Title: Scare Me
MPAA Rating: NR
Director: Josh Ruben
Starring: Aya Cash, Rebecca Drysdale, Chris Redd
Runtime: 1 hr 44 mins

What It Is: Fred is an amateur horror novelist shacking himself up in a cabin. Fanny is a famous author known for giving people the chills. One night during a power outage, the two neighbors attempt in entertaining themselves in a playing a game to see who can tell the scarier story. When Fred is faced with his past and shortcomings, things get out of hand.

What We Think: There are some things that I appreciate about this Shudder flick–the idea itself allots for an incredible amount and use of sound design for our characters’ storytelling. That’s some fun to see, and I think it was clear that the actors were having a lot of fun really stretching their expressions and acting silly and making big movements to tell their pieces as loudly as possible. Problem is is that it’s not really a narrative that lends itself to a grounded sense of humor; the concept is obviously based on evoking childishness and the sense of appreciation for playing around and storytelling, but none of the jokes or silliness really land. It was almost sort of painful watching two pretentious quick-talking characters constantly judgmentally finish each other’s sentences for as long as the movie went on. As a short, it would have been fine, really. I do like certain aspects about it, but the story (what little larger narrative there is outside of the characters’) has very little to it.

Our Grade: D+, I honestly might upgrade this to a C- later on, but for now I really can’t remember enjoying myself during this comedy flick. The parts are all there, but the story is all too repetitive and perhaps would have fared better as a short or a kids’ feature.