'Fear(s) of the Dark' review

(Credit: Blutch/Prima Linea)

Short and shorter animated segments depict people—often consumed by their own dreams—confronting various fears including bugs, beasts, angry dogs and undead samurais. Occasionally, a voice expresses other fears, such as becoming politically ignorant or looking down on people who are different.

The buzz: The mostly black-and-white French film is written and directed by noted cartoonists and graphic artists Charles Burns, Marie Caillou, Blutch, Richard McGuire, Lorenzo Mattotti and Pierre Di Sciullo. Still, several of the segments look pretty similar and can’t hold a candle to the black-and-white grace of last year's “Persepolis.”

The verdict: The animation is occasionally effective, particularly when people and their sense of security are lost in the shadows. But these mini-episodes are neither fresh nor twisted and wouldn’t even work as ghost stories, when at least your imagination can guide you towards something terrifying. Rather, these nightmares will just put you to sleep, with jagged transitions between segments that do put you on edge—but only in the annoyed, non-scared sense of the term.

Did you know? Based on the film’s story about the samurai, apparently there’s a community in Japan that all speaks French. Interesting.

Movie Trailer: