13 Fear Is Real
The CW | CW | Release Date: January 7, 2009
CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
32
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 9 Critic Reviews
Positive:
0
Mixed:
3
Negative:
6

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
50
USA TodayRobert Bianco
Season 1 Review: As games go, this isn't a bad one. But unlike horror movies, the Fear doesn't feel real, and the show is nothing special. Read full review
42
Entertainment WeeklyJessica Shaw
Season 1 Review: Watching them tied up for a find-your-partner challenge is more absurd than scary. Read full review
40
PopMattersCynthia Fuchs
Season 1 Review: The show is, in various ways, just such a trick, not quite convincing viewers that its shtick is authentic, but granting that those viewers get the joke (and will forgive, and even enjoy, the cheesy results). Read full review
30
Philadelphia Daily NewsEllen Gray
Season 1 Review: I've yet to see proof that "reality" television itself kills anything but brain cells. Which would seem to make the CW's latest entry, 13 - Fear Is Real, pretty pointless. Read full review
30
The New York TimesGinia Bellafante
Season 1 Review: 13 Fear Is Real, a fizzled effort at scaremongering, reveals just how badly reality television can go astray when the casting fails to be creative. Read full review
30
VarietyBrian Lowry
Season 1 Review: Even nightvision lenses and up-the-nose video, however, can't create a real sense of jeopardy until the final challenge, when two finalists are "buried alive." At least that's semi-interesting, though until then 13 is pretty much a snooze--more scatter-brained than scary. Read full review
30
Washington PostTom Shales
Season 1 Review: 13: Fear Is Real is cruel in its premise, drably inevitable in its concept and supremely dull in execution. No one risks being scared to death, but being bored to death seems a credible threat. Read full review
20
Boston GlobeMatthew Gilbert
Season 1 Review: Watching 13 - Fear Is Real, I was, like, shaking, too, from giggling at the awesome flimsiness of this new horror reality show--when I wasn't bored out of my skull, that is. Read full review
20
The Hollywood ReporterRay Richmond
Season 1 Review: Fear Is Real is the dripping-with-irony title of a CW-staged unscripted venture that scarcely could be more fake, a collection of preposterous snapshots of 13 young people trying their best to scream rather than laugh. Read full review
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