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Six people
wake up inside an old building, only to
discover that they have been selected to participate
in a reality-TV game show called Are You Scared, which
they applied to several months ago. The concept of the
game is that everyone has to face their worst fear,
kind of like in Fear Factory. But this contest has a
twist - unless you're able to overcome your fear in a
short period of time, you will die a horrible death.
As I had already figured out long before I sat down to
watch this DTV slasher flick, this is a cheap cash-in
on "Saw 2", which wasn't a very original movie to begin
with. I've read a couple of really negative reviews
for "Are You Scared" and while I agree with most of
them, I have to say that if you were expecting this
to be a good movie, you simply can't be very clever.
And I was actually quite positively surprised by how
decent it turned out to be.
Originality is not a word you will be thinking of while
watching this movie about a bunch of teens who get
stuck inside an old, dirty building (think See No
Evil) where they've become unwilling participants of
a reality-TV game show called "Are You Scared?". It
turns out that the ratings for this show are incredibly
low, in fact, there's only one viewer - a psychotic
serial killer who wants to teach the teens a lesson.
Oh yes, the lesson is exactly the same as it was in
"Saw", only this guys motives are from as good as the
Jigsaw killer's.
The movie spends no time on building credibility for
itself. In fact, one of the guys gets very excited when
he realizes that he's been chosen for the competition,
but you'd think that he would realize that something's
fishy since he woke up with a giant bloody scar in the
middle of his stomach. That's the kind of idiocy that
you have to be able to stand if you're going to enjoy
"Are You Scared?".
As many of you know, I wasn't a big fan of "Saw 2" since
I thought that it was a poor re-hash of early 2000's
reality-TV horror flicks, while as the first movie was
original in so many ways. Obviously it was a whole lot
better than "Are You Scared?" though, but still, there
was one thing that I enjoyed more about Are You Scared,
and that was the gore. The death scenes are much more
inventive and gory than they were in Saw 2, and to be
honest with you, I actually didn't see the end twist
coming (even if it was, in lack of better words, lame).
With decent production values and surprisingly good
actors, I have to say that "Are You Scared?" turned
out to be far from as atrocious as I had expected it
to be. It's a complete and utter Saw rip-off, but it's
aware of it and doesn't try to hide it (at least it
went all the way and didn't try to change some minor
detail like Chaos did and call it original). If you're
a fan of reality-TV horror flicks (which I have had
enough of), Are You Scared should be entertaining enough
if you don't mind the fact that it's unoriginal. Don't
get me wrong, it's a bad movie, I just expected it to
be a whole lot worse.
Surprisingly gory with a melted face, a drill in head,
an impalement, some intestines, and my favourite scene
in the movie - a head chopped in half.
The awkward percussions didn't really do it for me, nor
did the piano music. I doubt that it would have helped
a lot with a better score though.
Yes, it is a bad movie, but it should have been worse.
Are You Scared might be completely unoriginal, but as
far as rip-offs go, at least this one is mildly
entertaining - if you can overlook some idiotic plot
holes that is. Only for people who absolutely loved
"Saw 2", because if you didn't like that movie, you
will not like this either.
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