Scare Me (2020)

February 14, 2021 11:30 AM

Frustrated wannabe writer Fred (Josh Ruben) holes up in a cabin in hopes of getting something done. During a power outage, Fred and Fanny (Aya Cash of The Boys and You're the Worst) the tenant of a neighboring cabin tell each other scary stories. The more Fred and Fanny commit to their tales, the more the stories come to life in the dark of a Catskills cabin. The horrors of reality manifest when Fred confronts his ultimate fear: Fanny is the better storyteller.

Ruben (one of the original writers for College Humor's online videos) also wrote and directed. Currently streaming in the US on Shudder. 83% fresh on RT.

posted by DirtyOldTown (8 comments total)

This is fun. A little longer than it needs to be and the hag in the credits is a little silly. But I liked it.

Aya Cash continues to be the best part of most things she is in.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 3:35 PM on February 14, 2021

Brevity is the soul of wit, and it hangs in there a good twenty minutes too long. A few of the individual stories (the American Idol one comes to mind) are stronger than the film as a whole. It's definitely one of the more clever ways of making a no-budget film I've ever seen.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 11:19 PM on February 14, 2021

Ugh. Autocorrect. There's a gag in the credits. Not a hag.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:21 AM on February 15, 2021 [1 favorite]

I'm glad you corrected yourself because I really perked up thinking there would be a scene featuring a hag.
posted by Dynex at 5:01 PM on February 16, 2021 [2 favorites]

This movie felt an awful lot like being at a high school sleepover with the theater kids.
posted by ejs at 7:09 AM on February 17, 2021

I think if they had written the confrontation between Fred and Fanny into the American Idol story (which was the movie's peak) it would have worked better.

Making Fred's violence literal only put a remove in place that weakened the indictment of his everyday toxicity.

I'd have rather seen him try to force a confrontation between his devil character and Fanny's singer character and get outwritten/outwitted/outdueled in the moment in a profoundly humiliating way, ruining the party and leaving him alone with his writing, which he now understands for the third rate garbage that it is.

The movie would have ended fifteen minutes earlier on a high note.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:08 AM on February 17, 2021 [1 favorite]

Imagine an ending where as Fanny leaves, Fred sheepishly asks if he can use the stories they made up that night.

"Sweetie, you wouldn't know what to do with them anyway."
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:11 AM on February 17, 2021

I agree with DirtyOldTown; I think the filmmakers lost confidence in the audience and went the lazy route at the end. Her outsmarting him in the American Idol sequence (which was, for my money, the best part of the film) would have been better.

I can't fault them for not having seen Late Night with the Devil--it came out a few years after this one--but they also I guess haven't seen Ghostwatch? In any case they don't mention it in that one scene; Batman Forever is their go-to reference.

The gag scene in the credits reminded me of Deathtrap, and I've spent the time since trying not to think about the similarities between them, but to appreciate this one on its own merits.
posted by johnofjack at 9:50 AM on August 16, 2024