Embedbugs: A Video Collection

Today we're going to take a movie break. But don't get too comfortable. This ain't your father's movie break. Decon and I got some weird ass shit. That'll make you pee your pants and make your eyeballs barf. ....or something.

(Click image to go to the site)

Dio: Of the same ilk of those infamously cheesy safety videos, Shake Hands With Danger takes it one step farther by showing the hilarious, but frightening side of worker error (remember! its the worker at fault if they die in a wood chipper, not the company!). Directed by Carnival of Souls director Herk Harvey, this isn't your father's safety video....or actually...it IS. Its just not quite yours. And don't think this is all just gore and cheese; this film was well made, and well-received by many, winning awards, and with a great song written for it (with a Johnny Cash sound-alive to boot).

As one commenter said while watching a Rifftrax version of the film: "Damn, Harry did a reach around on Danger!" It doesn't get much better than this. If you think you've seen it all when it comes to safety videos (and I know I have seen a LOT), think again!

"Remember, if you lose both hands, you don't have to worry about shaking hands with danger after that."

Decon: Claymation itself has an ability to be very disturbing when utilized in the right way, from the way the characters are formed using it, to the way they move. It being a Claymation segment isn't the sole factor for it's disturbing nature; it's the design of Satan, the way his face morphs and quivers as he talks, the fact his voice never changes tone, the effects applied to the voice actor's lines, the fact that instead playing of an overly bombastic orchestral song during the 'storm' segment, they play a relativly subdued piece that combines orchestral and electronic elements, the way that all sound but the music eventually drops out during the final moments of the storm, and perhapes the most disturbing thing, is that some of the points Satan makes, from a nihilistic, cynical view, are actually right.

The dialouge isn't just flowery, nonsensical philosophy copied wholesale from 'Philisophical Musings In Dialouge for Hacks & Chumps™' (if we pretend for a minute that that book actually exists, and isn't just an invention of a mad-lib); it has a point to it. Kids will be scared by how Satan looks. Adults will be scared by the sheer nihilistic display of the dialogue when they come back to the film it's from during a fit of nostalgia (and also how Satan looks, because JESUS FUCK THAT BASTARD IS HORRIFYING TO LOOK AT).

Dio: As we all know, I'm a huge MST3K fan, and while I do find Rifftrax amusing and well done, there's something about Cinematic Titanic I like better. Its probably because they still pick lousy, period piece movies (whereas RT is all over the board, but mostly with new releases), and the fact they have a larger panel. That and their theme song is so fucking BOSS.

And the fact I have a huge hard-on for Joel. But that's besides the point.

This promo is for my second favorite CT, Blood of the Vampires, a phillipino cast, mexico shot vampire flick about a cursed family with lurid bright clothes, giallo shots (no, that's not a drink shot), and plenty of awkward dubbing. I chose this because it was my 2nd CT (my first being the very racially bent East Meets Watts), and because the promo ends with the best stinger: "I've got a hickey....FROM MY MOM!!!!! D8>"

Here's another clip from another episode The Alien Factor, which comes from a live show. I heartily recommend this and other episodes. Support the gang at CT by Blood of the Vampires, and others!

Decon: "Disturbing" is a term that isn't exactly a stranger to the Silent Hill series. It's basically the word that Silent Hill was founded on. (That, and the word "Gyromancy".)

But the video I've picked isn't of one of the brutal scenes with Pyramid Head, as you may expect, and nor is it a video of someone interacting with that gaint, partially rotted version of Eileen's head (although that was pretty fucking weird looking). No, the video I've picked is a promotional video released around about the same time as Silent Hill 3 was, I think. And what does this video feature?

It features music that's halfway between Akira Yamaoka's Silent Hill output and his Bemani contributions, and fuckloads of Robbie The Rabbit. And really, that's why I went with this video more then any other I could've picked from the Silent Hill series. And I admit a video of the Borley Haunted Mansion was considered.

This video is beautiful in it's simplicity. The only sound is the background music. The visuals feature the familiar blood-splattered visage of Silent Hill's theme park's mascot, Robbie The Rabbit--multiple Robbie's actually--wheeling around hospital equipment, or unmoving (and thus preasumed "dead") Robbie's in a staple location of the series; an Otherworld hospital covered in rust, grime, and blood. There are many times where there are effects applied to the heads of the Robbies, making them quiver and jerk an an arhythmic manner, and the camera switches between being static, to shaking slightly with the movements, to grand sweeping motions that'd make any film school teacher proud, all finished off with a final cat scare- an elevator full of the fuckers and blaring air raid sirens over the BGM.

And the result is unbelievably unerving, almost entirely for the unsettling (if upbeat in tempo), and the pure, simple visuals of the Robbies moving. Because come on, when we played Silent Hill 3 and saw that bastard hanging off of that bench, we all fucking knew there was more to the crafty bastard then he was letting on, and now we know! ...Er, well, sort of. We know there's more then one and they like to wheel each other around. But damned if not knowing their true motive makes it even more unsettling. What the hell are those floppy eared bastards planing?!

Dio: I apologize for the quality, since...well, you know video policies. This is a favorite Regular Show episode, in which Mordecai and Rigby, trying to win a paid day off by suggesting a way to make some money for the park. They decide on a "scary movie night" at the park's cemetery (>>?!), and so with a foreign 3D horror movie in hand, and an overly complicated video projector, the boys set up. Only, like Regular Show's usual fare, things don't go as smoothly.

....Though Libraria sounded...kinda cool. XD

What's great about RS is that its like its tagline: "Its anything but." RS has that ability to take the mundane things or situations of the world and not only bring them to life (who hasn't had problems with getting a refund, or had a [bad] song stuck in their head?), but also blow them out of proportion. But then, that's real too. What is a tiny little problem or non-issue for one, is the world for someone else.

Even killing zombies. Or getting back the body that quit you.

Decon: And because I'm under strict instructions not to write another goddamned essay on a video upon fear of being smacked around with a lawn chair, here's a guy rapping about Street Fighter, spitting bars over a beat that makes early-2000s Dizzee Rascal's output sound like fucking Chopin. Appalling lyrics and a video full of effects right out of the 90s definately make this the most horrifying video in this article, bar none.

...

Well, I thought it was disturbing.

A good video to end on. I think.

--Dio & Decon (10/17/11)