When 16-year-old Nicole Walker (Reese Witherspoon) meets 23-year-old David McCall (Mark Wahlberg) at a Seattle nightclub, she falls in love. David is exciting and charming, and despite the wide age gap, he wins over Nicole’s family — except for her workaholic father, Steven (William Petersen), who’s suspicious of David from the start. His concerns are realized when David turns out to be a violent sociopath who sees Nicole as his possession, and her family home a fortress to be invaded.

For thoughts on Fear (1996), please check out our discussion on The Video Attic:

[youtube https://youtu.be/iJ1PfYp6g8U?t=199]

Video Quality

Fear comes to Blu-Ray again courtesy of Mill Creek Entertainment, but it is at best a serviceable presentation. The film was previously released in a two-pack by Mill Creek from an older master provided by Universal following an earlier release by Universal themselves. We are 10 years out from the debut of the film on the format, but we are still using the same old master as always. Universal has done a nice job of supporting the 4K UHD format, so maybe one day this will be chosen to get a fresh upgrade.

Compared to other recent releases from Mill Creek, this release does not suffer quite as much in terms of compression artifacts and macroblocking. It is still easy to clock these deficiencies, just not quite as front and center as other discs. The image retains the smallest bit of texture in aspects of the photography such as the production design and costumes. The colors are not quite as vibrant as they could be, but they are not completely washed out either. Skin tones fall a bit more on the side of warm and unnatural, and the presentation offers up some fairly lacking black levels. The disc experiences a fair amount of black crush, but once again it is not as overwhelming as some of the discs from the company. Mill Creek Entertainment has provided a Blu-Ray disc which holds up better than their previous two-pack thanks to less compression, but a new master and a more careful encode would have been preferable.

Audio Quality

The film comes with a DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio track that falls in line with the previous releases. While this track is not going to blow the roof off the building, this track does what it needs to do. Dialogue comes through clearly without being overwhelmed by any of the other sounds. Environmental effects play an important role in ratcheting up the tension, and this track fleshes things out in the surround channels. The low end adds some good texture to the thrills which aids in the creation of the atmosphere. Mill Creek Entertainment has delivered a better audio presentation than the video side of things.

Special Features

There are no special features provided on the disc, but this release is part of the Retro VHS Collection which initially ships out with a special slipcover.

Final Thoughts

Fear is a rather lacking effort in the psycho-sexual subgenre of erotic thrillers. While we love Reese Witherspoon and Mark Wahlberg is fairly well built for this role of a creep, the character development is very two-dimensional and some plot developments are downright laughable. There are some memorable moments that stick with you in a “so bad it’s good” type of way, but this does not stand tall in the genre. Mill Creek has released a value-priced Blu-Ray sporting a lacking A/V presentation and no special features. This needs a fresh master, but if you are desperate to own this it at least will not break the bank.

Fear (1996) is currently available to purchase on Blu-Ray.

Note: Images presented in this review are not reflective of the image quality of the Blu-Ray.

Disclaimer: Mill Creek Entertainment has supplied a copy of this disc free of charge for review purposes. All opinions in this review are the honest reactions of the author.