Naked Fear

Naked Fear
Directed by	Thom Eberhardt
Written by	Christine Vasquez
Starring	Danielle De Luca
Release date(s)	April 1, 2007
Running time	104 min.
Country	United States
Language	English

Naked Fear is a 2007 thriller film film directed by Thom Eberhardt. The plot revolves around a dancer (played by Danielle De Luca) who is lured to a strange town and thrown into a deadly game after being kidnapped by a serial killer. Stripped naked, she is forced to run for her life through the vast uninhabited regions of New Mexico while being pursued by a maniacal hunter.^[1]

Story

Diana (Danielle De Luca) is a young dancer in a nightclub. She's lured to a New Mexico boomtown with promises by a club owner to pay her well for performing on stage at his club. The man's agent pays for her airfare, puts her up in a hotel in a room shared with a heroin addict, confiscates her driver's license, charges her back for his expenses at exorbitant rates of compound interest, and threatens her references should she flee. Unable to meet her financial commitments, she falls deeper into debt until she is forced into prostitution. Soliciting her first "client" Colin Mandel (J.D. Garfield), she climbs into his jeep, but at the last minute changes her mind. Enraged, Mandel punches her and beats her into unconsciousness.

Like most boomtowns, the population is highly transient and it's not unusual for people to go missing. However, a recently-hired deputy of the local sheriff is becoming concerned about the disappearance of Diana (and other women from the club), and begins to ask questions about the club owner. The club owner denies any involvement, saying he has enough trouble just getting girls to perform at his club.

Diana wakes up in a field; bruised, bloody, naked, and confused. She spots an airplane near some trees and walks towards it. As she gets closer, she sees Mandel stowing his gear, so she hides behind a tree trunk. He's wearing hunting clothes and armed with a menacing crossbow. Hearing her approach, he tells her that he is giving her a 15 minute head start. She stares at him in disbelief, but he tells her that he's not kidding, and fires a bolt at her as a warning. She turns and runs, barefoot and naked, into the wilderness.

The Deputy begins to question the club owner's business, but is warned off by an older officer (Joe Mantegna). He realizes that he is on his own in solving the mystery. He breaks into Mandel's home, whom he suspects of being responsible for the disappearance, and begins to look for clues. He is stopped by another deputy who had been alerted to a possible break-in by a watchful neighbor.

Diana runs through the brush until she reaches a river. She looks towards the river and goes in, running along the bank where the water will hide her steps. Emerging near some brush, she hides behind a tree to rest. Suddenly, she hears the rattle of a sidewinder near her hand. Slowly, she gets up to run from the snake, but then sees Mandel on the other side of the river so she crouches back down. The snake moves closer to her and coils back to strike. Suddenly, a crossbow bolt kills the snake, shot by Mandel. Mandel taunts her and Diana takes off running again.

Mandel tries to follow her, but Diana manages to lose him when she crosses the river and hides in the undergrowth. After Mandel moves on, she emerges from her hiding spot and runs across the sharp rocks until she comes to a steep cliff face. Staring at the impassable wall in front of her, she realizes that she's trapped in a box canyon.

She finds a low spot on the wall and climbs up the sharp edges to the top. Once there, she spots an abandoned camp site littered with rusty tin cans, a cardboard beer carton, and an old t-shirt. She puts the t-shirt on, then realizes that her feet are being injured by the terrain. She takes the shirt off and tears strips from it to bandage her wounds.

Mandel, now armed with a bolt-action rifle, appears in the treeline and begins to poke around the abandoned camp site. He tracks Diana's footprints and, when she realizes that he is heading right for her, she gets up and starts running. She climbs up a nearby steep cliff. He sees her and begins to climb up the wall. As he reaches the top, she appears holding a large rock high over her head. She throws the rock down on Mandel's head, causing him to fall to the bottom of the valley.

She comes upon a campsite built by a father and his two sons who are out hiking. Diana, now in a state of shock, collapses and is unable to speak. The father wraps her in a coat and places in the tent where she immediately falls asleep. The father sees her wounds and realizes that something terrible must've happened to her. The three of them pray for her before the father leaves to seek help.

Meanwhile, Mandel has regained consciousness and begins tracking Diana again, following her to the camp where he sees the father and the two boys talking. As the father walks out of the camp, Mandel follows him. Mandel kills the father and the two sons upon returning to the campsite. Diana takes Mandel's gun only to find out it is empty, a ploy crafted by Mandel. Thinking he has the upper-hand, he advances on her. Unknown to Mandel, Diana has hidden a knife in her sleeve, given to her by one of the boys beforehand. She stabs him in the leg, bites off his ear when he doubles over in pain, and runs off again.

Diana finds a road and stumbles into the middle, only to be hit by two kids driving a van. After a brief skirmish, and Mandel shooting out the tire of the van, she manages to run him down and escape to civilization, leaving a dead Mandel behind. She is then taken to a hospital, but the experience has left her much like a ravenous animal, and wary of human kindness. The deputy brings her flowers, only to find she'd chewed through her restraints and escaped. Over a year later, disguised as a prostitute, she lures a man and kills him. A news report attributes the resulting dozens of killings of sex offenders to a Vigilante dubbed "The Southwest Slayer."

Inception

• Inspired by the criminal cases of Robert Hansen, who killed 21 women in Alaska in much the same way as depicted in the film, and Australian Ivan Robert Marko Milat, who murdered 7 tourists in New South Wales after stalking them through a national park.
• Similar to the serial short story The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell.
• Similar to the film The Naked Prey with Cornel Wilde.

References

1. ^ http://allmovie.com/work/naked-fear-465087

External links

• Naked Fear at the Internet Movie Database