Fear Clinic (2014)

Fear Clinic: Directed by Robert Hall. With Robert Englund, Fiona Dourif, Felisha Terrell, Cleopatra Coleman. A doctor works to cure patients suffering from crippling phobias by placing them inside his invention, which induces and controls hallucinations.

“Fear Clinic, loosely based on a series of shorts that appeared on the now defunct Fearnet, stars horror legend Robert Englund in his best role in years as a once celebrated doctor obsessed with curing humans of fear. But when an early, seemingly successful test group comprised of traumatized survivors of a mass shooting begins to not only regress but get worse, he begins to seriously doubt the validity and even safety of his methods.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eHowever, this doesnu0026#39;t stop his test groupsu0026#39; faith in him. They all return to his clinic for further treatment, being locked up in a weird, sensory deprivation tank and forced to face their fears. But something evil, even supernatural, is lurking in the abyss he thrusts his patients into. It is fear itself, hence the title.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eFeart Itself is fairly above average for low budget horror, but you really have to be patient with it. In fact, I have to say the filmmaker, the man behind the middling Laid to Rest movies, requests an unreasonable amount of patience from his viewers. It does not help that movieu0026#39;s production design is atrocious, all neon green lights and phony looking scientific equipment that reminds of the worst elements of 80u0026#39;s horror.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThatu0026#39;s the bad part. The good part is that movie has a really good cast behind it. Robert Englund, in a role very different from his mad scientist portrayal in the original Fear Itself series, does a really good job as the benevolent but uncertain doctor. The female lead, Fiona Dourif (who was last seen costarring with her father Brad Dourif in Curse of Chucky) is an outstanding and unconventional horror heroine, more believably smart and capable than most of the female leads in these types of movies. Thomas Dekker also does a fantastic job portraying a troubled young man with a traumatic brain injury. Rounding out the cast are mostly adequate, if not entirely impressive, supporting players like Kevin Gage (Strangeland, Heat) as a crotchety maintenance man, Corey Taylor (thatu0026#39;s right, the lead singer of Slipknot and Stone Sour in his first film, and he probably shouldnu0026#39;t quit his day job) as the hotheaded chief orderly, and several vaguely familiar actors as the other patients.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe cast, along with a really solid third act that includes a genuinely surprising twist and some cool creature FX from Robert Kurtzman, make this worth watching for horror fans, but just barely. The movie has major pacing problems, a weak first half, and can never overcome its low budget trappings but it shows glimmers of promise from almost everyone involved making this a more or less entertaining, watchable low budget horror movie.”