Fear X

Fear X is a 2003 psychological thriller film directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. The first film to be produced from one of Hubert Selby Jr.'s original screenplays, its eventual box-office failure would force Refn's film company Jang Go Star into bankruptcy. Refn's financial recovery was documented in the 2006 documentary The Gambler. Plot Mall cop Harry Caine obsessively investigates the murder of his pregnant wife, Claire, who was killed alongside a DEA agent at his work. His co-workers support him but express concern when he becomes aggressive with customers. He is kept up at night by visions of his wife walking toward an empty house in his neighborhood. The police call him in and question him before showing him an extremely blurry photo of the man they claim is his wife's killer. While combing through mall security footage given to him by his co-worker, he witnesses her murder, and becomes convinced that the empty house contains answers. He sneaks in and finds only a couple of boxes from which he steals a roll of film. He has it developed at the mall and studies the pictures. He is shocked to realize that they were taken in a place he visited with Claire called Morristown, Montana. He drives there and checks into the hotel where he and Claire stayed, then visits the locations he spotted in the photos. This leads him to a diner, where he asks a waitress about one of the women in the pictures, claiming that they have a mutual friend. He is confronted by a police officer, who takes his information and asks why he is trying to find the woman. The cop notifies a fellow officer named Peter of Caine's presence, and Peter rushes home to check on the safety of his child. Concerned by his behavior, his wife (who turns out to be the woman from the photo) asks what is going on, but he tells her that Harry is just someone who was involved in an old case and asks her to take their kid to go to visit her sister. He then calls his bosses together and tells them that Harry Caine is in town.