80's Foreign Horror Shorts Part One

FISHEYE
(1980)
Dir - Joško Marušić
Overall: GOOD

A noteworthy short from famed Croatian animator Joško Marušić, Fisheye, (Riblje oko), is less than ten minutes, dialog-less, and rather to the point.  Its simplicity in look and structure is due to Marušić being part of the Zagreb School of Animation which is meant to more heavily emphasize style through its limitations.  This works well here where the lack of anatomically realistic bodies appear more blobby than anything.  The humans have tiny heads with too many lines in their faces and the rest of them often seems massive in comparison, while the fish all vary in size depending on how menacing they are meant to appear.  Utilizing a small array of colors, (mostly diluted greens, greys, and blues), the tiny fishing village is void of detail which helps make it both otherworldly and relatable as it could be happening virtually anywhere.  If any humor is indeed present, it is dark enough to not notice, but still expressively done.

THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER
(1982)
Dir - Jan Svankmajer
Overall: MEH

Czech surrealist stop-motion animator and filmmaker Jan Svankmajer's vast filmography includes more than one foray into horror and this adaptation of The Fall of the House of Usher from the genre's most celebrated writer Edgar Alan Poe certainly qualifies.  Featuring no on-screen actors, (only the narration of Petr Cepek), and deliberately grainy black and white photography, Zánik domu Usherú, (its original title), is a fairly interesting experience though not necessarily the most ideal one for the famous source material.  Not that yet another adaptation of Poe's story need be made in a conventional sense, but most of the images in this fifteen-minute long interpretation seem unrelated to the actual story and are just kind of there to put something on screen besides any actual people.  It works better when the narration does jive perfectly with the visuals, but elsewhere it is rather avant-garde for the sake of it and kind of distracting to follow the voice-over along with it.

THE PHANTOM OF REGULAR SIZE
(1986)
Dir - Shin'ya Tsukamoto
Overall: MEH

Some things are difficult to understand.  While Futsû saizu no kaijin, (The Phantom of Regular Size), was not the first short or otherwise-lengthed film from Shin'ya Tsukamoto, it was the precursor to his most famous work Tetsuo: The Iron Man.  Shot on 8 mm film and primitive in all of its technical details, this is essentially the exact same movie as Tetsuo, (down to even featuring the same lead actor Tomorô Taguchi), except mercifully condensed to a mere eighteen minutes.  Hyper-fast, utterly nonsensical, poorly photographed, and above all else boring, it wastes no time in being a waste of time.  Tsukamoto is well-respected in bizarro-world cinema, but his scatterbrained, bizarre, steampunk vision simply can easily go right over one's head.  Being so identically styled as Tetsuo whose appeal is likewise tricky to wrap one's head around, this one here is equally for an acquired taste.

THE LAST THEFT
(1987)
Dir - Jiří Barta
Overall: GOOD

Another project from a prominent Czech animator, The Last Thefis is in fact the only live action film from Jiří Barta.  Equal parts Gothic horror and silent film with a macabre twist right out of EC comics and some of the most atmospheric creepy mansion/creepy cemetery cinematography you are likely to see anywhere, The Last Theft has no need for dialog as the story makes its protagonist a caricature of cartoonish greed; one whose intentions are crystal clear via the wonderfully stylish way that Barta portrays everything.  Primarily black and white with various color tints used throughout, (most of which give clues as to the emotional state of who is on screen as well as the significance of what objects are on screen), parts of the film are slowed down or sped up.  This helps emphasize the strange setting which is both still like an old photograph and alive in only a ghostly fashion all at once.  The film is also rather consistently amusing, intentionally so as the fate of our chubby, mustached thief can really only end up one way.  Once the audience is let in on the spooky joke, it is a successful one to say the least.