His character is Simon Axler, a renowned theatrical lion who is now suffering from a mixture of stage-fright and existential fear (of the sort that reportedly poleaxed Daniel Day-Lewis and Nicol Willialson) and also a kind of very early-onset dementia.
Mostly, though, it's a junky, unscary genre piece with a misleading title, because director and co-writer John Pogue jacks up the decibels so often to manufacture frights that you fear a punctured eardrum more than anything else.
The Guardian journalist Peter Bradshaw felt that Contagion blended well together as a film, although opined that Soderbergh was somewhat unsuccessful on channeling the fears, frights, and "the massive sense of loss" of "ordinary people".
Some come to take their ease, And sleep an act or two; but those, we fear, We have frighted with our trumpets; so 'tis clear, They'll say 'tis naught; others, to hear the city Abused extremely, and to cry, "That's witty!" Which we have not done neither.
Where the similar Christmas horror film Krampus relied heavily on big-monster CGI for frights, this short cleverly injects fear into shadows, turning what is just out of sight into something scary and dangerous.
Overcome doubts and embarrassment by standing-up, being brave even using fear and "stage-fright" in everyday life to kick up your flame.
My fear of Barney is more profound than my quest for frights, because Barney's existence forces me to question my credibility as a critic and a viewer.
Unlike most phobias, fear of spiders carries a whiff of immaturity and childhood frights carried over into adulthood.
And rather than building an atmosphere of true fear, the game opts for the classic sudden apparition gimmick to get most of its frights.
"During the most explosive moments of the civil rights revolution in this country, while the urge to violence seemed to be running like a fever through the land, the voice of Martin Luther King sounded clearly above the turmoil of fear and fright - saying that violence, vandalism and destruction were not the way," Mr. Wagner recalled.
