Sorry for the wait, been feeling a bit under the weather. Got the sniffles and haven't been feeling up to typing at all.
Anyway, I watched this first Slender Man thing that I'll be reviewing. Now, to start things off, I think - no, I know prefer the video ones. Even the really bad ones are actually much more fun to read than the poorly-written drabble that seems to occupy most of the blogs. Anyway, let's get started on Tribe Twelve, in a piece-by-piece review; I watched it once, but that was before I got the sniffles. So I'll watch it again, bit-by-bit.
Introduction - In Memory of Milo Asher
Firstly, I keep thinking that "Milo Asher" is trying to be a pun, but the closest I get is "M. Asher", so I'm assuming that Milo's a man for potatoes. It's first derivative problem is that it starts with the same bloody white-on-black deal that Lost Your Marble Hornets did. The next derivative problem it has is that it involves a project of some sort that was cancelled. So, I'm presuming that the teacher started getting haunted by the Slender Feller, presumably due to some connection between the twelve tribes and it. And Masher seems to essentially be Alex with a name beginning with M, being bright and intelligent but "troubled." We can only hope it's by appendicitis, as opposed to Slenderitis. And I must say, I do like that path location. It reminds me of west Wales, except with less bestiality.
And after that, it just got boring. Look, something like this could have ended at the end of the path bit. There's no need to continue it except to bore people like me, who have better things to do. I paused the video and skipped through the rest of it by dragging the cursor, so I got all the text. If you'd put the text on-screen for a shorter amount of time, it would have halved the time and thus doubled the quality. Right, whatever.
Submission #1
Submission #1? Ugh. Stop taking derivative inspiration from Marbles? I GOT MARBLES! Hornets, if you could.
First up, black on white to begin. And can I just say that I am truly envious of Noah's beard/stache combo? I'd look like a twerp if I tried to pull that look off, but he looks cool doing it! Anyway, back to the video: the screen derivative tears up at the bottom of the screen. Something more subtle would have been better; maybe some subtle lighting change? Shortly after (0:31ish), we see a notebook; I am genuinely surprised that it isn't full of "SEES ME (X)" and shit like that. It's quite refreshing.
At 0:40, it looks like we get our first sighting of the Slender Feller, through the doorway. Or it could be a trick of the light, but that's unlikely. And then we say Masher, who looks significantly less cool, but also has a decent beard. After this, we get some distortion, then the camera turns itself off. And after that, we cut to the Operator Symbol, also known as the shittiest piece of overused tripe I have ever seen in a collaborated work; I wouldn't have minded if they'd said something about it, like "hey, you remember? X marks the spot?" You know, some justification for it's presence. And we get Masher coughing like a horse, which is quite amusing for all the wrong reasons. And after that, we see distortion followed by a deactivated camera.
Then we get to the distorted television (more screen tearing!) followed by some time spent looking at a black screen. And I think I might have to work on saying less about this, since three paragraphs per Submission? This might take a while.
Submission #2
Righto. It opens with some quite good dialogue. And then we get a shot of Noah's excellent beard once more, which is the highlight of the submission and after that, Masher seems to start speaking in bad script writing, which is less excellent.
And then we see the path from Introduction, which is cool. And then we see the tower, or should I say t(x)wer? Look Behind You (X) is another annoying one which should really go away. And it keeps appearing, so I'm assuming that the creators are horrible vandals. And then Masher realises that the fuzz are heading his way and sprints away, not knowing that Scotland Yard have hired a contractor. Bit on the tall side, probably. And then we get actually cool visual distortion, as the shades become dominated by crazy blackness, which looks quite effective to me. And like all prior distortion of significance, turns the camera off.
And we resume our journey back on the open path. And we get a lot of "maaan"s; I'd call it unrealistic, but I've heard a lot of people talk the way they do. Sub's boyfriend, for one. ALSO I THINK I UNDERSTAND THAT IT IS BORING. I GET IT. PLEASE STOP. And then we get distortion, followed by the camera turning off. Again. And after that, we see Masher fleeing from the fuzz again. And then we see the contractor on the path this time, revealing that he was behind them all along. Also: just why did Noah start holding his camera upside-down when he (presumably) begin running after Masher?
Submission #3
The first actual footage in this includes Noah's facial hair again. And we see Noah's toy cupboard, which includes Mickey Mouse and Pikachu, and is thus an impregnable defence against everything ever. And can I just say that I like the premise for this submission? The idea of walking around in a house, with only a flashlight is overdone, but still quite effective, since you know something bad is going to happen. Know. Let me just say I had my cursor on the Pause button at all times to ensure that any "OH SHIT" moments were paused mid-way to allow my ailing heart to go on?
After spending quite a bit of time at getting jumpy at small noises, Masher proceeds to start looking in a mirror again, before (for some idiotic reason) walking through the rest of Noah's house. Now, I might not be a character being stalked by Slendy, but unless I was really desperate for a pee and didn't have any bottles to hand, if I was in a friend's house, I would sure as hell not leave his room at night. Even just scouting around could be really, really bad for you, given his supposed reputation. Then again, that'd make for a boring video. Another thing that's bugging me is Noah's lack of a burglar alarm. I mean, my house has a burglar alarm on the ground floor; if there's any significant movement on the ground floor, it goes off. It's all a bit crude at times, but it'd be a damn sight useful against the Slender Feller, wouldn't it? I know Masher's in someone else's house, but it's just bugging me.
Anyway back to the video. Minor distortion sets in, so I presume He's nearby. We get some louder noises (personally, I would have had the video involving Masher being superquiet and stealthy, with him once or twice making some sounds which he instantly assumes are the Slender Man. Anyway, can I just say that in the first time watching, Masher's distorted cough made me jump out of my skin. It goes from quiet to volume in such a way that it was quite unsettling to me at first.
And it looks like he walked back into Noah's room at some point (toy cupboard!)... but he hasn't, so I must have been mistaken about the geometries (durp) so we see Masher look out through some windows quite unsubtly, before he moves a bit, sets the stuff in his hands down (why? He should have kept the torch in his hand, just in case) and promptly raids the medicine cabinet. After this, he picks the camera up, which loses sight for a few seconds. He starts looking at windows, before turning around suddenly; he looks back out of them, and catches distortion. Once I heard the first bit of it, I rammed the volume down, since I knew it'd be pretty bad. Anyway, he starts (ignoring all stealth) running, presumably to run away from a contractor in the window, before he goes into Noah's room again, looks at Noah, turns around and sees a familiar suit and tie.
That's right. It was a lawyer.
Anyway, it's 2AM at the moment and boy am I tired! I'll be typing up some more tomorrow (hopefully), so stay tuned!
