Spooky Sunday: Fear(s) of the Dark (2007) & Lemon Mousse
An animated horror and a smooth dessert, both from France
It’s been an interesting challenge each Sunday to think of films that strike the ideal “cozy/scary” balance that Spooky Sunday requires. And today’s entry is an unusual one. It’s an animated French anthology film titled Peur(s) du Noir (subsequently released in the US as Fear(s) of the Dark) with segments directed by Christian "Blutch" Hincker, Charles Burns, Marie Caillou, Pierre di Sciullo, Lorenzo Mattotti and Richard McGuire, and written by Jerry Kramsky, Michel Pirus, Romain Slocombe, Christian "Blutch" Hincker, Charles Burns and Pierre di Sciullo.
What It’s About
Tied together by an abstract animation narrated by a nameless woman who describes her fears, from the mundane to the surreal, the segments include stories about:
-A wicked old marquis stalking the countryside with his murderous dogs who he unleashes on innocent peasants.
-A student with a passion for entomology who becomes the object of affection for an increasingly aggressive and mysterious woman.
-A shy school-girl besieged by nightmares is menaced by Japanese yokai and possessed by the ghost of a murderous samurai.
-A man reflects on a childhood memory of the summer he spent in the country, and befriended a rural orphan boy, who might also have been a deadly beast.
-A traveler stranded by the snow breaks into a seemingly abandoned home, hoping to ride out the storm there…only to find he’s not alone.
Who’s Good In It
The VO performances all strike an appropriately chord, though Arthur H who voices the narrator of the fourth segment stands out. His deep, tired timbre elevates the sparse story into something truly haunting, like a yarn you’d hear from a stranger late at night in a tavern somewhere in the French countryside.
Scene With The Best Cozy Vibe/Scene That Will Spook Your Whole Ass Off
This week, we have a special DOUBLE winner. The fifth and final segment gives both cozy and spooky in equal supply. Animated in a simpler, cleaner style than the rest of the film’s installments, this story, written, designed and directed by famed New Yorker cartoonist, Richard McGuire, capitalizes on its stark whites and inky blacks.
Set in a whiteout snowstorm, our protagonist begins as tiny white dot in a blindingly white landscape, only to end up swallowed up by darkness in a home he expected to be his refuge.
The sound design here is particularly excellent, and bundles up the entire segment in a certain “cooped up on a snow day” texture with its howling gales, crackling fires and creaking floorboards.
But by the time a discarded photo album reveals that this house once belonged to an unhappy homemaker with a nasty habit for beheading living things, prepare to hold your breath from there on out.
Spare Thoughts:
There’s something so refreshing and accessible about animated horror that makes me curious why it hasn’t found more of a foothold as a pop culture mainstay in the US. There’s an overly sleek polish to so much of America’s computer animated features, that doesn’t lend itself to genuine scares. There’s also been much discourse on the use of CGI in modern horror and how filmmakers’ over-reliance on it has cheapened its impact. Perhaps that’s why watching Fear(s) of The Dark feels so instantly new and engaging. With a shift in medium, the rules suddenly change and I’m no longer thinking about what looks real and what doesn’t. Instead there’s only the story and the pictures on-screen. A return to the earliest type of cinema.
From segment to segment, you’ll quickly find which art style is most conducive to frightening you. Perhaps yours and mine are different. I find the hand-drawn imperfections of the 2nd and 4th segments to be so evocative and unsettling. The unclear lines, the smudges, the shadows. They all seem like something half-dreamed, or half-nightmared, as the case may be.
It makes me want to look into what’s been going on in horror animation since the film’s release, both here in the states and abroad. I look forward to sharing what I find.
Lemon Mousse
Ingredients
-1 14 1/2 oz can sweetened condensed milk
-2 TB lemon zest (more or less to taste)
-1/2-1 cup lemon juice (to taste)
-Splash of vanilla
-1-2 TB orange liqueur (Grand Marnier, Cointreu, Triple Sec), optional
-2 cups heavy cream, whipped to soft
Instructions
Add the can of condensed milk to a medium mixing bowl. Add in the lemon zest and juice, the vanilla, and the liqueur (if using), and stir to mix well.
Add the heavy cream to a large bowl (or the bowl of a stand mixer if using a stand mixer), and whip to soft peaks.
Add the condensed milk mixture to the whipped cream, then fold/mix gently until no white streaks remain.
Transfer the mixture to a serving bowl or individual dessert bowls, then cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours, though overnight is better. Best enjoyed in black & white with subtitles.