Director: Josh Ruben
Writer: Josh Ruben
Stars: Aya Cash, Rebecca Drysdale, Chris Redd
Release Date: 1 October 2020 (USA) Via Shudder.com
Two writers self isolating in the woods meet each other after a power outage and tell scary stories all night. One author, played by ‘The Boys’ Aya Cash, is a very poplar and respected young storyteller. The other played by Josh Rueben, is starting out his writing career and is semi-jealous of this rising talent. The two are exercising their creative writing by telling each other scary stories, one more elaborate than the next, but some of the stories carry a realness to them, that may become more real as the night progresses.
This movie masks it’s true intentions of being a acting showcase for both Cash and Rueben by using the horror genre as a base for their story arcs. I wouldn’t say really any moment of ‘Scare Me’ is actually scary, but more reminiscent of when you are camping and you tell scary stories around the fire. The effectiveness of how scary campfire stories can be is always dependent on who is telling them, and with ‘Scare Me’ the storytellers just weren’t able to do anything more than make me chuckle at it’s absurdity.
The main issue with ‘Scare Me’ is in the lack of showing the fear when telling the stories but solely relying on silly . It just doesn’t work for the genre it is trying to claim itself as. If you were to look at this more as a dialogue -driven play, It suddenly is a little more appropriate to be called a suspense thriller, but not nearly big enough or rich enough in it’s story to justify it’s 104 min runtime. Both actors do an impressive job albeit a few missteps in their stories they tell, but they chew up the scenery either way.
Overall, this isn’t really a hit for me, I would suggest if you are looking for something a little more light in tone, and with more humor beats than suspenseful or scary moments, this would be worth checking out.
‘Scare Me’ gets a 6/10
‘Scare Me’ will be available on Shudder Oct. 1st!