FEAR ITSELF Review: Episode 3 - "Family Man"
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"Fear Itself" episode "Family Man", which was directed by Ronny Yu...follows an average american family man played by "Eureka's Colin Ferguson, who has a tragic car accident one day, and when he wakes up in the hospital...comes to find out that he's somehow switched bodies with a brutal mass murderer nicknamed "The Family Man", played by one Clifton Collins Jr. The episode then becomes a real "out of body experience", as Ferguson's character has to adjust to life on the inside...while Collins Jr. character has to adjust to life on the outside. A situation which bodes terribly for Ferguson's character considering he's an innocent man, and now that he's in the family man's body, comes to find out about the horrific crimes he's commited...oh, and the little fact that he's on death row for said crimes. |
This episode is one of the most terrifying of the three so far, and it doesn't scare or terrify in the usual methods...i.e. blood, guts, gore, and violence. It's edge, it's creepiness -- comes from the psychological elements of the overall situation. Imagine yourself as a church going, all american family man. And imagine that after a car accident, a horrific one...along with having to worry about surviving that accident while the doctors work on you, you now manage to get patched up, only to find yourself having switched bodies with a serial killer. Imagine how absolutely horrible it would be to all of a sudden be inside the body of a monster, knowing that not only are you scheduled to die as an innocent man, and no one believes your pleas of accidental body-switching...but that your family is in grave danger from this murderer who is now walking around in your body, and living with your family, your wife and two children.
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Knowing in the back of your mind that as you sit there in a jail cell...the man who is inside your body is just counting down the days, hours, and minutes before his nature as a murderer kicks in and he viciously slaughters your family, just like he's done to his many victims. That's the premise this episode plays off of, and carries along for an hour. And it's a chilling story like this, a chilling situation like this -- that makes for a great episode. We spend most of the episode feeling sorry for Ferguson's character, and his really bad run of misfortune. Especially considering he did absolutely nothing to warrant or deserve such a rotten fate. |
This isn't a story where some asshole, prick, etc...gets what is coming to him sooner or later. This is an ep where an otherwise, nice, normal person simply gets the short end of the stick big time. And we sit there wondering how and why this could happen to one of the few good people in the world, while at the same time...hoping that this crazy shit gets straightened out before the episode is all said and done with. Ferguson's performance and Collins Jr's performance really "make" the episode. Both play their roles as innocent man, and sick twisted killer really well. Kind of also makes you wonder why Collins Jr. hasn't been seen anywhere in film or on tv as of the last few years.
Hopefully that'll change after this episode. The most shocking moments of "Family Man" however take place at the end though, and the ending is just a real shocker. And oddly enough, you never see it coming, well...I sure didn't. So we're three episodes in so far, and while I was not very impressed with "The Sacrifice", or "Spooked"..."The Family Man" more than made up for the shortcomings of both of those episodes. When this season of "Fear Itself" comes to a conclusion..."Family Man" will definitely make my top 3,4, or 5 list.
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