The French omnibus horror film "Fear(s) in the Dark" comes off a bit as a cataract of gimmicks -- fully animated, using comic artists with distinctive styles, no color allowed (well, a little red to pepper up the black and white palette) and focused on phobias and anxieties. Omnibus films, with which we are suddenly surrounded (Paris this, New York that), are gimmicks themselves, not much like anthologies, because you can't roam at will. Their viewing experiences are predicated on variety instead of consistency, and the often fizzling impact of clumped shorts, each more or less the total sum, which is too often shruggable itself.
But "Fear(s)" is a hypnotic cocktail, and its key liquor may be Frenchness -- some of the materials folded in have no sensible conclusion (the fear of "Tales from the Crypt" moralism is unavoidable), and some aren't stories at all. Some stand entire and alone,...
But "Fear(s)" is a hypnotic cocktail, and its key liquor may be Frenchness -- some of the materials folded in have no sensible conclusion (the fear of "Tales from the Crypt" moralism is unavoidable), and some aren't stories at all. Some stand entire and alone,...
- 10/27/2009
- by Michael Atkinson
- ifc.com
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