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Creepy pastas are wonderful, amazing, terrible, unintelligible, mesmerizing little vignettes of wordsmiths the world over that are, in some ways, unique to the internet. You could argue that playground horror stories about that totes haunted Victorian up at the end of Kings Road where some girl got TOTALLY LIKE MURDERED BY FREDDY KRUGER AND SCREAM are fairly similar, but even the most dreadful of Creepy pastas adhere to some warped form of logic and don’t tend to rely on pop culture above the age group of the audience (as far as I know). So I’ve decided to make this the first in a recurring series of articles where I pick apart and dissect some of my favourites, be they genuinely terrifying or ridiculous but fun.
And as this is the beginnings of a series, that means I have to do a tiny bit of waffling before actually getting to the point. I bet that news just made your night. Strap in nice and tight folks, this ones a doozy~
The art of creating a Creepypasta- or, rather, one that excels in the ‘actually being quite frightening’ department- is a very delicate one, by way of the medium itself. One of the reasons this is the case is that they’re different from a conventional horror story, in that there are no set characters (outside of the malevolent
being that may or may not be featured in the story) and there isn’t, usually, an ‘arc’ that the story follows. By definition (kinda), a Creepypasta is a fictional account presented as if it were non-fictional, to heighten the horror on top of making it clear that the fourth wall will not save you, because the terrifying events written out happened to some regular schmuck like you that had the piss poor luck to stumble on the one copy of Interview With A Vampire that contained and ancient curse that
made him vomit blood all over the veranda and see the devil in his fruit loops, right before a skeleton jumped out. And one of the other pitfalls is one common in all forms of horror media; for one thing, the audience will only allow their suspension of disbelief to be bent so far before the questions or complaints pile up so much that they’re thrown out of their immersion in the work at hand. For another, suspense, tension, build up, and most importantly restraint, are absolutely vital in setting up a frightening situation and having the payoff actually frighten the audience.
And it’s those little things that Creepypasta writers either forget halfway through, our never really considered at all. In the case of the former, one of two things happens; the work gradually or suddenly shifts genre entirely, usually becoming a more conventional tale of horror that is firmly rooted in fiction, although turning into an Alternate Reality Game is not entirely unheard of. A good example of such would be Ben Drowned, which started off as a fairly simple story about a possibly haunted Majoras Mask cartridge at least somewhat rooted in reality (besides, y’know, the whole ghost thing), before turning into the eldritch abomination ARG epic it is today; alternatively, the work doesn’t necessarily change genre, so much as continue trying to present itself as a Creepypasta in spite of adhering to more conventional storytelling, creating a very jarring and off-putting atmosphere. In the case of the latter, it kind of goes without saying that the only enjoyment you’re going to get out of the work at all is if it’s laughably bad or over the top, either intentionally, by lack of experience in creative writing, or just flat out lack of any talent with the written word whatsoever.
Today’s Creepypasta is a specimen that manages to fall into both of these pitfalls, yet remains something I fondly
regard and genuinely enjoy, and that actually does carry some genuine creative merit alongside the absolutely appalling writing, as well as being genuinely quite disturbing at points. Known as ‘The Godzilla NES Creepypasta’, this tale of terror from details the story of Zach, some fine young chap from City, State who has fond memories of the old Godzilla game released on the NES, not that the misleading and confusing title does much to give that away. Things proceed the way they usually do in Videopastas; our valiant hero obtains <console> and <game> and before long shit done be fucked up as the game does everything short of plastering “I’M GOING TO MURDER YOU BECAUSE I’M HAUNTED AND I DON’T LIKE YOUR FACE” all over his TV set to let him know that, just maybe, perusing his curiosity was pretty fucking stupid of him, and now natural selection by way of Deus Ex Nintendium is going to take it’s course. The putz.
Alright, alright, enough of the snark. I’m going to break down the faults with the story first and foremost, because as much as I do genuinely enjoy this Pasta, the faults are glaring. See, the main draw of a Videopasta lies in it’s corruption of the familiar and the (presumed) safety that comes with it. Popping on Pokémon Red only to see the Pokémon trainer looking visibly distressed whilst a song that was not in the original game plays over the speakers lands you, effectively, in unfamiliar territory, with the paranoia that you may not be entirely safe only growing in intensity the further you play into the game, with NPCs sprouting disturbing dialogue or vague threats that could, for all you know, be aimed at you, not your avatar. There is an art of subtlety about it though; having the title screen be nothing but the player character pressing his half rotten face up to the screen whilst the Gameboy emits ear piercing white noise that almost sounds like a scream is shocking at first (especially with a visual accompaniment), but it becomes more and more ridiculous the further you think about it, suggesting your haunted game device might be compensating for having tiny contacts.
As such, one of the worst things you can do is attach an arc to the story and turn the narrator and the threat into characters, fully explain the threat or half explain it just enough that it’s not a total mystery, and either introduce or turn other people mentioned in the story into ‘characters’ that may actually wind up having speaking parts told from their POV. These elements (barring the over explanation of the disturbing supernatural dohickery of course) work perfectly fine for a more conventional story that is obviously supposed to be a work of fiction, but none of these elements work in an environment where everything is at least supposed to be working under the farce of a true recounting. And this is by and large because one the narrator/friends he mentions briefly becomes a character/gets introduced and has spoken parts, they tend to start talking like they’re in a work of fiction, instead of like real people. The story stops becoming relatable and you stop feeling like this scenario could happen to you, because it's obviously ficticious. Add in overblown in-your-face "THIS SHIT IS SCARY" type horror and your story ceases to be horrifying.
The main disturbing factors in the begining of the story
come from the change of levels and worlds, sometimes having entirely different graphics altogether, the introduction of Kaiju from Godzilla films that came out long after the NES game was made as replacement bosses (with all the old bosses turning into freakish abominations), and above all else, Red; a freakish monster that initially shows up in stages that only appear in each world after all the bosses are taken down, with a very simple goal; get to the end of the level before Red catches up to you, or you are dead. And to make things worse, Red is subtly (and effectively) implied to not only display high level artificial intelligence, but actual intelligence aware, coupled with an awareness of the real world beyond the videogame he is confined in. The worlds have all changed names to things like Pathos, Trance, Extus, and so on, and many of the levels and worlds seem to be implying several themes and metaphors; not exactly breaking new ground, but it’s all fairly competently played, some slightly dodgy writing aside. A genuine air of mystery, coupled with dense atmosphere, makes for a very compelling and slightly disturbing read, and you're left anxiously wondering what terrifying revelations lie around the corner.
And then Chapter 5 Part 2 introduced Melissa, at which point the entire story doesn’t so much jump the shark as it does perform a choreographed dance number set to Sexy And I Know It around the now very confused and frightened shark in question.
Melissa was Zach’s middle school sweetheart who suffered from a mental disorder that sent her into episodes where she, according to the story, would suddenly gain the emotional clarity of a wet Kleenex and would speak clearly and robotically, before snapping out of it and trembling for several minutes. This is important because one night when the pair where hanging out star watching, Melissa has one of her episodes, which ultimately leads to her running into the road and getting hit by a truck. The following level has statue heads in it that apparently have the exact same expression Melissa had when she got ran over by the truck (pictured to the left), Red soon starts practically holding conversations with Zach (as well as being implied to have been the cause of Melissa’s episodes, and the reason she ran into the oncoming path of the truck), the character of Solomon is introduced, both a playable character in the game and a former ally of Red’s who turns against him to help out Zach, Melissa's
spirit is revealed to be trapped in the game, and things continue to spiral out of control until the game is somehow pushing out Donkey-Kong-Country-esque graphics (finally giving an image to the tired and true “HYPER REALISTIC GRAPHICS!!!!!11” trope seen so often in these stories), all culminating in one final boss battle against Red, who somehow telepathically keeps Zach playing, then somehow manages to actually stop his heart, before some angelic super monster suddenly becomes playable, allowing Zach to finally beat Red. Melissa is freed and flies off to Heaven and Zach has an emotional breakdown before ferrying the Game off to some other dumb schmuck and warning us never to play it if we find it, and all the subtly implied themes (which, by the way, continued well after the story stopped even focusing on them and only just barely considered them important enough to mention), what Red actually is, what his plans where, and where Melissa and Zach fitted into them all go nowhere and/or remain entirely unanswered in the name of what basically amounts to a soap drama revolving around a terrible game based on movies where guys ran around in hot rubber suits haunted by some barely defined horror. And to top it off, a subplot involving pop quiz hosted by a smiley that involves questions ranging from ‘Does your dog like the president?’ and ‘Is water wet?’ to ‘Do you like hurting people?’ and ‘Have you been molested by a family member?’ somehow fits into all this mess, but this too is never explained. Neither is the fact that Zach is some sort of gaming god and manages to clear the frequently nigh-impossibly difficult stages without screwing up until the plot demands it during the final fight.
And you know what? I loved every fucking second of it, start to finish, completely unironically.
And you know why? Because for all the faults, the whole thing feels... well, for lack of better wording, genuine. Honest. Even though the story definitely takes a nose dive halfway through, and even though the writing itself was never worthy of deconstructing in university English classes, it’s honest. None of it is forced, none of it is padding on behalf of the writer, and I’d even go as far as to say that the drastic change in subject matter, regardless of whether it was planned or not (and I suspect it wasn’t), doesn’t come off like it’s rushed for the sake of a conclusion so much as it was the idea the author ran with because he genuinely wanted too. Put simply, the author had fun and (if the joke ‘alternate’ ending shows), didn’t take himself so seriously that he couldn’t poke fun at the inherent faults in his own work. And I can honestly look past all the bad in a work if the creator/all the people involved in it not only had a sense of humour about themselves and what they do, but also clearly had fun creating it. Sure, I’m still going to point out the faults, but if I ultimately enjoyed the work then all the critical gazes in the world can’t change the fact that I do. It’s pure Narm Charm, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
And besides that, as you’ve probably noticed from all the images dotted around the article, the other half of the stories appeal (and indeed, probably the main draw from the beginning), is the pixel artwork, both edited and crafted from scratch, mixed in with the elements present in the old game. Any and all sprites and tiles not from the original
game are 100% custom and created by the author himself. The fake screenshots do fall into common fake screenshot pitfalls in places (sprites scaled or positioned oddly), but those faults never come from the quality of the custom art. I honestly think the story was more or less a vehicle for this guys pixel art, and damn it all if I can get behind that decision, because this guy is good. The fake screenshots are what saves the whole thing, to be honest; most Videopastas, even the excellent ones like Lost Silver, don’t come with screenshot evidence to back up the story (obviously, as Videpastas talk about games that don't actually exist and not everyone is a pixel asrtist), and whilst this can be a good thing- sometimes the image conjured by the mind is more terrifying then anything conjured by the author- it can also be a weakness, with many readers giving in to a kind of ‘pics or it didn’t happen’ mentality. Thanks to the fake screens in this one, even ultra cheesy moments like the part where Red says “I’ll tell you a secret… I KILLED MELISSA!” are saved by the fact that the design of Red consistently remains extremely unsettling, to say nothing of the moments when both the writing and the images lay the atmosphere on thick, which are undeniably the best bits of the whole story.
Yes, The Godzilla NES Creepypasta is flawed. Very, very flawed. You could even argue that it’s terrible. But it’s honest, it’s fun, and the artwork is consistently high quality and consistently unsettling to the point where even the writing can’t undermine them, and most of all, even at its worst it manages to entertain. And that’s really the whole point, isn’t it?
Plus, I could never fault the story that ultimately lead to this;
The author of the story, Cosbydaf, is currently working on a sequal named Godzilla: Replay. Time will tell if it is an improvement on the original or more of the same, but either way I won't be complaining.
By Decon (10/11/12)
All Images taken from the Creepypasta's official blog, except for the cropped image of Red, taken from TvTropes, and the animated .gif of Solomon, taken from a thread on SomethingAwful. All custom pixel art in these images belongs to Cosbydaf.
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