Nicole walker is the average 16 year old girl; wants to have fun, and dreams of her Prince Charming. When she and her best friend Margot appear at a party, she meets older bad boy David. Everything seems to be going so well and Nicole and David become a couple. Nicole's family like David and she decides she loves him enough to give herself to him one night after a date. However, as soon as they became official, David has become a possessive and jealous boyfriend. He even beats up one of Nicole's close male friends when he is seen giving her a hug at the end of school. After this dark event Nicole never wants to see David again but he tries his hardest to make sure Nicole will take him back. Soon enough she forgives him and things seem to be going well again until a sick situation involving Nicole's best friend Margot turns to her and David breaking up again. This time David is not taking any chances with not being with Nicole so him and his friends go into her family home and attempt to take Nicole. Will David get Nicole or will she and her family hold back and get rid of David's sick craving for Nicole?

Production Budget Analysis

The production budget for Fear (1996) has not been publicly disclosed.

CAST: Mark Wahlberg, Reese Witherspoon, William Petersen, Alyssa Milano, Amy Brenneman, Tracy Fraim DIRECTOR: James Foley CINEMATOGRAPHY: Thomas Kloss MUSIC: Carter Burwell PRODUCTION: Universal Pictures, Imagine Entertainment

Box Office Performance

Theatrical box office data is not publicly available for Fear (1996). This may indicate a limited release, direct-to-streaming, or a release predating modern box office tracking.

Profitability Assessment

Insufficient publicly available data to assess profitability.

INDUSTRY IMPACT

PRODUCTION NOTES

▸ Production

Producer Brian Grazer had come up with the idea for the film while on a skiing trip with his daughter, and in 1993, Christopher Crowe was hired to pen the script, initially under the title No Fear for Imagine Entertainment. In March 1994, it was announced that James Foley was in negotiations to direct the project.

Leonardo DiCaprio was looked at for the role of David McCall (surnamed McNeil prior to production), but DiCaprio did not think he was right for the part. Instead, he put in a good word for Mark Wahlberg (with whom he co-starred on The Basketball Diaries) to director James Foley.

The movie was filmed for 11 weeks in the Pacific Northwest. While the story was set in Seattle, Washington, the filmmakers actually spent three days there to establish the city before moving production to Vancouver, British Columbia, where the filmmakers found the site for the Walker family house on Howe Sound.

▸ Music & Score

# "Jessica" by The Allman Brothers Band # "Green Mind" by Dink # "Comedown" by Bush # "Wild Horses" by The Sundays # "Machinehead" by Bush # "Something's Always Wrong" by Toad the Wet Sprocket # "Animal" by Prick # "Stars and Stripes Forever" by C.H.S Municipal Band # "The Illist" by Marky Mark # "Irie Vibe" by One Love

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

Summary: 1 win & 2 nominations total

CRITICAL RECEPTION

Fear holds a 46% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 39 reviews, with an average rating of 5.20/10. The site's consensus reads: "Fear has an appealing young cast, but their efforts aren't enough to consistently distract from an increasingly overblown – and illogical – teen stalker story". On Metacritic it has a score of 51% based on reviews from 16 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.

Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle said, "Fear is hard to resist. On one hand, it's a shameless thriller that makes up for the inevitability of its story by consistently being bigger, faster, and more appalling than you might expect. On the other hand, it contains enough truth about fathers, teenage daughters, and young lust to distinguish it from most thrillers and ground it in vivid emotion. It is a nightmare fantasy for fathers. Director James Foley and screenwriter Christopher Crowe keep raising the stakes all the way to a finish that's something out of The Straw Dogs. It's a maddening, satisfying, junky, enjoyable picture."

Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a positive review, further accrediting the comparisons to Fatal Attraction. According to him, "Fear is a teen Fatal Attraction, with Mark Wahlberg and Reese Witherspoon in the Glenn Close and (respectively) Michael Douglas roles, and with William Petersen in Anne Archer's. And – surprise – it isn't bad." He did, however, criticize the finale: "[Director] James Foley does a fine job evoking the sexual tensions between father, daughter, and rogue suitor. Yet he has less luck with the (inevitable) garish climax, which is unconvincingly staged... never even making it over the top".

Gene Siskel gave the film a thumbs-down while Roger Ebert gave it a thumbs-up. Siskel called the picture "Predictable trash with an 'inspired' title, and with a third act which nosedives into pure mayhem...