Objective Reality vs. Rural Comfort: My Journey Back Through Fear (1996)

Body Count • Existential Dread • Retribution Reels • Time Capsule

I grew up in rural America, where many of the people I have met would consider the middle of nowhere, and yet, for reasons that none of us could really explain, I still felt the need to lock the door. Car door, front door, back door, garage door…windows. We had never experienced a break-in, and I could never articulate it, other than that the middle of nowhere is the perfect place to commit a crime. In retrospect, my proclivity to lock doors very well may have been heavily influenced by my personal interest in horror and true crime. Granted, more than once I was accused of trying to hide something for locking my car in the driveway, but overall, I think my family just added it to my long list of “quirks,” a blatant dismissal of a survival instinct that didn't align with the perceived safety and comfortability afforded to rural White America. In the middle of nowhere, the absence of accountability is often mistaken for peace, and we are conditioned to believe that our environment is an inherent shield against the types of crimes that “only happen in the city.” My gravitation toward toxic outcasts, on the other hand, was undoubtedly shaped by characters like David (Mark Wahlberg) in the movie Fear (1996).

Hindsight is 20/20
​Experience, growth, and time have a funny way of altering your perception of one's character. As an adult, I can clearly see all the ways that David is the poster child of a psycho-sociopathic abuser. He denies accountability at every single turn, is manipulative and possessive, and his obsession eventually turns to extreme violence. As an adolescent, I was not equipped to grasp the sociopathic part of his behaviour. My young mind lacked the framework to see David as a predator because the cultural narratives I was fed—those '90s tropes of the misunderstood bad boy—depended on my naiveté. We were being groomed by the media to view obsession as a valid form of visibility. My first experience of Fear was several years before my fascination with dark psychology and human behaviour was first sparked. To me, David was a very misunderstood guy with a sordid childhood. I could see his wounds, and my young and inexperienced mind used those wounds as an excuse for his behaviour. I also think that a part of me wanted somebody who was that obsessed with me--but it was romantic and thrilling.

Daddy's David's Girl
​Although I may not have fully understood it then, I didn't like the father-daughter dynamic of this movie. There's no way I could articulate that I did not like the dynamic, I just knew Steve Walker (William Petersen) wasn't Grissom from CSI: Las Vegas–who I adored and idolized at the time. After rewatching it as a 30-something with a seasoned background in behavioural health (and my world-weary history with trauma), I can say that the number one reason that Steve clocks David so quickly is that he sees the salaciousness, the possessiveness; the disrespect of the boundaries he has set for Nicole (Reese Witherspoon) is more of a final straw moment than a legitimate concern. For Nicole it's all thrill; he's respected the boundaries she's expressed up to this point, so she is more inclined to gravitate toward the misunderstood bad boy (a '90s trope that, by today's standards, is a bit overdone). For Steve, David's acknowledgment of him staring a bit too long at Nicole's best friend, Margo (Alyssa Milano), when she's working out some of her “daddy issues” by playing coy with a little peep show was like a punch in the gut. That's when Steve understood that his own daughter needed his brand of protection: the patriarchal brand.

Bracing for Impact
​This is more of a Thriller/Drama, so it's not so much meant to be scary as gripping–at which it succeeds. Much like an emotional abuser, the plot bread-crumbs you all the way up to the violence. Like watching a car accident happen in slow motion, Fear will have you on the edge of your seat cringing every time a red flag behaviour goes unnoticed or dismissed. That urge to groan and roll your eyes is your internal alarm system, yet the 'Thriller' genre—much like our current culture—requires us to suppress that instinct for the sake of entertainment. Throughout the entire movie, we watch Nicole struggle with her boundaries and inevitably bending and breaking those boundaries for David. It plays much like a domestic violence awareness video…only a bit more graphic, and realistic. David's charisma and magnetism is undeniable, and he sinks his teeth into Nicole's innocence and naiveté the moment he lays eyes on her–and he goes on to exploit her attraction at every turn.  It is a masterful depiction of how a predator doesn't just break a boundary; they convince the victim that the boundary was never there to begin with.

Reframing the 90s Red Flag Narrative
​Superficial charm – check. Lack of empathy and remorse –. check. Manipulation, deception, and callousness – check! David checks all of the boxes of a psycho sociopathic abuser, from hoovering and blame shifting to exploitation and superficial relationships, David is a well-written character built on a foundation of legitimate psychosocial consequences of childhood trauma and neurodivergence. No, not every person who has a traumatic, unstable past evolves into someone like David. But it does happen. It's a common trope in  all of my favorite genres; of course it is, and to some extent I romanticized far too many of some of the most toxic characters throughout the years. I blame my empathy. I find fault in my overwhelming compulsion to either seek to understand or seek to heal. I wouldn't necessarily say that it's a desire to “fix” – I can't confidently say if it was ever. Sometimes, all it takes is for someone to give a shit. My hopelessly romantic adolescent self literally adopted that idiom and in turn clung to the potential of people to the point of debilitating disappointment and heartbreak. Fortunately, the fallout of my adolescent romanticisms (and stupidity) never ended as tragically as it does in Fear. Still, we can't pathologize the villain without also acknowledging the culture that perpetuates their development. For years, I have noticed that men (fathers) have this curiously innate ability to identify subtle red flag behaviours in other men, truly uncanny. Steve is a perfect example. Family man, once divorced, now remarried – inappropriately attracted to his pure and innocent 16-year-old daughter's over-sexualized best friend, arrogant; protecting his daughter's perceived virtue. Meanwhile, Margo struggles with unhealthy attachments and uses hypersexuality to achieve the attention and validation that she so desperately craves. A teenage girl doing what feels good in the moment to soothe her gaping mother wound. That's where the blame is assigned when things get inappropriate – not the grown man, with a daughter the same age. Notice I said is, not was. The hypersexual best friend chasing spikes in dopamine and oxytocin, if only to mask the inability to produce serotonin and experience endorphins acting as an agent in the still current rape culture that is a global pandemic.

And if you didn't notice the culturally sparse cast, I fear I may have underestimated the severity of the social erosion of today's society. Objective reality is often uncomfortable, but acknowledging it is the only path toward genuine agency.

Final Verdict: Fear (1996)
​ ⭐⭐⭐⭐

​Atmospheric Integrity | 4 / 5 -- A masterclass in the "bread-crumbing" of dread; it effectively utilizes the perceived safety of rural White America to make the eventual home invasion feel like an inevitable car accident in slow motion.
Psychological Realism | 4.5 / 5 -- Masterfully subverts the "misunderstood bad boy" trope by providing a diagnostic look at a psycho-sociopathic abuser who doesn't just break boundaries, but convinces the victim they were never there to begin with.
Intersectionality | 1.5 / 5 -- While it accurately depicts the "patriarchal brand" of protection, the film ultimately suffers from a culturally sparse cast and a narrow perspective that reflects the social erosion of its era.
Overall Rating | 4 out of 5 Stars