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Fear(s) of the Dark

Competent but uninspired French animation

By GERALD PEARY | October 28, 2008

1.5 Stars

French animation burst onto the international scene in 1993 with the masterly The Triplets of Belleville. It’s regressed and retreated with the dull, often incoherent, Peur(s) du noir, an anthology of “scary” short works by a half-dozen Gallic visual artists. The animation, all in black-and-white, is competent but uninspired, more suited to a graphic comic book than to cinema. Of the stories we’re offered, the best is a mean little sketch of a psychotic old man roaming the countryside with a pack of wild dogs on a leash. There’s also — and this is all that’s worthy, folks — an eerie tale of a young student whose first girlfriend transforms from loving and loyal into a bullying, possessive succubus. French | 85 minutes | Kendall Square

Related: Four-star rebuttal, Days and Clouds, Breakfast With Scot, More

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