Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

GurlyIamBeach Instant Favorite.

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Majikat There is one thing for sure ... you will never have seen a film quite like it. 10 mins in I wasn't sure if I was going to continue, but so glad I did. Perhaps you need to understand the workings of anxiety and paranoia and the way they make your mind work against you to really appreciated, this, but Pegg, in full dark comedy mode, gives a truly great performance in this. It's a lovevitvor hate it type of film!

Troy Putland Simon Pegg is a cooky fellow. It's not surprising that he's taken on the role in A Fantastic Fear of Everything. Jack is his weirdest character to date. Pegg owns his character, moulding the story around his subversive behaviour. He's in too deep with his work, researching notorious serial killers for his book freaks him out to no end. A film-maker shows interest in his work, and a meeting's arranged. Jack must face the outside world in preparation for his big moment. Pegg and the team behind the scenes manage to turn a boring narrative into an intriguing one. Pegg spends the second third of AFFoE in a launderette, suspicious of fellow launderette-ers and in need of a beginners guide to washing clothes. This won't be for everyone. The comedy's dry. The story's far-fetched and at times, drags. Pegg maybe exceptional enough to see you through to the bitter end, or lager end.

Gino Cox "A Fantastic Fear of Everything" has some very strong elements. The performances are good, especially by the versatile Simon Pegg, Paul Freeman and Amara Karan. The production design is stylish and detailed. Cinematography is good, although marred by a few shots that could have been a bit steadier. However, it is a dark comedy that is neither particularly dark nor particularly funny. It is more absurd than comedic and suffers from a weak structure. Pegg plays a man who spends most of his time running around in his skivvies, but is embarrassed to wash them at a Laundromat, which is either ironic or absurd, but not very amusing and certainly not sufficiently amusing for the amount of time and attention devoted to the gag. At the beginning of the film, he is driven by his phobias to the point of insanity, so has no place to go dramatically. Consequently, much of the first half is at a single tone, despite plot developments that elevate the stakes. While Pegg is usually affable in his comedic and dramatic roles, it's difficult to sympathize with an unkempt misanthropic underachiever who is paralyzed by irrational fears. Pegg must come to grips with his phobias before they destroy him, but also learns that his phobias are not entirely unfounded, although they are not realized in the way he expects. Consequently, he is struggling with both inner demons and outer demons, but we're not sure they belong in the same film. He must also break out of his shell, become a human being, find love, and succeed as either a children's writer or a chronicler of historical crimes. And he must survive increasingly absurd and perilous predicaments created by his own follies and phobias and the homicidal designs of an actual murderer. The story is all over the place. When he achieves a measure of success at the end, we're not quite certain he has earned it, despite the many perils he confronted. While he finds a moral for his own life, his circumstances are so unorthodox and unique, that moral doesn't seem relevant to anybody else.

pyrocitor Simon Pegg must be an awfully emotional fellow. Between his work in A Fantastic Fear of Everything and Hector and the Search for Happiness, it's practically a surprise this year's Disney/Pixar juggernaut Inside Out wasn't released starring Pegg as all five dominant emotions (I'd watch that movie). His foray into fear, however, is offbeat and unsettling enough to make most Disney-calibre audiences baulk. In fact, it's not entirely clear which audience A Fantastic Fear of Everything is geared towards, offering an oddball blend of Gothic horror, black comedy, surrealist, Roald Dahl-esq animated interludes, and the occasional broad slapstick just to remain extra unpredictable. If my bleary, incredulous eyes didn't deceive me, at one point the film hits the pause button and simply becomes a music video featuring Simon Pegg gangsta rapping.If that sounds a bit muddled, it's because it is. The premise, which has Pegg's children's author researching Gothic murder stories for a television series, becoming increasingly agoraphobic and paranoid in the process, starts off great. Pegg is infinitely charismatic and quirky, and able to wrench enough comedic mileage out of fearfully interacting with basic household items or cringing at every creak in the hallway (ably punctuated by Michael Price's booming Gothic score, which, bizarrely, lifts its main theme from the 1998 Roland Emmerich Godzilla of all things…) to make for a thoroughly enjoyable first act. The vibe is one of an early Charlie Chaplin short: essentially a one-man show, with every possible prop or scenario lending itself to slapstick silliness, and Pegg plays it to the hilt. So far, so good.Unfortunately, this private horror-show is only sustainable for so long before Pegg's expository voice-over begins to grate on the nerves somewhat, the premise feeling increasingly strained. Once Pegg tentatively ventures out of his house, debut writer/director Crispian Mills flounders somewhat, tangibly unsure as to how best to proceed. The second act skews somewhere between Freudian psychodrama (cue Paul Freeman of Raiders of the Lost Ark fame, having tremendous fun as Pegg's garrulous German therapist) and undercooked murder mystery, mostly staged, bizarrely enough, in a laundromat. And while Mills conjures up enough Gothic atmosphere and twists and turns to prevent the film from ever becoming boring, it's seldom that engaging either, and some of Mills' unorthodox creative choices are downright questionable (a recurring joke involving Pegg doing a cringeworthy impression of his Vietnamese neighbours comes uneasily to mind). By the time things definitively careen off the rails in an unhinged climax followed by a saccharine denouement that can't help but ring false (possibly intentionally), puzzling has become the adjective du-jour, and viewers are more than likely to begin mirroring Pegg's contorted expressions of terrified incredulity and disbelief.If nothing else, Mills can't be faulted for lacking in ambition in his debut feature film, and Pegg's hugely enjoyable presence guarantees the film never descends into a total disaster. Nonetheless, A Fantastic Fear of Everything is a confounding beast – too silly to play well to Poe junkies, and too dark and surreal to satisfy most comedic tastes. Ultimately, the film is best consumed in the vein of one of Pegg's horror vignettes: with the lights on, one eyebrow perpetually raised, and a stiff drink handy to guarantee safe passage back to the 'real world'.-6/10