Tales from the Crypt, this is not, and I’m not sure if this is a good or a bad thing. Fear(s) of the Dark is a French animated horror film done completely in black-and-white, save for a smattering of blood in one of the stories. The stories vary in style, length and of course the scare factor. One of the stories has a man holding four bloodthirsty hounds by a leash and releasing them one by one, with each consequence more disturbing than the last.
The next story (and my personal favorite) is equal parts Kafka and teen love story. It opens with an obese, bedridden man looking for his medicine and then pans into a flashback that shows the events that lead him into becoming what he is. It deals with what I believe is every teenager’s fear when forming new relationships, of being absolutely powerless and of invasion of privacy, but even without the burden of metaphors, the slick animation and the engaging story make the story stand well on its own, too. And the creepy humanoid insects sure help its case.
The third story is about a Japanese girl plagued with nightmares as strange as they are disturbing. Imagine kids threatening another kid with a block of wood and cutting implements, of severed heads with lolling tongues trapped in jars, of being bullied relentlessly at school, of watching yourself being possessed and killing your parents, and you get the picture. But as it is, I find what the girl faces in the waking world more disturbing than any of the things she encounters in her dreams, and maybe that's the point of the film. The art style in this is fresh and even cute, much like Katy Towell’s Childrin R Skary; a sharp contrast to the mature themes of the film.
The fourth story, although featuring stunning visuals, hardly did anything for me. It’s about a village where inhabitants suddenly disappear. The turnabout at the end was chilling, but it wasn’t built up as well as it could have been. The fourth story lives up to the film’s title the most and plays upon the viewers’ primal fear of the dark. An old man retires into an abandoned house without electricity, and the whole thing is a play of lights and shadows, with much of what happens in the dark left to the viewer’s imagination. The last story, if it can be called a story, has a woman giving a diatribe of the things she’s afraid of – not having a political conscience, mediocrity, exhausting the planet... the list goes on.
While none of the stories are jump-in-your-seat scary, they do have their merits, the most notable being the crisp and thematic art. That alone is reason enough to watch this film, but if you are a fan of horror films looking for something different (and tired of hack and slash movies and sadistic odes to torture that directors try to pass off as horror films), then you’re in for a treat. Fear(s) of the Dark is hardly ever scary, but it certainly is haunting.
SCREENCAPS:
ONE / TWO / THREE / FOUR / FIVE
(Images from PrimaLinea.)
The next story (and my personal favorite) is equal parts Kafka and teen love story. It opens with an obese, bedridden man looking for his medicine and then pans into a flashback that shows the events that lead him into becoming what he is. It deals with what I believe is every teenager’s fear when forming new relationships, of being absolutely powerless and of invasion of privacy, but even without the burden of metaphors, the slick animation and the engaging story make the story stand well on its own, too. And the creepy humanoid insects sure help its case.
The third story is about a Japanese girl plagued with nightmares as strange as they are disturbing. Imagine kids threatening another kid with a block of wood and cutting implements, of severed heads with lolling tongues trapped in jars, of being bullied relentlessly at school, of watching yourself being possessed and killing your parents, and you get the picture. But as it is, I find what the girl faces in the waking world more disturbing than any of the things she encounters in her dreams, and maybe that's the point of the film. The art style in this is fresh and even cute, much like Katy Towell’s Childrin R Skary; a sharp contrast to the mature themes of the film.
The fourth story, although featuring stunning visuals, hardly did anything for me. It’s about a village where inhabitants suddenly disappear. The turnabout at the end was chilling, but it wasn’t built up as well as it could have been. The fourth story lives up to the film’s title the most and plays upon the viewers’ primal fear of the dark. An old man retires into an abandoned house without electricity, and the whole thing is a play of lights and shadows, with much of what happens in the dark left to the viewer’s imagination. The last story, if it can be called a story, has a woman giving a diatribe of the things she’s afraid of – not having a political conscience, mediocrity, exhausting the planet... the list goes on.
While none of the stories are jump-in-your-seat scary, they do have their merits, the most notable being the crisp and thematic art. That alone is reason enough to watch this film, but if you are a fan of horror films looking for something different (and tired of hack and slash movies and sadistic odes to torture that directors try to pass off as horror films), then you’re in for a treat. Fear(s) of the Dark is hardly ever scary, but it certainly is haunting.
SCREENCAPS:
ONE / TWO / THREE / FOUR / FIVE
(Images from PrimaLinea.)
Hmmmm.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I shall watch.
Maybe. I don't like horror flicks