Fear X

On the very day I went to see Fear X, its creator – the original shock novelist Hubert Selby Jr., unfortunate inspiration to a million inferior imitators like the wretched Bret Easton Ellis – died in his sleep, with his faithful dog and loving family by his side, and calming classical music in the background. One can only imagine the torments that must have cascaded through Selby Jr.’s mind while he lived, and Fear X, a collaboration with Dane director Nicolas Winding Refn (Pusher, Bleeder), is an appropriately apocalyptic last will and testament for his departed soul – dark, twisted and deeply haunting, if never quite attaining the massive resonance of Last Exit To Brooklyn or Requiem For a Dream.
Every bit as disturbing, creepy and oft-unpleasant as everything else Selby Jr. put his name to, this grim and sombre affair stars the ever-excellent John Turturro as Harry, a bedraggled shopping-mall security guard whose wife has just been murdered, and who skulks miserably around the place with a demeanour that doesn’t exactly belie the bereavement. The murder appears to have been a random and pointless one, but Harry investigates obsessively and begins to discover damning clues that hint at a deliberate conspiracy involving a corrupt cop. Or is he imagining them? And does the cop exist, or is he Harry’s doppelganger?
That’s all up in the air, since Fear X is one of these increasingly common ‘is-anything-real’ mindbenders, and dispenses completely with conventional structure towards the end, in the manner of David Lynch’s similarly fragmented Lost Highway. As with the latter film, this involves a frustrating sacrifice in terms of clarity and narrative cohesion, and leaves a slightly pretentious aftertaste in the mouth, but there’s still no denying the magnetic desolation of Turturro’s central performance, or the bleak effectiveness of Refn’s direction. As for Selby Jr., he’ll be sorely missed.

91 mins. Cert IFI members. Opens May 14