A Problem with Fear, or Laurie's Anxiety Confronting the Escalator is a 2003 absurdist comedy film by Canadian film-maker Gary Burns.

Laurie Harding (Paulo Costanzo) is a small shop clerk in the local Calgary mall.

His world is full of tragic accidents - crosswalks, elevators, escalators and virtually anything associated with commercialism or technology is parodied as objects of fear and tragedy.

His own world is full of fear of these very events, his predictions of them, and his dependence on his less-than-sympathetic sister, Michelle (Camille Sullivan).

Along with Laurie's prophetic powers, and the endless onslaught of accidents, the movie is full of absurd events: a mall announcer who continually requests a speaker of x foreign language - without any apparent reason; the same mall's population which slowly dwindles, being virtually empty by the film's end; an entire classroom population which is accosted simultaneously by hiccups; Some of these are more apparently satirical of pop culture: to comfort himself, Laurie repeats commercial refrains, such "Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco treat"; his girlfriend, Dot (Emily Hampshire), does a survey on "how the clothes you wear define you" - one she both detests and is obsessed by.