“Scare Me,” written and directed by first-time filmmaker Josh Ruben, is a spook show stripped to the basics. A boy and a girl, Fred and Fanny (Ruben and Aya Cash of “You’re …
. Her interruptions are irritating. But they’re also, well, correct. And as the vibratingly talented Fanny massacres Fred’s confidence — and the two inhale booze, pot and cocaine — he resolves to turn his torture into her nightmare.
This is storytelling just one step beyond the campfire. Ruben and cinematographer Brendan H. Banks allow themselves a few flourishes. When Fred describes a tree, he wriggles his fingers and casts the shadow of a haunted old oak. Later, Fanny plays a possessed teen singer, and the cluttered cabin recedes into the blackness of a single stage spotlight.
“Scare Me” would work even better onstage. On screen, it feels like an experiment in minimalism. The film is heavy-handed only in Fred’s fear of emasculation and Fanny’s digs at “desperate white dudes,” troweled on for socially relevant heft. At one point, Carlo points and shrieks, “You are emasculated! Look at you! You’re an emasculated man!” Till then, all the ghouls have been make-believe. The film’s real bogeyman is wounded macho pride.
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