User Reviews

"Rated R for terror and violence, nudity throughout" - perfect line for your average snuff movie.

Yet, this movie has a bit more quality. The nudity is non-pornographic. The sexuality shown is sometimes erotic, but not perverse.

The plot: Sadistic killer versus innocent, naive, girl. Seen often before.

After the first 10 minutes I thought of giving this a 4 out of 10 or less, for its stereotypes, standard patterns of story development and rather bad acting and camera work. But as the story developed, it actually became an entertaining movie. I thought the naive girl was believable in her actions, and somehow the camera and sound work seemed to improve as well. Even the nudity was fitting in without being exploiting.

I try to avoid spoilers in the first comment for this movie, so I just try give you an idea of what you might like about it: You don't have to turn away every other scene thinking: wow, this is stupid, why in world would he/she do that? Meaning it's mostly believable. And it's not explicit - meaning that even thought this movie contains cruelty, it does not show it off with lots of gore. It's quite subtle at it.

It's still your basic thriller with some mild horror elements mixed in. No greatness in the dialogues or in the action scenes (well, the ending line it great). I found it enjoyable, only the acting of the supporting cast and the sound sometimes irritated me. I'd recommend this to anyone wanting to see a not-too-violent thriller with some depth and a few surprises.

If your idea of fun is watching a naked woman running through the wilderness while being hunted down by a redneck with crossbows and rifles, then maybe this film is for you.

A stripper names Diana is lured to New Mexico by a night club owner promising big money to her for her great dancing ability. Her license and all identification are taken and she is forced into prostitution. The first client knocks her out and she wakes up in a field, nude.

The great white hunter gives Diana a fifteen minute head start and then the games begin; first with the crossbow, then with the rifle. The chase is silly, with the only redeeming feature being Danielle De Luca's sexy body without clothes, running like a deer caught in the headlights, and her's are on. Did the great Joe Mantegna read the script before joining the cast, or did he need the pay check? The supposed twist ending is just not believable, and the plot is an old one, dating back to The Most Dangerous Game.

(2007) Naked Fear THRILLER/ HORROR

Straight to rental has female teen landing a job at a big city which looks like LA, only to find out later that it was nothing more than a strip club. At the same time missing prostitutes are being hunted down by a mysterious serial killer for the purpose of first drugging them, and then hunting them down by having them run around at a forest totally naked, he later crosses paths with the female teen whose looking for some respectable work. Quite bad but if you're a male and don't mind some female nudity and others that look like are old enough to be someone's mother, this film might be for you. Joe Montgena in one of his worst days also stars as one of the sheriffs assigned also looking for the killer.

I'm surprised by the large amount of positive reviews for this movie. Okay I get it that for some men it's a bit entertaining to watch a naked woman running in the wild, but let's face it the whole thing is pretty low budget. At least that's how it feels in about everything in this movie. The acting, from some, is just not good at all. The cinematography is average, sometimes mediocre. Some running scenes are just not well shot at all. And then you get the story, one where the victim makes bad decisions after bad decisions. She could have get rid of the problem several times, and that makes the story just of low quality. Not that I expected much else in this genre but still.

I suspect some might question my reasons for liking this movie, but I actually liked it a lot. While movies on terror nowadays seem to involve gore and torture, this one is more mental. Oh yes, the title does say naked fear and it does involve nudity, but for me the real horror here is where it should be - a mental thing. I do think for many of us perhaps the most frightening thing is for us to be vulnerable and scared - even more so than the events themselves that scare us. And what could make one more vulnerable than to be naked, alone, and fearing someone out to kill you? If you can identify at all with this actress, you might come away with something of real horror and true fear - and yet have that fear without the chainsaws and other items of gore so frequent nowadays. It would be wrong to say what happens, but I do think the plot developed well and led to a story that I felt perhaps was more believable than some who rated this movie. And maybe since this is situational mental horror, the movie just might stay in our minds more than the simplistic slasher movies.

I'll be the first to admit that the first thing to greet me when I saw a clip of this movie late on TV one night was a naked woman running through the forest. And I don't mean naked - I mean, really NAKED! Nothing was left to the imagination. I remember thinking, "What the hell kind of late-night porn movie is this?" I only found out later when I was able to pry my eyes off the beautiful body of a naked woman running through the woods that the movie was called "Naked Fear," and it wasn't a late-night soft-core porn movie on Showtime.

People will have a lot of difficulty buying that last part.

But I kept an open mind and gave "Naked Fear" the benefit of the doubt that it wasn't late-night soft-core porn. It is, however, one step above it, though, and that is the fact that the movie is a very cheap, but occasionally very gripping low-budget exploitation thriller. And there is a plot in addition to the needless titillation; the movie does make an attempt to tell a story.

"Naked Fear" is loosely based on the crimes of the real-life Alaskan serial killer Robert Hansen, who during the 1970s would kidnap young women (mostly prostitutes), dump them into the Alaskan wilderness, and then hunt them down and kill them for sport. The film also takes inspirational cues from the famous 1924 short story "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell. In this low-budget film directed by a man (obviously), Thom Eberhardt, and written by a - wait for it - woman, Christine Vasquez - Diana Kelper (Danielle De Luca) is a young woman traveling across the country in the hopes of making it as a dancer.

She stops off in a small Midwestern town where hunting is a popular pastime. It also turns out that in this town, there have been a string of disappearances involving young women, which may or may not be the work of a serial killer. But because most of these young women were prostitutes, the police don't really take the disappearances seriously enough to investigate further.

Because Diane has little in the way of cash and little other recourse, she is forced to take a job as a stripper at a seedy strip club. One night, she makes the mistake of conversing with a smooth-talking stranger and the next thing she knows, she's waking up in the woods completely naked. She learns that the man who picked her up in the bar the night before, Colin Mandel (J.D. Garfield), is a serial killer who likes to dump naked women in the wilderness, and then hunt them down and kill them for sport, and she will soon have to call upon her most primal instincts if she wants to survive. It also doesn't help matters much that Mandel also works for the sheriff's department and is actually a highly respected sheriff's officer. Meanwhile, a determined deputy named Dwight Terry (Arron Shiver) investigates Diane's mysterious disappearance much to the protests of his superior Tom Benike (Joe Mantegna).

"Naked Fear," despite its budget limitations and exploitative values, is occasionally a very gripping and very suspenseful film. I don't imagine anyone going into this movie for a thought-provoking plot that muses on the philosophy of men hunting other human beings for sport. You also won't get stellar acting performances here, but I will sing a few praises for the plucky young heroine in this movie that is Danielle De Luca.

Beautiful De Luca is a virtually unknown actress, yet despite her limited acting abilities (she may very well have been cast here due to her looks and nothing else), you do have to give her just due for baring it all in this picture. There's a good 20-minute stretch of "Naked Fear" where she is completely in the nude, and nothing is merely suggested or left to the viewer's imagination or covered up by conveniently placed objects. I have no idea when this was filmed but if the season was right, then De Luca must be given credit for braving the elements in her birthday suit and not much else. And there is no doubt that she has the battle scars to prove her experiences. Other than her brave and daring performance here, there isn't really anything else I can imagine recommending this flick for, unless you really want to see her in the buff for 20 minutes.

"Naked Fear" also has a disappointing ending, considering everything Diana goes through, and makes the film appear even cheaper than it actually is. The ending, to me, is just totally unrealistic for what was initially presented to us in the beginning. It seems as if, to me, anyway, that the filmmakers may have stolen the ending from a completely different movie and tacked it onto this one.

Since "Naked Fear" is a lot better than it initially appears at the outset, I'm giving it a fair rating here.

5/10

A psycho lets naked women loose in the wilderness so he can hunt them down like animals. This thriller, inspired by the actions of Alaska serial killer Robert Hansen, is nothing to write home about, but it's not as bad as one would expect. It draws elements from such films as "The Most Dangerous Game," "The Naked Prey," and "I Spit on Your Grave." The only familiar face here is Mantegna as the sheriff. De Luca, spending much of the film completely disrobed, is not bad in the lead role. There is a lot of nudity, but it's presented rather tastefully. The film doesn't know when to roll the final credits; there are too many climaxes.

Ok I admit; I was misled by the more positive reviews of his movie. I was already skeptical because the concept looked silly, and it turned out I was right. I can't believe there is only one 1 star review,

The story takes way too long to pick up. The first 35 of 40 minutes are endless talking

The acting of nearly everyone except the roommate was terrible. Especially the main protagonist we are supposed to root for. Not only is her acting terrible, she shows little common sense or any way to outsmart her enemy. And there is very little action or excitement to be found.

It looks like a silly b-grade exploitation movie and that is what you get. Just avoid.

The movie is about being hunted to be killed, but instead of hiding and being quiet, there was to many scenes with her being in plain view in openings or screaming for help. The logic thinking of survival was slim and made the movie dull.

In the intro we see a naked woman out in the fields while a stranger shoots at her. He's hunting her like an animal.

The lovely Diana arrives in a small New Mexico border town for a job. Little does she know it's to be a stripper. She has no money and is now indebted to the "talent agency manager". She has to share a room with a fellow stripper who's also a prostitute at night and a junkie.

Parallel to this story we meet the local law enforcement, the corrupt Sheriff and his hunting buddies, as well as the new deputy who arrived from LA. The local cops are corrupt and the new guy is not quite used to that.

Diana's salary as a stripper doesn't really amount to much. Junkie stripper tells her all the ways she can make more money- take off more clothes, interact with patrons, and offer other services. At first Diana isn't interested but she needs the money so she gives it a try. It yields her more money and the night she meets a patron and drives away with him she ends up changing her mind about offering him other services. But he won't have none of it. He ends up kidnapping her.

Next, she wakes up out in the desert nude...as prey for our hunter. He gives her a 15 minute head start. He catches up with her but he likes a challenge so he doesn't make it that easy for himself. And Diana, is also a bright girl. She tricks him and escapes from him repeatedly, bloody and bruised. Eventually she gets the upper hand and runs into a family camping, the dad and his two teenage sons, who are stunned to see a mostly naked girl who now is in shock. Dad does the right thing and leaves to get help. But the hunter isn't done yet. Nor is Diana.

Naked Fear is an excellent movie for what it is- a well-done B movie with a great story and good acting. Of course seeing the lovely Danielle De Luca run around naked for a good while doesn't hurt a bit. Her performance overall is remarkable, downright award-worthy, given what she has to go through. It obviously suffers from B-movie weaknesses- low budget, not so good acting by secondary characters, an unpolished look indoors, etc. It's a tad bit too long, certain things could have been cut out or shortened. At the same time another victim should have been added, just to make our villain more despicable.

The movie succeeds at presenting the hardships of small town life and the risks of trying to make it elsewhere pretty well. And it does so without being condescending and offensive. You do end up empathizing with the main character. The movie is never exploitative but manages to humanize our characters and give the story a lot of meaning. Naked Fear is admirable for the risks the filmmakers took and how they managed to deliver their vision perhaps without compromise.

Let's do the negatives first. The repeated shots of the animal heads is trite and repetitious. And the ending is trite. And some of the supporting cast is awful. The Indian, for example, is truly wooden. I thought Joe Mantegna was miscast. He did a decent job, but the strain showed. Miss De Luca is very skilled, and shines in the non-horror scenes. I would like to see more of her. The movie is genuinely suspenseful and well paced. And, yes, Miss De Luca looks lovely in her stripper scene. The chase scenes in the wilderness are effectively planned: the tension is high enough that we hatdly notice the nudity. Sum: not at all a waste of time.