Editorials
French Anthology ‘Dark Stories’ Is a Gallery of Finely Curated Terror Tales [Horrors Elsewhere]
The bilingual French horror anthology series Dark Stories premiered on Halloween in 2019 before it was eventually reassembled as a full-length feature. Even though it was intended for the small screen, the better-than-average production values make for an easier transition. Also, no individual part of the source material exceeds the 20-minute mark, so the sub-stories are easy to get through. First, though, is the prerequisite framing device that feels straight out of Tales from the Darkside: The Movie. In “The Bloody Doll”, a mother named Christine (Kristanna Loken) is held captive by the wraparound’s ravenous namesake, who only holds off on eating so his prey can entertain him.
Christine’s first means of distraction is a monster outing called “Feast of the Ghouls”. This segment is set inside an art gallery, which becomes the battleground between a curator and a security guard (Delphine Chanéac, Julien Pestel), and a pair of painted ghouls who have escaped the canvas and taken the mother’s son (Noham Moeenuddeen). The monsters are no more menacing than a good Scooby Doo villain, but they do possess an eeriness all thanks to visual effects giving them the semblance of living ink.
The next chapter, “The Park”, finds a jogger fighting for her life. After meeting a flirty American (John Robinson) while out for a run, Sophie (Dorylia Calmel) wakes up alone in the same park later that night. She is then bombarded by a series of supernatural occurrences, including a lurching man whose head is covered in a plastic bag. This story pipes in the atmospheric frights as well as creates a good deal of unease in such a short time.
Christine shares another tale to keep the doll occupied and away from her sleeping son. “Dead But Alive” starts off with Franck (Sébastien Lalanne) waking up after his own autopsy. A coroner, Marcus (Loup-Denis Elion), helps Franck collect both his bearings and his innards before sending him on his way. From there the story becomes a one-man mission; Franck races to save his family from some gangster types. Nothing here satiates Christine’s captor; he prefers to hear about actual monsters and not reanimated corpses. Viewers, however, will find more to like in this productive blend of action, comedy, and body horror.
Christine submits to the doll’s demand for more monsters and tells him about a woman haunted by a demon. In “Boughtat”, Audrey (Tiphaine Daviot) returns to Paris after spending time in North Africa. She suspects a supernatural entity, a jinn, is now following her, but her friend Samir (Slimane-Baptiste Berhoun) is skeptical until the evidence is indisputable. This segment is heads above the others in terms of substantial frights, although the most successful scares here are the ones hidden in plain sight.
The penultimate vignette is easily the most bizarre of the pack. “The Last Judgment” concerns a reporter and a camera operator from the city, respectively Carrie and Damien (Michelle Ryan, Florent Dorin), who visit an interviewee out in the countryside. Jean-Luc (Dominique Pinon) claims to have encountered aliens, but his family is divided on the matter. Meanwhile, more than Carrie’s journalistic ethics are at risk when she gets too close to the story and the subject. The anthology saves this oddball for last, and the choice pays off in spades. Colorful characters, high stakes, and impressive visuals all increase the value of this extraterrestrial entry.
Loken’s character has done an admirable job of keeping the doll’s attention so far, but with the sun coming up, and her well of creativity running dry, Christine has to come up with another plan. Or, has she already figured a way out of this situation? The frame narrative in any horror anthology has no obligation to those on either side of the stories; both the host and listener are equally susceptible to grisly fate as soon as the storytelling ends. Where this one ends up, though, is a bloody surprise.
Not all is perfect in Dark Stories. Almost half of the presented offerings commit an offense too common these days in newer horror anthologies; the tales abruptly end on only a grim note. Being so concise to begin with means there is little room for anything after the ample buildup. “Dead But Alive” and “The Last Judgment” resolve themselves more cleanly than others, whereas the rest have more to tell before they are cut short. These curtailed conclusions keep an air of mystery, and for some that is fine and possibly preferred, but others will be annoyed at this recurring resort to open-endedness.
Dark Stories admittedly never exceeds or subverts the audience’s expectations, but enjoyment can also be found in the familiar. Directors Guillaume Lubrano and François Descraques put their stamp on popular tropes and twists, and they occasionally pay homage to horror of yesteryear. From Darkman to Insidious, this anthology shows visible appreciation of everything great about the genre.
At a quick glance, French horror movie Dark Stories seems like another drop in the bucket of low-end horror anthologies all stitched together from various sources. While a series of TV episodes are indeed the main ingredients of this 2021 release, the repackaging job exceeds expectations. The series of the same name slipped under radars back in 2019, but this handy compilation now gives everyone access to a solid and diverse collection of creep tales.
Horrors Elsewhere is a recurring column that spotlights a variety of movies from all around the globe, particularly those not from the United States. Fears may not be universal, but one thing is for sure — a scream is understood, always and everywhere.
Editorials
Before ‘The Odyssey’ There Was ‘Jason and the Argonauts’ and Ray Harryhausen’s Legendary Monsters
Greek mythology is the talk of the town, or at least of the internet at the moment, and with good reason. Christopher Nolan’s retelling of Homer’s The Odyssey opened this weekend in theaters and, as of this writing, is on track to rake in $120 million in the U.S. and $250 million worldwide.
That’s quite a feat for an R-rated sword and sandal epic based on a story that was first put to papyrus over 3,000 years ago. Of course, mythology has been a film standard practically since the beginning of the medium and has proven to be fertile ground for storytellers. One of the great tellers of these tales is not a writer or director but an innovative special effects master and producer, Ray Harryhausen, and among his greatest achievements is Jason and the Argonauts (1963).
The story of Jason and the quest for the golden fleece predates the Homeric period by a generation or two, and there are certainly similarities to the later works, specifically The Odyssey. Both are seafaring adventures captained by men of both strength and wit. Their crews are filled with colorful characters as well, including Hercules and Argos in the Jason tales and Eurylochus and Polites among Odysseus’s men. Both encounter the beautiful and bizarre on their journeys. The major differences are in tone and theme. The Odyssey is a more contemplative piece about men of war finding it is practically impossible to truly return home.
Jason and the Argonauts, especially in the hands of Harryhausen, producer Charles H. Schneer, director Don Chaffey, and writers Beverly Cross and Jan Read, is a tale of adventure, romance, betrayal, gods, and perhaps above all—monsters.
Strictly speaking, nearly all the Harryhausen films are fantasy films, but all are filled with some of the most incredible monster creations in all of cinema. Telling mythological stories was a way of making monster movies that parents would not object to their children seeing. That whiff of the movie-going experience being educational gave him license to bring to life dozens of indelible creations, starting with The 7th Voyage of Sinbad in 1958 all the way to Clash of the Titans in 1981. So, rather than spoil the story of Jason and the Argonauts, I will be focusing on its main attraction, its unforgettable monstrosities.
Talos: The Bronze Giant That Changed Movie Monsters
After Jason (Todd Armstrong) and his crew set off on their quest aboard the Argo, they quickly find themselves running out of food and water. Calling upon the help of his protector Hera, Queen of the Gods (Honor Blackman), Jason is guided to the Island of Bronze but warned not to take anything from the island but food and water. While chasing a herd of goats, unlikely pals Hercules (Nigel Green) and Hylas (John Cairney) discover the gargantuan bronze statues of the gods and Titans created by the long-departed Hephaestus.
In the base of the statue of Talos, they discover the treasure trove of the gods, and Hercules decides to take a giant golden needle that he intends to use as a javelin. Of course, this awakens Talos, who pursues them back to the Argo.
Talos was one of Harryhausen’s favorite creations, and he reveled in giving life to the stiff movements of the man of bronze. In one sequence, Talos blocks the narrow waterway that is the only means of escape and plucks the Argo out of the sea as though it were a toy, shaking the crew overboard and breaking the mast in two. Jason once again asks Hera for help, and she advises him to “look to the ankles” of the statue. He spots a kind of hatch on the heel of the giant and, after much struggle, removes it, releasing a flow of steaming liquid that is apparently the driving force of Talos, who weakens, cracks, and falls to the beach, breaking into pieces.
Echoes of this scene can be found in all kinds of stories from Achilles’ heel to the small vulnerable spot on Smaug’s belly in The Hobbit, to tangling the legs of the Imperial AT-AT’s in The Empire Strikes Back. Even the Death Star has a touch of Talos to it.
Harryhausen’s Harpies and Hydra Bring Ancient Myth to Life
Next, the Argonauts encounter the old man Phineas, played by Patrick Troughton of Dr. Who (he played the Second Doctor) and The Omen (1976) fame. As punishment for sins that go unnamed in the film, Zeus torments Phineas day and night with harpies who steal his food and leave him only scraps.
The harpies are flying, blue, rather demonic-looking creatures complete with bat wings and horns. They look something like living gargoyles and are masterworks by Harryhausen. The crew lures them into the ruins of a temple and covers the entire structure with a net before releasing the top and snaring the harpies. The stop-motion work in this sequence is some of the best Harryhausen ever created and is seamlessly placed into frame with the live-action elements, as was among Harryhausen’s greatest strengths.
The special effects of the film use every tool available at the time, as demonstrated by the next major effects sequence, “the clashing rocks.” The sequence utilizes stop motion, miniatures, rear projection, location and stage work with the actors all blended together, sometimes into a single shot. The clashing rocks are more-or-less a rock slide, but combined with the destruction of a different ship that tries to make passage between the rocks and the knowledge that Hera is now forbidden to interfere with Jason’s fate, real stakes are afforded to the scene. Hera pulls a fast one on Zeus (Niall MacGinnis), however, which allows Triton, king of the Mer-people, to rise from the sea and stabilize the rocks, giving the Argo safe passage.
The crew then rescues Medea (Nancy Kovack) and heads to their final destination, Colchis at the end of the world, where Jason and the Argonauts are welcomed by King Aeetes (Jack Gwillim). Eventually, after a betrayal and turn of events, Jason finds the golden fleece, which is guarded by another great Harryhausen monster, the Hydra, a multi-headed serpent. The most famous aspect of the Hydra, growing back two heads for every one cut off, is not depicted here, but the sequence is still harrowing.
Jason fights the dragon with his sword and at one point is wrapped in its tail, depicting Harryhausen’s love of intercutting and interrelating his stop-motion creations with actors and other live-action elements. The sequence also demonstrates that the artistry of Harryhausen and the craftspeople in his workshop was not limited to fantasy creatures; they were also masters of recreating believable human figures.
Why Harryhausen’s Monsters Still Feel Alive
Perhaps the most famous Harryhausen creation, the one that has had the greatest lasting influence, is what is called in the film the “children of the hydra’s teeth” and the “children of the night” by Aeetes, who calls on the goddess of darkness Hecate to bring them to him. Fire rains down from the sky and reduces the hydra to a skeleton. Aeetes orders his men to gather its teeth, which he collects in a helmet and, cornering Jason and his men, sows on the ground like seeds. Reanimated skeletons of dead soldiers rise up out of the ground and attack the Argonauts in what is certainly one of the most iconic sequences in all of fantasy cinema.
It is an expansion of a similar scene in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad in which the fearless sailor fights a single skeleton, but this time there are more than half a dozen reanimated warriors complete with the famous “Harryhausen brow,” in which the empty eye sockets are given a sinister frown. Even today, the sequence is thrilling. Though our technology has given us tools that look more realistic, there is a magic in stop-motion that remains unmatched despite all our advances in CGI.
This sequence has directly influenced many movies over the years, but for the horror crowd, the clearest examples are Freddy’s skeleton fighting Donald Thompson (John Saxon) in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) and the deadite army in Army of Darkness (1992). The animators even included the slouch of the “children of the hydra’s teeth” in the Nightmare 3 scene, and Sam Raimi insisted the Army of Darkness skeletons all have the Harryhausen brow.
Beyond these films, Harryhausen’s work has had a massive influence on horror, fantasy, and science fiction films for decades, while also making an indelible mark on popular culture at large. Among his acolytes are stop motion genius Phil Tippett, and filmmakers including Joe Dante, Guillermo del Toro, Peter Jackson, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, John Milius, Don Coscarelli, and many others. The fingerprints of Harryhausen can in many ways be seen even in Nolan’s The Odyssey, which relies on tricks from throughout film history rather than only more recent innovations like CGI.
Above all, Harryhausen was a storyteller who sought to make audiences fall in love with the great adventure stories that have been with us for thousands of years. These stories speak to the heart of our humanity in ways that will always feel fresh when told in innovative ways. Harryhausen also always had in him the true joy of creation. Bringing his monsters to life was a long, sometimes tedious, process, but Harryhausen clearly understood that all that time and attention to detail would imbue every creation with humanity that cannot be replicated by taking the easy way around.
Despite the limitations of budget, star power, and other resources that his films often lacked, that love of storytelling always shone through. Perhaps that is why his creations endure along with the kinds of ancient stories he so loved to tell.
At their heart, they are one thing above all—deeply and undeniably human.
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