When Approaching ‘Fear the Night,’ Know That the Director, Neil Labute, Can’t Be Trusted

Director Neil Labute, in a statement accompanying his new picture, “Fear the Night,” writes that he hopes it “plays like a classic drive-in thriller,” later noting that “I hope we find a wonderful audience with this film, the kind who think ‘Wow, they don’t make ’em like that any more.'” He subsequently signs off: “I sincerely hope you like it.” Sounds chummy, right?Don’t believe a thing Mr. Labute says, and not because “Fear the Night” is a self-described “nasty little piece of work.” As playwright and screenwriter, Mr. Labute employs language both with concision and an out. Even the firmest statement — Mr. Labute’s dialogue tends toward the terse and epigrammatic — is stymied by obfuscation, a sense that the space around words is rife with contradictory purpose. His films are oblique and disobliging. We’re never sure just what their takeaway might be.“Fear the Night” is a conscious attempt to recall films of the 1970s, particularly low-budget affairs that traded in sex, violence, and monsters of one sort or another. As a woman seeking retribution for wrongs done to friends and family, lead actress Maggie Q channels Pam Grier and the run of films that made her a celebrity, such as “Coffy” and “Foxy Brown.” Grubbier pictures like “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “Last House on the Left” inform the storyline and setting. The predominantly female cast is a shout-out to prurient fare of yore like “Caged Heat” and “Student Nurses.”Art can flourish from ignoble inspirations, as the careers of Jonathan Demme, David Lynch, and Karyn Kusama have proved. Mr. Labute isn’t quite as ambitious but he is shrewd and, like many of his contemporaries, a child of the times. Whether his affectations are by default or by choice is a close call, but they can’t be missed in the ironies filtering their way through “Fear the Night” or, for that matter, last year’s “House of Darkness.” Both films bring proto-feminist conventions into a post-#MeToo age.Anyway, the story: Tess (Ms. Q) is a veteran of the Iraq war and a recovering alcoholic who is attending a bachelorette party for her sister Rose (Highdee Kuan). The event has been organized by Beth (Kat Foster), another sister, and is being held at their family’s home, a sizable farmhouse in the remote hills of California. Tensions between Tess and Beth are high and they only increase with the arrival of the other guests: five college friends and Alfonse (KeiLyn Durrel Jones), a muscle-bound chef who is as gifted at stripping as he is with the hors d’oeuvres.Prior to the festivities, the ladies head into town on a shopping spree — booze and chips being the priority. They are summarily hit on by a trio of guys, backwoods types who could be stock characters straight out of “Deliverance.” Their leader is Perry (a tensely wound Travis Hammer) and he promptly gets a bee in his bonnet for Tess — who, admittedly, is accomplished at stirring the hive. There are also a couple of man-boys who serve as caretakers for the family’s estate and, as things turn out, they have a meth lab squirreled away in their cabin. And what about the rumor concerning a sizable amount of money stashed in the farmhouse attic?Night falls and the bachelorette party is put under threat by a group of masked men in humvees, one of whom proves alarmingly adept at wielding a bow-and-arrow. Murder and mayhem ensue, as does the opportunity for Tess to flex tactical knowledge gleaned from her time in the service. As a director, Mr. Labute is gratifyingly economical. “Fear the Night” knows what it is and doesn’t stop moving. The plot, though, is rife with coincidence, caricature, and extremity — so much so, that you can’t help but wonder if what Mr. Labute has crafted here is an under-the-table genre parody. The requisite epilogue baffles, positing a world without men even as it goes to underscore the ineradicability of misogyny. In the end, Mr. Labute’s gift is undeniable and a thorn in one’s side — a tidy paradox put into high relief with “Fear the Night.”

When Approaching ‘Fear the Night,’ Know That the Director, Neil Labute, Can’t Be Trusted

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