FEAR(S) OF THE DARK
Drawn & Directed by Blutch; Charles Burns; Marie Caillou & Romain Slocombe; Pierre di Sciullo; Lorenzo Mattotti & Jerry Kramsky; & Richard McGuire & Michel Pirus
Released by IFC Films
French with English subtitles
USA. 79 min. Not Rated
 

It’s uncommon for three short animated films, let alone six, to achieve extraordinary or extremely satisfying results—all burst with creative energy. Considering the relatively unknown status of the animators and graphic artists in the U.S.—like Blutch (the alias of Christian Hincker), Charles Burns and Pierre di Sciullo—this horror collection will serve as a quasi-calling card in America. (They’re bound to get a few gigs over here after this).

First off—this is not for all tastes. Fear(s) of the Dark can get creepy, deranged, graphic (even for animation), and experimental in ways that may put off those who aren’t animation buffs (mostly black-and-white animation buffs at that—there are only splashes of color). But for the adventurous, these stories provide a plethora of various goodies to choose from that will scare and shock and possibly offend. It’s like a Francophile’s Creepshow, but with more ambition.

The film is structured very loosely; it opens with a sinister man and his three rabid dogs, which he will let loose at will on a boy and a dancing woman. After this set piece, a young man reflects on catching a praying mantis-like creature in his bedroom when he was a boy. He keeps it in a drawer. Years later he meets a woman in college whom he takes back to his apartment. She never leaves, but becomes a kind of predator-insect herself. And in another tale, a man recalls the simple story of a monster roaming the countryside and the hunter hired by the town to hunt the beast.

For some, each segment may vary in quality. For me, every little interlude or strange pause caused some alarm. A sudden stroke of the animator’s pencil made things just that much more daring. No piece is quite like the other in style—the one with the young man and the mantis-creature is computer animated but is nevertheless shocking for how the girlfriend’s transformation occurs, and the dastardly man with the crazed dogs is done in such a rough pencil-sketch form that you can see the eraser marks. Perhaps the most formal of all is the final segment—a man is stuck at home and alone in the midst of a blizzard when everything becomes dark and silent. It has the best qualities for old-school horror buffs who devour nothing less than a figure in infinite spaces of darkness.

Bottom line, this is the kind of artistry that had me gripping my notes and the armrest in shock (which is rare for one who has seen hundreds of films meant to provoke this reaction), or simply absorbed in seeing such a variety of animation in a time when CGI dominates the landscape. It has the same wonderment of the latest Pixar feature (or, for that matter, the recent Persepolis), but for a smaller audience and with the potential to become a midnight movie classic akin to The Fantastic Planet. Don’t watch this alone! Jack Gattanella
October 22, 2008