Dark Tales – review

Directors: Jason Figgis & Lomai (segments)

Release date: 2017

Contains spoilers

Yet another anthology film that stitches together disparate shorts. It isn’t quite a portmanteau – there is a conceit that the films were the last viewing before a suicide, an intimation that the films caused the act, but it is given in intertitles and not expanded on. The vampire segments are the first two.

First up is Friends Forever and I can’t understand why director Jason Figgis is so intent on mutilating his film the Ecstasy of Isabel Mann by cutting it into shorts.

Previously we have seen a section turn up in 60 Seconds to Di3. Friends Forever takes another section of the film – Isabel (Ellen Mullen), covered in blood and accidentally killing a friend before an initial interview with a garda inspector. In the feature it is a pivotal point, in this it is meaningless to a viewer who hasn’t seen the original film. The viewer doesn’t know why she is covered in blood, nor who the various missing are. It doesn’t sell the actual film, which deserves to be seen. It isn’t the best opening to this anthology due to it feeling like an unexplained moment suspended in celluloid.

being bled

It is followed by B is for Bath – interesting in what it examines implicitly, it is a take of the Báthory legend. There is a man (Joseph Cranford) and a woman (Adria Dawn) in a room. It becomes readily apparent that she is a star and he a fan. As he lies on a medical bed he wonders how many it takes – normally three, sometimes two she confides. He is the third that day, therefore the last, She cuts a small entry hole in his neck with a scalpel and fixes a tube – his lack of fightback indicates he is happy to do this. His blood is siphoned into a bath – which she then gets in.

Báthory moment

The Báthory aspect is obvious, she is thankful for the sacrifice of those who maintain her but in some respects this is all about devoted fanhood – and had this been part of a longer piece that may have been a fascinating exploration. Unfortunately, it is actually a very short section that looks stylistically interesting (though the red of the blood is very fake) and as a standalone piece difficult to offer a high score to (one of the reasons that I dislike scoring shorts generally is because the raison d'être is often very different to a feature). However, I feel compelled to offer a score for the anthology based only on the vampire segments. B is for Bath is interesting but contains little narrative (it is more peaceful and certainly consensual but not as well done as the much more violent Báthory moment in Hostel: Part 2, for instance), the excerpt before it suffers for being orphaned – 3.5 out of 10 reflects the interesting fanhood aspect of the second short but also reflects that it deserved more exploration when included in a feature, plus the frustration with the first 'short'.

The imdb page is here.