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4 hours ago
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Fear opens with someone being carried out of a rather gorgeous house in a rather unprepossessing body bag. As is now traditional for all television dramas, we then flash back to find out how things went so terribly wrong.
So, the plot proper begins when a family moves excitedly into the property, a historically significant townhouse in the posh West End of Glasgow, as befits the successful architect Martyn (Line of Duty’s Martin Compston), his research scientist wife, Rebecca (Anjli Mohindra) and their two children. They own the whole thing apart from the basement flat, where a man called Jan (Solly McLeod) lives. He has left them a welcome note on the mat – “Here’s to good neighbours.”
Such an overture can be taken many ways. To the open of heart, like Rebecca, it is a lovely gesture. To the more dispassionate, like Martyn, it is a polite thing that people do. To the introvert, it would be enough to make you turn on your heel and put the house immediately up for sale again. And to the naturally suspicious and/or keen consumer of thrillers, it is enough to portend utter disaster.
Adapted by Mick Ford from Dirk Kurbjuweit’s 2017 pageturner of the same name, the note is indeed a harbinger of doom. A creepingly claustrophobic story of a stalker downstairs begins, dread thickening with every scene. The calls, or at least the notes, then the flowers, then the letters to the police claiming the couple are perpetrating terrible crimes against their children, are coming from inside the house. A modicum of early friendliness from Rebecca in response to Jan’s first note and some biscuits for the kids leads Jan to become increasingly obsessed with her. But the standard stalker trope is given a twist by suggesting that Jan is not simply a malevolent creep but a suffering creature who may – perhaps down to some awful experience in his past – be increasingly consumed by the belief that the children above are indeed being tortured by their parents.
Nevertheless, Martyn and Rebecca (and we the viewers) know that they are not, and their own psychological torment starts to claw unbearably at you before long. Jan hacks into the family’s wifi and is able to eavesdrop on conversations through their smart home hub and watch the family through their laptop cameras. All of which feels very timely and resonant, with the rising tide of feeling that just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you. Likewise, the couple’s powerlessness in the face of unfounded but not disprovable allegations chimes with our era of shifting truth, cancellations and online rumour crystallising into fact, without anyone even wanting to become any the wiser.
Adding to the tension is the fact that Martyn is more like his hot-headed (and estranged-ish) father than he would like to admit. He repeatedly hares off to confront Jan, trying to kick down his door, shouting threats and behaving altogether in a manner perfectly designed to set the police against rather than in favour of the family. He also destroys half the evidence of Jan’s harassment, alienates the lawyer they hire and – in a move that pushes at the boundaries of what is otherwise a credible portrait of increasing horror and desperation – informs children’s services of Jan’s allegations, in a misguided attempt to get ahead of the situation.
Apart from that, the setup feels horribly realistic and plays horribly effectively with our innate fears of our homes, our security, our sanity becoming undone, at the mercy of a force seemingly beyond our control. Unlike most of us, however, Martyn has a gun-loving former paratrooper of a father to turn to, who may well be happy to rebuild bridges with his formerly pacifist son by providing some form of unanswerable protection for his family.
The tension is the thing in Fear, but the characters are drawn in better than average detail too. We see Rebecca’s rational side as a scientist struggling to keep her animalistic fears for her children’s safety in check, and the weary resignation every woman has felt on realising that the man she thought was just a bit awkward is actually someone who cares nothing for boundaries, and she must recalibrate her behaviour accordingly. We see Martyn’s childhood trauma shaping his responses, as well as whatever part heredity may play (and it’s good to see Compston getting a chance to play something slightly outside his usual quiet everyman box). Space is also found to treat Jan with compassion without minimising the extraordinary harm he inflicts and the potential for worse he has within him. Fear is a stylish, intelligent take on a story that has been told before but not often so well.
