Debutant Director Crispian Mills’ film A Fantastic Fear of Everything is misleading in its choice of title: its lead hero Jack (Simon Pegg) does not fear ‘everything’ in the dark, dingy corner of Hackney he inhabits. He fears launderettes.This is an unfortunate phobia for the ex-children’s author who, branching into the world of serial killer literature, is due to meet a Hollywood Producer but has no clean clothes for the encounter. After attempting to wash and dry his clothes in the gas oven (you can imagine how that turns out) he reluctantly ventures into the depths of his greatest fear, the local launderette. Here, Jack must face all the unimaginable horrors a pack of ‘Bold 2 in 1’ can muster.
The problem with this film is not an awful lot else happens. You can forgive the first half hour spent following Jack around his squalid flat in his saggy underpants because Simon Pegg is just so brilliantly funny. Edvard Munch’s priceless artwork ‘The Scream’ needs Jack’s terrified face superimposed over the shrieking figure’s visage – Pegg packs more expression than an expressionist painting. His ability to arrange his face into a kaleidoscope of shock is second to none. But eventually the film must leave the claustrophobic confines of Jack’s lair to venture forth into Hackney, and it is here that the cracks begin to show.
Suddenly, Mills (both writer and director of this dark comedy) flails. The movie spirals into absurdity that, whilst entertaining, borders on silliness. The problem is, outside the controlled enclosure of his flat, there is simply too much to be afraid of. Yet Jack cannot possibly fear ‘everything’ because he quite happily walks down a dark alley, late at night… in Hackney. Ultimately, A Fantastic Fear Of Everything suffers from too vivid an imagination. Its surrealist comedy is one of its greatest strengths, but trips the pacing up as Jack’s erratic wanderings don’t just distract from but replace the storyline. In short, the film quite literally loses the plot.
One of the highlights of the movie, however, is the beautiful animated section where Jack tells the story of one of his children’s fiction characters, Harold the Hedgehog. In detailed stop-motion, the scene plays out like an Oliver Postgate animated children’s programme, complete with a cheery soundtrack and rhyming dialogue (used to great effect when Harold snarls at another hedgehog, “Now look here my friend, I must be blunt, you’re pissing me off you prickly…. Idiot.”) The whole animation is a tribute to the surreal, an example of how this film plays with expectations and pushes the boundaries of comedy.
A Fantastic Fear of Everything, whilst not fantastic, is a bold attempt at parodying the psycho-killer genre. With strong performances and moments of comedic genius, what it lacks in coherency it makes up for in laughs. Filmed from the point of view of a neurotic creative, of course the plot is bound to stutter in places alongside the quirks of his troubled mind. Still, if you can stand the lurches, this is a film worth watching and a worthy addition to the Simon Pegg cannon.