A Fantastic Fear Of Everything is a British horror comedy film directed by Crispian Mills. We follow Jack (Simon Pegg), a children’s writer whose life slips out of control when he begins work on his latest book, Decades Of Death a history of Victorian era serial killers, as Jack researches deeper and deeper he becomes ever more frightened and ever more sure someone is trying to kill him.
This is an underrated gem. This has been on my radar for some time but for one reason or another I never ended up seeing it, and now having seen it I know how much of a mistake that was.
This film perfectly merges the horror and the comedy genre together, there are a lot of horror comedies that end up favouring one over the other whereas this does both very well There is an off kilter atmosphere that underpins the whole film, nothing ever feels quite right and there seems to be something sinister just beneath the surface; I left the film quite unsettled. However, there are also sections of the film that are quite funny and amusing, however even these sections I would not call light.
My favourite thing about this film is how in love with the gothic and the macabre it is, from audio cues to certain framing and lighting choices this film feels like it could have been made by Hammer 70 years ago, though I doubt most of the cast would have been alive then.
Overall, if you are a fan of horror then you owe it to yourself to watch this film
Pros.
The off-beat and uncomfortable atmosphere
The comedy
Pegg plays it just right
The plot and the nods to classic horror
Cons
It won’t be to all tastes
4/5
Reviewed by Luke
Another Millennial Reviewer 