Fear the Night (2023)

3 Stars (out of 4)

Women Socking

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Bare-bones and somewhat simplistic, Neil LaBute's home-invasion thriller is nonetheless a sharply effective movie, touching on themes of violence and female empowerment in a blunt, primal manner.

Iraq war veteran Tess (Maggie Q) is invited to the bachelorette party of her younger sister Rose (Highdee Kuan). Their other sister Beth (Kat Foster) and Tess are at each other's throats, with Beth worried that the serious, cynical Tess is going to ruin the fun, and Tess thinking that Beth is too much of a controlling mother hen. Five other friends — Mia (Gia Crovatin), Esther (Kirstin Leigh), Noelle (Ito Aghayere), Bridget (Brenda Meaney), and Divya (Roshni Shukla) — join them.

Their destination is an unused, remote house belonging to Rose, Beth, and Tess's parents. After a stop at a mini-mart and a run in with some unpleasant locals, the party begins. But it is soon interrupted when one of their number is shot with an arrow and a group of masked men begins demanding entry into the house... or else.

Since the beginning of his career, LaBute has explored the more toxic side of male-female interactions, but with Fear the Night, as in his House of Darkness, he uses genre to make his point with more brute force. He spends a little time setting up the sisterly dynamic, as well as Tess's ever-alert paranoia and hair-trigger defense mechanisms, before the first sudden violence occurs. The attacks are swift and cruel, never sustained fights meant for thrills. We're meant to feel the brutality here.

Maggie Q plays Tess like a coiled spring, but with a hint of weariness. She really wants to relax and be human, but — like Jamie Lee Curtis's older Laurie Strode in Halloween (2018) — she can't let her guard down. (Tension is added by the fact that she is a recovering alcoholic at a drunken bachelorette party.)

The men here are all one-dimensional brutes, viewing women as inferior objects meant only to terrorize, or conquer. One of the most potent scenes is a coda, with a male sheriff listening to, and scornfully disbelieving, Tess's story. Very little has changed. Fear the Night is not subtle, but it packs a polished-nail punch.