Movies
‘In Fear’ Clip Leaves Clothes in the Road; Making-of Featurette
We now have a third clip from the UK thriller In Fear (review), the critically acclaimed feature film debut of writer/director Jeremy Lovering, arriving March 11th on Blu-ray, VOD and DVD from Anchor Bay Films. In Fear will also enjoy several U.S. exclusive theatrical engagements starting Friday, March 7th.
In addition, check out a making-of video featurette that goes behind the scenes on the set of In Fear. They explain: “Each day began with Alice and Iain being given a couple of script outline pages to look over. Though not always the same version — suspicion and mistrust were being built every day. And nothing was revealed apart from the kind of thing they might talk about, examples of dialogue, their possible state of mind and a barometer of their relationship. In fact it often read like a relationship drama — none of the events, the horror beats were written down – so filming would begin innocuously enough and then something would surprise them… A door might slam, a branch land on the car roof, footsteps in the distance. And increasingly, because the shoot was chronological, day-by-day there was a steady escalation of fear. They couldn’t relax because they didn’t know if this would be the day when something bad happened. Every moment had a real sense of unease and tension. They couldn’t anticipate the scare or prepare themselves for the jump — they just had to experience it for real.”
“In Fear is a tense psychological horror about a young couple’s fight to make it through the night. Home invasion but in a car. In real-time. Tom (De Caestecker) and Lucy (Englert) are trapped in a maze of country roads with only their vehicle for protection, terrorized by an unseen tormentor hell-bent on exploiting their worst fears. Driving, lost and tormented in the night, primal fears of the dark and the unknown give way to fear that you have let the evil in, or that it is already there.”
Starring Iain De Caestecker (ABC’s hit series “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D”), Alice Englert (Beautiful Creatures) and Allen Leech (“Downton Abbey”), In Fear stunned audiences in international film festivals in nine countries, including Canada’s Toronto After Dark, Germany’s Rosebud Entertainment Fantasy Festival, Spain’s Fancine – Festival de Cine Fantastico and South Korea’s Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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