Phobia (2013) User Reviews

DARKNESS IS MY CRUEL FRIEND

[nogodnomasters · 4/10 · 27 May 2019]

The film opens in California 1866 as a young Lesley Parker toting an anachronistic Teddy Bear, sees her parents die. Then we jump to Paris 1885 where she (Erica Leerhsen) is a student of Dr. Charcot (Michael Crabtree) along with a guy named Freud (Matt Moore). Together they treat a patient Val Drakul (Chase Ryan Jeffery) who thinks he has the family curse and is a vampire. Lesley becomes attached to Val and they go off to California where she treats patients in group sessions with phobias. One such patient is Annabel Lee (Carolyn Wickwire) who sleeps in a glass lid coffin. Val suffers from black outs, during which time someone gets their throat ripped out, but it is not that simple Scooby-Doo.

The costumes were decent. The plot, as you can tell, left something to be desired. The acting was no where as the dialog was flat. The action and twists are loaded heavy at the end while the rest of film is a yawner.

Parental Guide: No f-bombs, sex, or nudity.

Worst beard ever

[fluffchop · 4/10 · 22 March 2022]

Erica Leerhsen always seems to be acting. You can't help but be taken out of the story every time she speaks a line. It's like she's doing a stage play rather than a movie. There is always this amount of forced projection which isn't called for. Freud's beard is atrocious. The story is ok but forgetable.

Garbage

[jackhuntermtl · 1/10 · 5 January 2015]

There are B budget films you can enjoy, and then there are ones that make you wonder 'what was idiot making this thinking?'.

I marked this review with a spoiler tag, so if you really care more about spoiler than wasting hour of your life, by all means, stop reading now.

For some reason they wanted to set this film in Paris. Problem is, anybody who has ever been in Paris or watched films that represent it well, like recent Woody Allen one, will have hard time finding this setting believably represented either culturally or historically.

If you get by that part, the fake French accents these people are using are so horrible that even if their acting was not absolutely atrocious it would ruin ... actually you cant even ruin dialogues as they are written by person who simply cant do it.

As if French accents were not bad enough, "vampires" speak with badly done "Dracula" accent (weird fake Hungarian that sounds nothing like actual Transylvania accent, and more like bad Polish accent actually).

I seriously can pick any aspect of this film to discuss and it will still be garbage. Down to camera apparently being held by a monkey, and color correction being done by a color blind person. Music score apparently came from 'Things we cant sell to anybody sane Collection'.

Question I have is: were any of these people actually paid for this? Its fairly obvious none of them can do their job right.

What a mess. Convoluted story, dialogue, acting. Laughable accents. Basically amateur hour.

[Bababooe · 1/10 · 10 November 2019]

I got this part of a 10 film set for $6. I like to watch low budget films, hoping to find something unique. If that fails, then I find the comedy in the production. I get through all this by practicing and paying guitar throughout. Usually the film inspires the guitar playing. If the scenes are pure garbage, no problem. I just turn up the volume on the guitar.

Anyway, this film is garbage. Basically a low budget, they had some money, but not on the story. The story is the most important to me. Even more than the acting or production. The story here is just convoluted mess of so many different ideas, it just does not work. Laughable accents. The actor's accents change throughout. The dialogue, acting, hairdos, etc all garbage.

The filmmakers were way over their heads. Better if they simplified the story

The critic Culture Crypt has written a decent review of this garbage. If you like to torture yourself with crap films, by all means see it, and read the reviews.