escape Clarion.

While Heather experiences sleep paralysis in the bathtub at the house, the shadow man comes to take Nathan. John returns home in time to resuscitate his wife after she drowns.

Responding to the report of Nathan’s disappearance, Martin leaves Ben at the police station to go to the Chambers house. John confronts Martin with his suspicions about a conspiracy.

Nikki goes through her father’s computer files at the station, triggering a childhood memory of being rescued after the hat man took her and two boys to the tunnel. The shadow creature comes for Ben in an adjacent room. Nikki uncuffs Ben in time to race to Annabelle’s tow truck outside.

Annabelle takes Ben and Nikki to the Chambers house, where they interrupt a standoff and physical fight between John and Martin. After the confrontation, Annabelle takes John, Heather, Ben, and Nikki to the tunnel in search of Nathan.

John goes into the tunnel alone and is attacked by the shadow creature. Ben is held back from following when he hears his father’s scream. John vanishes, but Nathan exits the tunnel and reunites with Heather.

John wakes in daylight and exits the tunnel. John returns home, but discovers he has become a shadow person and his family cannot see or hear him.

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Review:

Moving to the small town of Clarion, Pennsylvania hasn’t brought the Chambers family the fresh start they were hoping for.  Not only is six-year-old son Nathan receiving nightly visits from a shadow man in a black hat, but his father John is inexplicably plagued by sleep paralysis nightmares of his own.

Four years earlier, another local man lost his daughter to the darkness, and his wife remains certain authorities are in on the secret.  With adult son Ben and pregnant wife Heather digging up strange clues of their own, John Chambers now finds his family at the center of a supernatural conspiracy that haunts them by day as well as by night.

After being underwhelmed or outright disappointed by “Shadow People” (review here), “The Man in the Shadows” (review here), “The Nightmare” (review here), and “Dead Awake” (review here), I went into “Be Afraid” expecting to put the final nail in sleep paralysis’ coffin as a boring springboard for horror thrillers.  Truth be told, “Be Afraid” has a flimsy connection to the real-world phenomenon that makes its sleep paralysis tie tenuous.  Perhaps it’s better this way since the standard spooks supplementing stiff shadow people scares surprisingly make it a more entertaining movie than its aforementioned peers.

It’s a tough task finding adjectives fit to describe “Be Afraid” that don’t unintentionally double as passive-aggressive potshots.  “Adequate, serviceable, not bad” and “fine” are the first terms springing to mind.  Not exactly enthusiastic praise to be sure.  But for a boilerplate fright flick tailored to suit a Tuesday TV timeslot, “Be Afraid” is a suitably average effort.

Gerald Nott’s straightforward screenplay is only as tight as it needs to be to get a basic job done.  Any elements beyond surface details evidently were not thought all the way through.

For instance, John is a doctor, a fact both the script and the character seemingly forget in short order.  Despite John’s M.D. status, it is the online Googling of elder son Ben that deduces the diagnosis of hypnagogia, and another doctor is required to divulge the condition’s medical details.  John might as well be a mechanic or milkman for all the good he gets out of allegedly being a practicing physician.

“Be Afraid” also runs out of room to connect its threads of small town secrets, tragic pasts, and supernatural creatures to thicker ropes of fully fleshed fiction.  Content with “good enough” as a way to resolve dangling subplots, and the main plot too for that matter, the movie is barely concerned with being creative once end credits are in sight and the 90-minute mark can be met.  You’ll be lucky to come away with one answer for every five questions conjured while watching the film.

Why loft a fresh red tomato instead of hurling discolored green splatter?  Middling mythology admittedly grabs at low-hanging horror fruit.  But “Be Afraid” has quality where it counts in competent cinematography, capable editing, and desire to put A- effort into a D level story, even if an end product short on ambition averages out to a C+ at best.

That broader “but” is boosted by a few smaller ones as well.  A number of thankless supporting roles clutter the character roster.  But at least such parts are played by recognizable talent like Callie Thorne, presumably cancelling a favor debt owed to someone associated with the production.  And liberties taken with the affliction may have sleep paralysis purists lobbing “that’s not right!” accusations of disapproval.  But the tradeoff is “Be Afraid” comes out far slicker in its production value than those duller movies operating on similar premises.

“Be Afraid” isn’t a movie to see more than once.  Nor is a physical copy going to work its way to the shelf of a horror fan’s permanent collection.  It’s a textbook thriller built for one late night watch, for which it is perfectly fine, adequate, serviceable, and not bad.  Those aren’t backhanded compliments.  Those are approving nods for “Be Afraid” recognizing its limited role and meeting that mark as required.

Review Score:  60

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