Fear(s) of the Dark

Plot

There are five stories:

1. Throughout the film are a series of two-dimensional computer animation intervals, written and directed by Pierre di Sciullo. In these intervals, the disembodied voice of a woman is heard; she express her fears through a monologue, making confessions from trivial anxiety, grotesque nightmares, to crippling sadness.
2. The first story is a traditional animation written and directed by Blutch. It focuses on a sinister old man and his four vicious dogs, whom he restrains on leashes, as they trek through the countryside; one by one, the man releases each dog on a victim.
3. The second story is a three-dimensional computer animation written and directed by Charles Burns. It focuses on an intelligent introvert, who has an immense interest in insects. In his adolescence, he captures a mysterious human-shaped beetle; it escapes, and yet the boy seems haunted by it. Come maturity, the boy becomes infatuated with a woman; he invites her to his house one night, whereupon she seems to develop an obsession with him after waking up with a deep gash on her arm the next morning.
4. The third story is a two-dimensional anime animation written by Romain Slocombe and directed by Marie Caillou. It focuses on a meek girl living in rural Japan who is receiving clinical treatment for nightmares, her doctor being a scientist who sedates her to experience these nightmares again. In her nightmares, she is bullied by her sadistic classmates, and is also haunted by the ghost of a samurai.
5. The fourth story is a traditional animation directed by Lorenzo Mattotti. It focuses on a young boy living in rural France. Having lost his uncle in a poaching trip, the boy confides in his friend, a mysterious orphan, who claims that the uncle could have been "mauled" by a beast from the sky. The friend disappears later on, and a professional ranger is hired to hunt down the alleged beast. A massive crocodile from the swamps is killed and displayed in the church, but the boy is haunted by shadows of his orphan friend.
6. The fifth story is directed by Richard McGuire. The story focuses on a burly mustached man finding refuge against a blizzard in a pitch-black abandoned house. As he settles in, paranoia and dark forces begin to creep in around the man's fear. He uncovers a photo album of a woman, possibly the mistress of the house, who seemed to have a tendency to "cut" people out of her life.