Time of Fear
Time of Fear
| 01 January 2002 (USA)
Time of Fear Trailers

Time of Fear is a taut psychological thriller thrusting an FBI agent and a grieving father into the dark world of a demented killer. FBI Agent Cheryl Hammer, arrives in a small California town to catch an elusive killer. Seeing no help forthcoming from the Sheriff, she turns to the only other person who can help her, Jack Barone, a grieving father whose daughter, Lisa, was the victim of a similar slaying ten years prior. The killer's clues are a perversion of Biblical punishments for sins: stoning, burning, decapitation. Jack and Agent Hammer turn to Father Patrick, a Catholic priest, for help. As the clock ticks down, a young female friend of Jack's is kidnapped and may become the next casualty. The harrowing rescue of the young woman opens the door to a dark history hidden below the surface, revealing the true identity of the killer and answering the mystery of who killed Jack's daughter.

Reviews
Evan Matthew

Off-beat, yet winning, this is low-budget film-making at its most imaginative.Clearly burdened by genre plot -- plus a need that I won't quibble with to add a certain amount of nudity -- this is a triumph of style over budget. The actors -- especially Nick Mancuso and Cheryl Pollak -- are terrific. And hats off for including the late, great Soul star Solomon Burke! Extra points given for the unexpected use of great R&B and Gospel.Why this film isn't more appreciated is a mystery to me. It has a great look, an excellent sense of place, a distinctive mood and feel, and flies by at great speed.

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asiaman

Obviously working with serious budget constraints -- not to mention what seems to have been a mandate to include a measure of nudity -- this film approaches "film noir" in a very European way.The storyline of an outsider with a past working outside the law to find a serial killer is clearly a metaphor for a kind of "outsider" film-making. The result is troubling yet striking, with a visual sense and an editing design that breath fresh life into low-budget cinema.As to the performances, Nick Mancuso and Cheryl Pollak lead a strong cast. And whoever thought of using Solomon Burke deserves a pat on the back. Which leads to the music, which is awesome!

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joeball

I saw this movie yesterday and I was not impressed. The story is okay but not great; something about serial killers, bible and sex is a well-known cocktail. I know from other movies that the actors are more than capable but here they are just wasted. The screenplay and/or editing is simply killing the story. Too often, the necessary link from one scene to the next is just missing. For instance: you have our heroes sitting in the planning room at the police station, looking at a million pictures of the slaughtered girls and getting more and more desperate. One even throws his hands in the air and almost start crying. In the next shot, they are out driving, and the man from before is now completely calm and composed. I can't recommend this movie to anyone as a thriller, but if you're into beautiful female attributes then there are at least two shots in this movie that you're gonna like and like a lot. 'Nuff said !

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cleolain

Premise of the movie basically okay but I was left with a bunch of unanswered questions such as: * the grieving father - what gave him the credentials to be helpful to the FBI? * Why did he kiss the FBI agent? * why was there so much gratuitous breast-showing? * the jerk came around nicely at the end - why did he do that? * who was the dead body briefly shown towards the end? * who wrote this thing and didn't the word "continuity" make it into his/her vocabulary? * Did the grieving father really kill the bad guy in the end?This movie is muddled, poorly written and sadly predictable. I can't believe I sat through the whole thing but I think I was stunned into something resembling a coma. I lost a couple of hours of my life to this stinker.

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