Macabre…ish Horror Review: Scare Me
Scare Me, 2020/ 1 hr 44 min
Struggling writer, Fred (Josh Ruben), rents a cabin, hoping to overcome his writer’s block in isolation. He has a fertile imagination but is struggling to communicate that in written form. On his way, he finds out the woman driving him, is an aspiring writer, Bettina (Rebecca Drysdale). Then later, on his run, he meets an acclaimed horror novelist, Fanny (Aya Cash), who also happens to be there to write, in another cabin. She is thoroughly unimpressed by him.
The next day, when the power goes out during a storm, Fanny comes over and though she is abrasive, intimidating and passive aggressive, they pass the time together, chatting fire side. They bond over their shared love of Tales From the Crypt, so she challenges him to scare her. So he struggles his way through a werewolf story and he makes it a whole physical production complete with sound effects, all the while she pushes him for details and a less obvious story line. He delivers an ok werewolf tale but she criticizes his main character. So he wants her to do better and tell him a story.
She doesn’t want to but she does, about a granddad, grandson and a dog. Fred is first turned off then fascinated by the strange tale.
Later, they have a falling out when she demands to know what a text was about on his phone. He explains how he’s recovering from a breakdown after his wife left and he threatened to kill her. After that, he’s been searching for purpose.
Back at the fire, they collab on a story about a troll who lives in the vents of an office and entices an employee to kill her crappy boss in exchange for 300 years of life on her birthday. While they’re enthralled in the story, the pizza they ordered arrives and the pizza guy, Carlo (Chris Redd), scares the crap out of them.
Carlo fits right in and shares in the conversation and the pizza. The party now has coke but Fred does not partake. Carlo and Fanny collab on a tale that relates to Fanny’s book, Venus, next and with the introduction of drugs to their booze, the stories are more intense.
At 4 am the night is almost over, Carlo leaves but Fred wants to tell Fanny one more story, complete with some realizations he’s had about her but with the addition of a game. This is a different kind of story and it really is kind of scary.
This film was also directed by Josh Ruben and it is a very interesting concept. It’s improv with score and a smattering of physical effects. It’s a comedy horror and it’s pretty good. It is more thriller than horror. There are some jump scares but I wouldn’t consider this scary but it is unnerving and very entertaining.