phancy.com - horror reviews - MOH 2021

Scare Me



IMDb Info

Release Year: 2020
Runtime: 1h 44min
Country: USA
Language: English
Genre Tags: Comedy, Horror
Plot Summary: During a power outage, two strangers tell scary stories. The more Fred and Fanny commit to their tales, the more the stories come to life in their Catskills cabin. The horrors of reality manifest when Fred confronts his ultimate fear.

Poster - Title Card


phancy.com rating:

phancy.com notes: Darkly funny about being scary until it's not funny anymore, and just scary. Pacing lags a little in the middle, but the performances make up for it.


Outside Reviews:

Nick Allen
3 out of 4 stars - rogerebert.com

Josh Ruben’s impressive directorial debut "Scare Me" gives us that roller coaster experience in a living room, basing his story about storytelling on the riches of vivid performances and winding, wicked tales (which are best left told by Fred and Fanny). Even if Ruben is a little thwarted by trying to make a larger point about this, the concept of these two telling a story is only deceptively cute. Coming from the mouths and minds of Cash and Ruben, it’s a full-blown acting showcase.


Jesse Hassenger
Grade: C+ - Aya Cash thinks up some scary stories to tell in the dark in the smart but overlong Scare Me

As beloved as some horror anthologies are, it’s hard to make one without raising the specter of their inherent unevenness. Has there ever been a review of an anthology film that didn’t mention that quality? The new Shudder movie Scare Me finds a strange but enticing solution by having its two main characters tell an anthology’s worth of horror stories themselves, without other actors getting between them and the audience. Fanny (Aya Cash) and Fred (Josh Ruben) may look like framing devices as they sit in a woodsy cabin and weave tales of werewolves, trolls, and elderly creeps; they even bust out dueling Crypt Keeper impressions. But the movie never cuts away to other performers acting out these stories in "real" environments. Most of the action stays within the cabin, augmented only by sound effects and occasional lighting shifts that blur the line between performers and what’s happening in their mind’s eye.