Oct
13
2017
0

31 Days of Horror: Day 13- Be Afraid

Happy Friday the 13th, campers! Happily our 13th day of our jaunt through horror movies falls on a Friday, and today’s chiller is Be Afraid, a little indie horror pic from director Drew Gabreski. The movie opens with a man (Underworld star and writer Kevin Grevioux) searching for his daughter, as she seems to have been taken by shadowy figures. Months later, Dr. John Chambers (Brian Krause) and his family, pregnant wife Heather (Jaimi Paige) and his seven year old son Nathan (Michael Leone), move into town. John’s older son from a previous marriage, Ben (Jared Abrahamson), shows up after leaving college. Nathan has been having night terrors, saying he’s seen a man in his room. Soon, John himself begins to experience sleep paralysis, and sees the figures as well. The family finds that there have been various disappearances in the town over the years, though no one wants to talk about it. John finds that he is in a struggle to stop these beings from kidnapping his son.

While the movie isn’t completely original, it does maintain a nice sense of mystery throughout. Just enough gets revealed to hold your interest, and there are some decent creature effects, even if they’re not something we haven’t seen before. The cast is pretty solid, and the family feels believable. For horror movie vets there isn’t much scary here, but more casual horror fans may experience a jump scare or two. The shadowy creatures are a bit creepy, but we never really get any explanation for their existence. In fact, the ending “twist” feels a little unearned, though viewers can form their own theories as to why things happened as they did. It’s at least worth a look. Now showing on Netflix. 6/10 stars