A Fantastic Fear of Everything – movie review

Release date: 8 June 2012
Certificate: 15
Director: Crispian Mills
Starring: Simon Pegg, Paul Freeman, Amara Karan

What's the story?
Researching serial killers for a new book has made children's author Jack (Pegg) too terrified to go outside. With no clean clothes for a crucial meeting, though, he'll have to.

What did we think?
Pegg fans will have their devotion tested by an unconventional Brit-flick that doesn't seem at all sure whether it wants to ice the blood or tickle the funny bone. But there's enough verve and imagination on show to make this debut feature from Kula Shaker's Crispian Mills worth sticking with.

Thanks to his roles in Star Trek and Mission: Impossible, Simon Pegg has carved out a lucrative career in Hollywood as a dependable supporting player. On this side of the Atlantic, though, he's more of a leading man, whether working beside Nick Frost and Edgar Wright on Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz or on his own in comedies like Run Fatboy Run and How to Lose Friends and Alienate People.

His current venture, a largely solo vehicle based on a story by Withnail and I's Bruce Robinson, falls firmly in the latter camp. And a strange beast it is too, pop star turned director Crispian Mills apparently channelling The Shining in this study of a reclusive writer driven mad by his deranged imaginings.

If we were to tell you the film's most significant incident is a trip to the launderette, it might give you some idea what a quirky curio it is. Hats off to Pegg, then, for keeping us engaged throughout, despite spending much of the movie in a ghastly ginger fright-wig and grotty underpants. Kudos to Mills too for making effective use of music, be it Ice Cube, The Blue Danube or Europe's The Final Countdown.

Verdict: Nothing to fear here.