Phobias (2021)

Director: Jess Varley, Joe Sill, Maritte Lee Go, Chris von Hoffman, Camilla Belle

Year: 2021

Country: USA

Alternate Titles: N/A

Genre: Anthology

Plot:

A military scientist takes several victims and tries to experiment on them in order to bring out their deepest fears as a way to weaponize the concept in their future plans.

Review:

Robophobia-Trying to carry out a life for himself and his father, a computer hacker manages to tap into the conscious existence of a strange entity and finds that she's able to control him through his phone. As it gets more controlling and deadly, he wonders who or what he is talking to on the other end of the phone. There wasn't much to like with this one. The fact that it seems to shift focus away from one of the more realistic and relatable fears that it could've exploited, namely the immigrants' status and security in a country full of xenophobia and racism, to instead pull itself into a tech-savvy cybernetic angle instead makes no sense and isn't terrifying in the slightest. It gets somewhat interesting when the body count actually starts as the existence of the flaming bodies and how they're created by her controlling his phone which gives this some positives but overall this one misses the mark, especially as a lead-in segment.

Vehophobia-After being left on the side of the road, a woman forced to deal with her boyfriend leaving her ends up taking his car and setting out for herself alone. As she comes to believe something is wrong with the car, a series of events arises that give her an answer she didn't want. This one served up the most potential and did have some likable qualities. Dealing with the strange incidents that seem to signal something wrong with the car is a fine series of suspenseful antics that run the gamut from unexpected breakdowns, flash visions of ghostly occupants inside the car, and managing to influence her thoughts and memories. They all point to the car having a life of its own rather well and give this some likable qualities but with all the supposed backstory this throws at us regarding their history together and what happened between them, it seems like a longer segment than what we got would've been a better choice instead of being trimmed down as much as it is.

Ephebiphobia-Home alone while her husband works late, a woman is tormented by a series of strange and unusual circumstances that suggest she's got unexpected and unwanted visitors late at night. When she realizes the true nature of what's going on, she finds a far more human explanation for what's happening to her. This was a pretty solid and enjoyable effort although there are some problems. The first half of this is among the best parts of this as the home invasion aspect of the storyline is used to generate plenty of tension with the group being kept to the shadows and trying to unnerve her which is quite effective. The confrontation scenes within the house are rather fun and manage to feature some fine chasing but it revolves too much around talky exposition scenes that don't move this one along all that much and just get undone completely by the underwhelming finale that has no purpose to it.

Hoplophobia-Following a disastrous raid of a drug den, a SWAT officer is stricken with a strange fear of guns following the incident. As she finds herself forced to deal with the issue continuously in her daily life, it soon brings out a side of her she didn't anticipate. This was a short and completely worthless segment. While the idea is fine enough, it seems to serve more as a PTSD disorder than a true fear of guns as there's very little of that in the segment. As it's so short, it doesn't have time to get much in-depth on what's going on anyway, it can't really do much in the time that it has to really dive into that issue which makes this feel completely out-of-place in this storyline. The action and choreography present here isn't bad but on the whole, this doesn't really do much to warrant its inclusion.

Atelophobia-About to sign off on a major project, a successful architect tries to find that balance between keeping her professional reputation intact and not letting her crippling fear of imperfection get the better of her. When a problematic assignment at the company is brought up, it brings her to the breaking point of her madness. This one was a great idea but comes off rather disappointing. The main fear at the heart of this one is so obscure it's hard to imagine anyone coming across this as a fear and nothing done here to really make for a scary time here either with the antics in the office or being at her home while trying to solve their problem. With no backstory on her or what this means to her in order to keep these issues from bothering her, it's boring and just not that interesting until the gruesome serial killer twist brings about some rather impressive body-horror self-surgery scenes. It's still not enough to work on this one though.

Outpost 31-Arriving at a secret military facility in the middle of the desert, a man finds himself stranded there with other subjects and a military doctor's strange experiments. Realizing that he's being used to carry out a series of experiments in order to find a way to market fear, he tries to get out alive. This is just a huge missed opportunity as there's very little to this one that works. As a wrap-around lead-in to the film as a whole, it makes no sense as to what the purpose of the experiments is for and has little excitement in the escape attempt that follows, while each of the interludes signaling the next participant to the chamber makes no sense and just causes even more confusion as to what's going on. Given the lackluster ending that just falls flat as a whole, this is a massive letdown and serves as the biggest issue with this one.

Overview: */5

A massive letdown with very little to like about it, the segments each have something to like but sometimes it’s usually just one singular aspect that leaves this uneven and disjointed as a whole. Really only go for this one if you’re a hardcore fan of anthologies or if the concept is intriguing, while most others will find better anthologies out there than this one and should heed extreme caution if deciding to view it.

This review ran as part of our 2023 Women in Horror Month celebrations. Click the banner below to check out the rest of our month-long celebrations including various reviews and interviews: