Fear(s) of the Dark (2007)

Directors: Blutch, Charles Burns, Marie Caillou, Pierre di Sciullo, Lorenzo Mattotti and Richard McGuire

Screenplay: Jerry Kramsky, Michel Pirus, Romain Slocombe, Blutch, Charles Burns and Pierre di Sciullo

(Voice) Cast: Nicole Garcia as Le Femme; Guillaume Depardieu as Eric; Aure Atika as Laura; Louisa Pili as Ayakawa Sumako; Arthur H as La Narrateur

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #178

 

Here. I made you a nice drink.

A film I have wanted to see for a long time, Fear(s) of the Dark is a French animated anthology horror story, where comic artists and graphic illustrators were given creative control. The subject was what they feared, or horror themes of immense interest to them, and the entire anthology is animated, in its various styles, almost entirely in monochrome black and white.

Structurally as well, whilst some of the tales are told in full, others are fragmented, and the structure is shuffled around and returned to in a variety of ways. One collaborator for example is designer Pierre di Sciullo who creates purely avant-garde montages of moving images, shapes shifting and forming, set to a script by him voiced by a female actress whose fears are modern dull every day ones rather than anything supernatural. Some of them include fears of becoming of the central left or right wing bourgeoisie, which is pertinent as a film produced from France. In fact some of the concerns, of this figure who flutters varying between sympathetic and a bit into herself as a middle-of-the-road person, is actually more ominous with mind to how politics in the post-Trump era. This is not a cheap reference to the election of Donald Trump either; I did actually think of how in the late 2010s reactionary figures were being elected around the world, and how some of these segments' voice over get more pertinent, in imaging someone who worries as much about arguing with others about why their racist views are wrong, and fail, as much as the food they eat.

The rest of the film is explicitly horror, the other short used as bookmarking material being a production by Blutch, a French comic author, in which a sinister old man in an older period of time (least the 18th or 19th century) terrorises random people with four rabid dogs barely held back by him on leashes.  With highly detailed two dimensional animation, it becomes arguably the most grotesque of the anthology in terms of stories, including probably the most disturbing scenes from an (implied) interaction between one of the dogs and a female dancer, and someone getting their face eaten off.

After this, there are four segments that are not as fragmented but told in their entirety baring one at a time. The first of these is notable as, out of all the creators involved, probably the most prominent name viewers may recognise is Charles Burns, the American comic artist behind Black Hole (1995-2005), a tale set in the seventies of a sexually transmitted mutation that was planned to be adapted by either Alexandre Aja or David Fincher at the time. His, in which a man recounts finding a weird bipedal insect in the woods, only for it to secretly hide in his bed until his college days when he meets a female classmate, has been perfectly described by Burns (in a DVD interview for the British release) as the theme of "sex and insects". It is very straight forwardly told, with insect influenced body horror involved as his plays with gender stereotypes. Even if the transition to three dimensional animation can be awkward at times, it even manages to capture his distinct art style too.

Fragmented more out of the four segments, Marie Caillou's (written by Romain Slocombe) is notable as a tale set in Japan but with the voice acting done in French. Concerns of cultural appropriation, or at least attempting awkwardly to set a tale in another country, are off-set greatly by how, as a graphic artist influenced by Japanese illustration, Caillou had a cult following in Japan. Her tale, created with Slocombe, is clearly with love and knowledge of the country too as, following a young girl who (strapped onto a laboratory bed) is forced to go to sleep and experience one specific dream by a doctor repeatedly, finds herself at a new school where she is bullied, and involves both the figure of bandit Hajime, haunting the area, and an encounter in the woods with (Japanese) yōkai. It does, out of all of them, feel the most random at times, less narratively dictated than most of the segments as a literal fever dream which gets increasingly surreal as it goes along, be it a room full of medical jars of curiosities, to a girl being bullied to the point of being pinned down in a school bathroom and having ants poured on her legs. The art style too also has an almost children's fairytale aesthetic which suits the tone considerably.

Directed by Italian comic artist Lorenzo Mattotti and written by Jerry Kramsky, the next tale is an evocative tale of killings in a rural village, where even if a natural reptilian predator is involved does not explain a greater unnatural stalking the shadows. The art style for this, a very melancholic tale told from introspection of the protagonist in reminiscence, is some of the most distinct and atmospheric, especially because of the restriction in colour and even shading. In complete honesty, the complete use of monochrome for all the shorts is actually one of the film's flaws as it leaves a lack of distinction between them, when just one colour animation (or one that managed to tell a tale in white and light greys) would have sufficed. This is more a construction problem with the film altogether than any of the shorts, especially when this one was still an interesting piece whose design by Mattotti is so evocative.

It is also followed by my favourite of them all as the last by Richard McGuire¹, American illustrator and comic book author among his many talents, co-written by him and Michel Pirus. His is a simple tale of a man who enters an abandoned house during a snowy winter in the woods, a production done with inspired artistry. The look, even with every other segment being black and white, stands out and notably there is no dialogue at all, only some noises from voice actors, and McGuire with Pirus decided to tell this story entirely in the images. The story of its original owner, a woman, is shown when he finds an old photo book, a beautifully realised tale in itself of her youth, and the proceeding horror when it is not just an ex-husband but eventually everyone at the end of the book having their faces removed from the images. It also has many evocative images - a face transforming into flowers due to a trick of the mind, spider tea - which made it a great conclusion.

Anthologies are difficult to pull off, but horror ones have been a sub-genre I have been incredibly lenient on over the years (like my defence of The ABCS of Death series), mainly because even the worst shorts are just short length films, and they allow multiple personalities to make different stories from each other. Likewise animated anthologies, mainly for me through Japanese animation, are rewarding you have a greater sense of distinction between the segments. I feel Fear(s) of the Dark should have had one more segment so that the monochrome creative decision was not a detraction, but beyond this, it was a fascinating experience to have finally seen.

 

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1) American illustrator, comic book artist, children's book author, and musician