I became obsessed with Hong Kong cinema in the mid-to-late 90s and followed it religiously for at least a decade. I remember when I first heard the name Maggie Q. She was starring in a Hong Kong movie called NAKED WEAPON that was written by Wong Jing and directed by Ching Siu-Tung. These guys are responsible for two of my all-time favorite films. Jing wrote and directed the hilarious GOD OF GAMBLERS with Chow Yun-fat, and Ching directed the classic A CHINESE GHOST STORY, with Leslie Cheung. While I’ve never seen NAKED WEAPON, I took note of her name. Then she started showing up on American movie screens in films like MISSION IMPOSSIBLE III and LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD. She was also on the small screen in my living room on shows like NIKITA and STALKER. Whatever she appeared in, she was almost always a badass, so I always enjoyed it when she showed up. That’s what piqued my interest when I was browsing recently and came across Maggie Q in Neil LaBute’s FEAR THE NIGHT.
In this film, she plays Tess (Maggie Q), an Iraq War veteran who is having a difficult time adjusting to life back home. She’s also a recovering alcoholic, and her relationship with her sister Beth (Kat Foster) goes from being awkward, to passive aggressive, to just plain ugly. Still, she goes to the bachelorette party for her younger sister, Rose (Highdee Kuan), at their family’s remote farmhouse out in the country. The weekend includes several other women, and while Tess isn’t exactly the life of the party, it looks like they’re going to have a good time. That is, until a group of masked men show up and start attacking the house, and some of the ladies, with arrows. It soon becomes clear that these guys are up to no good, and they’re willing to murder any person who gets in their way. But they didn’t count on a badass like Tess being around, and the job they thought would be easy soon becomes one of the longest nights of their lives.
FEAR THE NIGHT is an enjoyable suspense thriller, but it’s also an extremely straightforward and unoriginal home-invasion thriller. It may not do anything particularly new with the formula, but for me, Maggie Q makes it worth watching. We’ve seen plenty of movies in which unsuspecting victims are trapped in an isolated location with a bunch of morons, only to discover that at least one of them is more than capable of fighting back. I just enjoy watching Maggie Q, who brings the sort of physical presence and action-movie credibility that makes it easy to believe that Tess can hold her own against these guys.
FEAR THE NIGHT does touch on some interesting subjects, including the difficulties Tess faces as she tries to put her military past behind her and rebuild her life. Her crappy relationship with her sister Beth adds another layer to the story, although the dialogue and character development don’t always do these ideas justice. The movie’s heavy-handed approach kind of gets on my nerves, to be honest. LaBute seems to want to say something about the way some men view women, but he doesn’t really handle the situation in a realistic way. The main villain hates Maggie for no other reason than he got insulted at the gas station. The convenience store confrontation is good, but it doesn’t seem to warrant the violent and murderous events that will soon follow!
Fortunately, there’s enough action to keep things moving. Tess is amazingly resourceful, and the attackers quickly discover that their victims aren’t going to make things easy for them. The isolated setting gives the whole thing a claustrophobic feel. It would have been nice if there had been a few more surprises along the way, but Maggie Q makes for an awesome action heroine.
FEAR THE NIGHT isn’t going to change anybody’s opinion about this kind of thriller, and there are certainly better examples of the genre out there. Still, if you enjoy watching a tough lady turn the tables on a bunch of creeps, there are worse ways to spend an hour and a half. It’s not a particularly memorable movie, but I always enjoy watching Maggie Q kick ass on screen, and as far as I’m concerned, that was more than enough reason to give it a look.
