Fear Actually

Clearly, things have gotten so bad thanks to our President, that real life is scarier than the movies. That’s the premise behind Sassy Mohen’s short film, Fear Actually.

In a world heading into a nuclear apocalypse, because President Trump tweeted the nuclear launch code, a handful of movie monsters gathers for a support group lamenting the situation. The group consists of Pennywise (Robert Walters), The Babadook (Vincent Yearly), Carrie (Kim Vruggink), Missy Armitage (Zoey Sidwell), Samara (Ana Pena), and the Devil (Derek Grauer).

The A-story follows Pennywise from It. As his girlfriend, Effie (Tory Taranova), stares endlessly at the news, she has become numb to the creepy clown’s scares. She exclaims she is no longer “in fear” of him. The same holds true for the others. As Pennywise wanders the dark, lonely street, can he get his mojo (and the girl) back?

“As Pennywise wanders the dark, lonely street, can he get his mojo…back?”

I complain a lot about comedies. Rather than being smart, they tend to be silly. They present good setups but never come through on the punchline. Fear Actually gets it right…most of the time. Let’s start bad and end on a good note. Look, I get it, the filmmakers hate Trump. Get in line. These Trump jokes come off as lazy writing. It’s the difference between telling old tyme, crazy misogynist jokes, versus jokes that hit on his crazy misogyny, of which there is an abundance of actual material to lampoon. You don’t need to pull rehashed jokes from the 60s. I’ve heard that nuke joke told about every Republican President since Eisenhower.

That said, Fear Actually comes through on the laughs about 70% of the time. There’s a Carrie joke that’s great and ironic. I also loved how far Pennywise has to go to get a “real” scare, and the ending song is just brilliant as it breaks that fourth wall. Overall, the short is fun and manages to rise above the struggles associated with indie comedies.

Fear Actually is available to screen on YouTube.