Cheap, but occasionally very gripping low-budget exploitation thriller
I'll be the first to admit that the first thing to greet me when I saw a clip of this movie late on TV one night was a naked woman running through the forest. And I don't mean naked - I mean, really NAKED! Nothing was left to the imagination. I remember thinking, "What the hell kind of late-night porn movie is this?" I only found out later when I was able to pry my eyes off the beautiful body of a naked woman running through the woods that the movie was called "Naked Fear," and it wasn't a late-night soft-core porn movie on Showtime.
People will have a lot of difficulty buying that last part.
But I kept an open mind and gave "Naked Fear" the benefit of the doubt that it wasn't late-night soft-core porn. It is, however, one step above it, though, and that is the fact that the movie is a very cheap, but occasionally very gripping low-budget exploitation thriller. And there is a plot in addition to the needless titillation; the movie does make an attempt to tell a story.
"Naked Fear" is loosely based on the crimes of the real-life Alaskan serial killer Robert Hansen, who during the 1970s would kidnap young women (mostly prostitutes), dump them into the Alaskan wilderness, and then hunt them down and kill them for sport. The film also takes inspirational cues from the famous 1924 short story "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell. In this low-budget film directed by a man (obviously), Thom Eberhardt, and written by a - wait for it - woman, Christine Vasquez - Diana Kelper (Danielle De Luca) is a young woman traveling across the country in the hopes of making it as a dancer.
She stops off in a small Midwestern town where hunting is a popular pastime. It also turns out that in this town, there have been a string of disappearances involving young women, which may or may not be the work of a serial killer. But because most of these young women were prostitutes, the police don't really take the disappearances seriously enough to investigate further.
Because Diane has little in the way of cash and little other recourse, she is forced to take a job as a stripper at a seedy strip club. One night, she makes the mistake of conversing with a smooth-talking stranger and the next thing she knows, she's waking up in the woods completely naked. She learns that the man who picked her up in the bar the night before, Colin Mandel (J.D. Garfield), is a serial killer who likes to dump naked women in the wilderness, and then hunt them down and kill them for sport, and she will soon have to call upon her most primal instincts if she wants to survive. It also doesn't help matters much that Mandel also works for the sheriff's department and is actually a highly respected sheriff's officer. Meanwhile, a determined deputy named Dwight Terry (Arron Shiver) investigates Diane's mysterious disappearance much to the protests of his superior Tom Benike (Joe Mantegna).
"Naked Fear," despite its budget limitations and exploitative values, is occasionally a very gripping and very suspenseful film. I don't imagine anyone going into this movie for a thought-provoking plot that muses on the philosophy of men hunting other human beings for sport. You also won't get stellar acting performances here, but I will sing a few praises for the plucky young heroine in this movie that is Danielle De Luca.
Beautiful De Luca is a virtually unknown actress, yet despite her limited acting abilities (she may very well have been cast here due to her looks and nothing else), you do have to give her just due for baring it all in this picture. There's a good 20-minute stretch of "Naked Fear" where she is completely in the nude, and nothing is merely suggested or left to the viewer's imagination or covered up by conveniently placed objects. I have no idea when this was filmed but if the season was right, then De Luca must be given credit for braving the elements in her birthday suit and not much else. And there is no doubt that she has the battle scars to prove her experiences. Other than her brave and daring performance here, there isn't really anything else I can imagine recommending this flick for, unless you really want to see her in the buff for 20 minutes.
"Naked Fear" also has a disappointing ending, considering everything Diana goes through, and makes the film appear even cheaper than it actually is. The ending, to me, is just totally unrealistic for what was initially presented to us in the beginning. It seems as if, to me, anyway, that the filmmakers may have stolen the ending from a completely different movie and tacked it onto this one.
Since "Naked Fear" is a lot better than it initially appears at the outset, I'm giving it a fair rating here.
5/10
People will have a lot of difficulty buying that last part.
But I kept an open mind and gave "Naked Fear" the benefit of the doubt that it wasn't late-night soft-core porn. It is, however, one step above it, though, and that is the fact that the movie is a very cheap, but occasionally very gripping low-budget exploitation thriller. And there is a plot in addition to the needless titillation; the movie does make an attempt to tell a story.
"Naked Fear" is loosely based on the crimes of the real-life Alaskan serial killer Robert Hansen, who during the 1970s would kidnap young women (mostly prostitutes), dump them into the Alaskan wilderness, and then hunt them down and kill them for sport. The film also takes inspirational cues from the famous 1924 short story "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell. In this low-budget film directed by a man (obviously), Thom Eberhardt, and written by a - wait for it - woman, Christine Vasquez - Diana Kelper (Danielle De Luca) is a young woman traveling across the country in the hopes of making it as a dancer.
She stops off in a small Midwestern town where hunting is a popular pastime. It also turns out that in this town, there have been a string of disappearances involving young women, which may or may not be the work of a serial killer. But because most of these young women were prostitutes, the police don't really take the disappearances seriously enough to investigate further.
Because Diane has little in the way of cash and little other recourse, she is forced to take a job as a stripper at a seedy strip club. One night, she makes the mistake of conversing with a smooth-talking stranger and the next thing she knows, she's waking up in the woods completely naked. She learns that the man who picked her up in the bar the night before, Colin Mandel (J.D. Garfield), is a serial killer who likes to dump naked women in the wilderness, and then hunt them down and kill them for sport, and she will soon have to call upon her most primal instincts if she wants to survive. It also doesn't help matters much that Mandel also works for the sheriff's department and is actually a highly respected sheriff's officer. Meanwhile, a determined deputy named Dwight Terry (Arron Shiver) investigates Diane's mysterious disappearance much to the protests of his superior Tom Benike (Joe Mantegna).
"Naked Fear," despite its budget limitations and exploitative values, is occasionally a very gripping and very suspenseful film. I don't imagine anyone going into this movie for a thought-provoking plot that muses on the philosophy of men hunting other human beings for sport. You also won't get stellar acting performances here, but I will sing a few praises for the plucky young heroine in this movie that is Danielle De Luca.
Beautiful De Luca is a virtually unknown actress, yet despite her limited acting abilities (she may very well have been cast here due to her looks and nothing else), you do have to give her just due for baring it all in this picture. There's a good 20-minute stretch of "Naked Fear" where she is completely in the nude, and nothing is merely suggested or left to the viewer's imagination or covered up by conveniently placed objects. I have no idea when this was filmed but if the season was right, then De Luca must be given credit for braving the elements in her birthday suit and not much else. And there is no doubt that she has the battle scars to prove her experiences. Other than her brave and daring performance here, there isn't really anything else I can imagine recommending this flick for, unless you really want to see her in the buff for 20 minutes.
"Naked Fear" also has a disappointing ending, considering everything Diana goes through, and makes the film appear even cheaper than it actually is. The ending, to me, is just totally unrealistic for what was initially presented to us in the beginning. It seems as if, to me, anyway, that the filmmakers may have stolen the ending from a completely different movie and tacked it onto this one.
Since "Naked Fear" is a lot better than it initially appears at the outset, I'm giving it a fair rating here.
5/10
- dee.reid
- Aug 12, 2011