Fear(s) Of The Dark = strange, yet kinda hypnotizing

Ever the loyal, passionate, borderline-OCD genre film head, I trekked into the Village earlier to catch Fear(s) of the Dark, which is only playing at the overpriced-but-still-charming IFC Center theater. One of my favorite venues to see movies, namely because it has this seedy, dingy, sort-of-decrepit feel and it screens some truly bizarre movies, viewing experiences that further heighten the strangeness. It's a trip.



Sidenote---seeing David Lynch's Inland Empire at the IFC Center a couple years back was seriously one of the most surreal moments, like ever. In my now-nearly-27 years of existence. Three hours of incoherent, creepy head-fucking, in a theater that resembled the one seen in Lynch's mind-scrambling masterwork Mulholland Drive. I left that shit with my brain fried, stumbling down West 4th Street and into the PATH train in a potent daze. Cars drove backwards, people stared at me, the air tightened and lessened. I was an ant crawling through a drug-like wasteland. All because Inland Empire and the IFC Center plowed my psyche in a cinematic three-way....me being the submissive bottom bitch.

But back to Fear(s) of the Dark....from France (shocker, huh, that I'm a fan of a new French genre joint....Freedom Fries, kiss my left asscheek). Animated, but not in some cookie-cutter Pixar style. No, this is like sketches from a supernatural, unhinged artist. Black-and-white shades, shadows upon shadows. Pretty unsettling, at times.

Five stories are intertwined, each distinctive in approach and animation style. There's this weird opener that splices in between the remaining four entries, with a warlock-like dude who resembles that V For Vendetta mask-guy, walking four growling, hungry, murderous dogs, each pooch breaking off its leash and ripping some poor unsuspecting victim's limbs apart. Then there's a kinda-brilliant entry about a shy college kid who falls for a hot girl, only to find out she's been taken-over by some species of praying mantis that festers in human bodies, hibernating, waiting for the right time to strike. Next, a young Chinese girl slowly loses her mind as she keeps hearing tales of an ancient, bloodthirsty samurai who may in fact be hanging around, ghost-wise. The fourth is told from a man who, as a child, lived in a village where residents would frequently vanish, possibly abducted by a mysterious creature living in the woods. And finally, a silent-film-styled haunted house tale, with a wanderer seeking solace in a deserted cabin that harbors some homicidal history.

[Trailer]


Fear(s) is pure theater-going fun. Not sure this flick will play nearly as well on a television screen, so for that I'm glad I took my ass into the city tonight for it. Locked in a room, lights turned out, a giant screen before your eyes. Fear(s) is something you have to fully give in to, concept and all. Realize that, for the next 82 minutes, you're entering a world where all rules and original perceptions are nil.

When it's hitting the mark, Fear(s) is skin-tickling creepy. The best portions are the one with the praying mantis girl and the haunted house one. Charles Burns, the genius artist/wriet behind my all-time favorite graphic novel (sorry Watchmen, you're a close second) Black Hole, is the creative force for the mantis tale, and it looks exactly like Black Hole, which is fucking great. All black-and-white, like fully-realized stick figures. Animation aside, though, the mood he captures is pure moutnign dread. You know the shy kid, Eric, is doomed, but you can't put your finger on how, or why. And when his girl starts turning psycho-hose-beast, I cringed a bit. It's intense, and has one hell of a payoff.



The haunted house closer is equally superb. The lights are off in the cabin, so our protagonist tip-toes around the premises with only a candle and a lighter for illumination sources. He finds an old photo album, one that brought to mind those scary-ass "dead" photos from The Others. And when the knife-wielding ghost makes her background debut, some people in the audience with me screamed and vocally shrieked. So Fear(s) scored, there.



Fear(s) has its problems, specifically during the monster-in-the-woods section, which has one genuine "Oh shit!" jump scare but ultimately goes nowhere. And this narration that segways into each new story gets a tad repetitive---a girl voicing her own personal fears, flip-flopping between intriguing notions and pretentious blabbering bullshit. And a couple of the stories falter in the end, too, suffering from the Saturday Night Live/M. Night Shyamalan curse of we-can't-end-this-shit-to-save-our-lives. Or, in simpler terms, an ending that blows, tarnishing all that came before.

Consider me a Fear(s) head, still, though. It's a slickly macabre, innovative creepshow. Good shit, good shit.