A while back I did a video deriding live commentaries, as in complete videos that just have the overlay of a few guys drowning out the cringe people would've ordinarily encountered with the actual videos. Since then, two things happened, I realized for one video now lost in its unaltered form that I only wanted to see the end of it, and that there is something I would like to sink my teeth into.
I first heard about this little film through Michael Leroi, a channel dedicated to riffing on bad Creepypastas. Now, I do like it when he and his friends riff on textual media, because it doesn't require any thought on the viewers part, but when it came to a live commentary of a Creepypasta film, watching their commentary I was like, "Can you guys shut up? I'm trying to hear the cringe." For the record, they had permission to do the commentary, I’m not saying they’re assholes, they unfortunately fit the example of what I was trying to talk about, and I kinda see what they were going for.
While written Creepypastas are certainly passe, short films based on them are interesting. I remember seeing a Sonic.EXE fan-film that not only rectified issues with the original story, but was actually pretty good. Too bad I can't find it again. But that's Sonic, for this I'm going to be entering the world of Pokemon, which is Japanese for foreign territory.
The pasta of the hour is Easter Egg on Mount Silver. This was helmed by a user known as Mibevan, who was a Brony commentator, and I bring that up because that is the most immediate observation I could make on his channel. Aside from some occasional blogs and video edits, I can't really hold him up to much. I can say that he put a lot into getting this movie out there, promotional pieces, behind the scenes stuff, you know. Look, I can forgive content that can be seen as amateur to most people, I'd bring up an example but I CaN't because I talked about it enough AS is. N. If it was just something done for fun, then fine, do whatever, but it seems he was really proud of this and wanted it to be seen as something legitimate, so I have to hold it to the standard he aimed for.
He declared this to be feature length. Okay, the standard for feature length is 40 minutes, how long does his movie last? A little over half an hour. The fifth Alpha and Omega is longer than this, even if a majority of the runtime is padded out with clips from older movies. Hell, we may even have less minutes on this if you remove the credits and opening logos. I mean what does he have to gain with the claim? What’s the point, or the joke if so?
Before going into this, I'd like to point out that I haven't read the story myself, I will not levy criticisms toward it, rather how it is executed here, but don't get me wrong, if shit's foul I gotta open that window. I’ll be periodically looking at the story at different points to see who guffed.
That said, grab some popcorn, grab a soft drink, and most importantly, get your Creepypasta ballcap, I mean you can't watch a Creepypasta movie without a Creepypasta ballcap.
Movie time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7e5fJW5dRQ&t=1s
One thing I gotta admit is that Bevan's production company logo has decent animation. I suppose any effects presented here won't be low quality, just ridiculous. Also, because the one commentary I saw of it were confused, apparently the Creepypasta wiki had some involvement with it, I guess. Jeff the Killer happened to be the face of Creepypasta (well at least it wasn't Sonic.EXE).
Either that or this is some Night Chronicles bullshit.
If you didn't know what Pokemon was, you get a sum-up of how big it is. This would be outdated now because everyone knows about Pokemon and how big it is. After a Spaxian sum-up of what Pokemon is, we get a forced setup for the creepy nature of this story. By the way, this wasn't part of the original pasta, bet Ol' Bevan thought he was being cute here.
Skipping three minutes of runtime to avoid the credits, I see "Directed from the mind of Evan Bernardi". That just sounds so wrong. It would fit better during the production credit crawl, sans "Directed". Or here, you could just say "Directed by Evan Bernardi". All I got from this was confusion, and a decent enough recreation of Lavender Town's music. Best case this would be for a cheap laugh, but it seems too obvious.
Now we get into the story proper, and compared to Michael and his team, with six bars on my volume, from a laptop that is eight years old, I can hear the narrator just fine. Narration is a mixed bag for me, but it kinda works here as this is a retelling of the story. However, it can work the other way too. Rather than just read the story and show the footage, well, actions speak louder than words, and it has prevailed for some of the Sonic.EXE fan films I watched.
Credit where it's due, in the context of this, the narration isn't intrusive and the story itself is subtle enough to where things don't seem like they're repetitions through actions of what was said. That didn't come out right, did it? Oh yeah, and I have the feeling I’m about to eat my words real soon.
Now here's the part where I rag on the actors in this for sounding like ass, but I won't. I've taken part in a student film for a college program years ago, I mean all I did was appear in the background, you cannot get A+ performances out of students just seeking to make a serviceable project. Compared to something where equipment like boom mics are readily available, this doesn't have that. Worst case, you'd just dub the audio, but I think they would've made this worse. For now, I feel you have to listen real close to hear what is said, and for your reward, you get clunky dialog.
Moving on, we get our cursed item, our disc with black marker scribbling, our rom hack link, our cursed cartridge... an ordinary Game Shark.
Apparently our lead doesn't know how Game Shark works. Probably wished she had a Game Genie for the original Game Boy, it'd be impossible to lose the manual for it, but wait, it's just the implementation of codes, I mean I guess, I probably know as much as they do.
I'd make a crack about Tommy Wiseau, but I'm sick to the back teeth of that joke, no matter how tempting it is with mini Logan Paul here. And no, the dialog scenes aren't part of the actual Creepypasta.
So, the Game Shark winds up fucking up Blake (the guy)'s cartridge. Remember kids, cheaters never prosper, or perhaps the game nuked itself to prevent Blake from entering the "Blake Paul win Pokemon Every Time" code, the villain of the hour's SOL. Uh... I can explain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9ybA1NYNzY
I'd say Blake's being over-dramatic about fucking up his game, now sure I like games that people would claim to grow out of, though that is getting less and less apparent nowadays, but I don't take them as seriously as others do, lest I'm doing a review.
Apparently the girl was so traumatized by what happened to her brother that she vowed to never use Game Shark again, and nothing of note happens beyond the narration, the idea the girl is not a fan of shoes or socks, and nothing else. I did say I wasn't going to criticize the actual Creepypasta, and now I'm paying the price.
Oh wait, I found something. Something quite silly and amateurish. They pasted game footage over a Game Boy Advance screen. That time I ragged on KingMasterReview, credit where it's due he didn't actually own the game he reviewed, but here, that red cart for Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire is present clear as day, and they couldn't be bothered to record the screen? I mean, worst case you'd blow a few dollars to get a GameCube and a Game Boy Player so it'd be easier to map footage onto a stationary screen, but this, what they do, I can't ignore.
My best guess is that they wanted to demonstrate how good the girl is at Pokemon, but couldn't capture the actual ending in the act, and I'm like, why not leave it to our imagination? It couldn't look any worse.
Blake soon comes flying in, I mean he knocked first, and he found their old Pokemon games. I mean to be fair it was said the house was cleaned out and he found them. He had a change of heart with the Game Shark apparently, which is real convenient for the plot, either that or he took some time to grow up. Spoilers, he's gonna get the plot really going.
Also, cows in what looks to be a middle-class neighborhood, in Florida. I feel like the initial writer wanted to flex their Pokemon knowledge and skill for how it's written, and there goes that promise. Oh look, an improvised scene where a jogger runs past the girl. Was that important? He certainly thought it was.
And naturally, things go wrong, for murder is in the air. Blake Paul, you are accused of murdering several innocent Game Boy cartridges, we call one of many odd creatures hanging on the door as a witness.
So, girl goes outside for a few seconds for some reason, lest it was to avert suspicion, and lo and behold, she sees the scattered remains of the games. Spoiled it.
Upon seeing Blake, a thought comes to mind... imagine if he was a Sonic fan. He'd probably give Paul Rhodes a run for his money.
In Blake's head he's like "How's Misty? How's Misty?"
Now, I tried to be fair about the low quality acting in this, but with how serious Bevan was about this and how the actors are trying to be, it's starting to break me.
Blake sees a Game Boy Advance and chucks it, the lack of backlighting on it was just too terrifying for one who was spoiled with a Game Boy Advance SP. How could he even tell a Pokemon game was in it, lest this is a Pokemon family goddamnit, every other game be damned.
Is it time to complain about improper GBA footage? The footage is once more pasted over the GBA screen, and it shows that of the intro for Pokemon Gold Version. Now yes, it was a Game Boy Color game and the lighting may not immediately reveal what the cartridge is supposed to look like, but again, it's a Game Boy Color game, as in one that has a different start-up than what was on the original Game Boy.
If Rerez tackled fan projects he'd have a field day.
I take it Blake prefers Silver Version, given his reaction to it and that he would sooner kill his sister to not put up with it. Yes I know he was going for the game. She is a true Pokemon fan, as she'd sooner die than let a copy of Pokemon get destroyed.
He gets committed because destroying Pokemon games is a sign of insanity, either that or he just snapped because of the horrors he and he alone witnessed. I gotta say, the psych wards in Florida are pretty casual, it's almost as if they recorded this at a friend's house. I mean they take it seriously enough to bring in the destroyed cartridges to analyze, and yes, that is part of the story, and apparently her mom's idea. I think I found Ash's aunt Hillary.
Anyway, unnecessary flashback to something that happened only a minute or so ago. It was so tacky that I decided to zone out for a while until something interesting happens... which isn't for long. Blake is starting to look less like a young Logan Paul and more like Randy Stair. Not helping that both were from Florida. Yikes.
So Blake tells the girl to get rid of the Pokemon games still intact, and she does as she is told, allowing a chance for Blake to return to some form of normality one he is let out. Now, if it played out like that, well we wouldn't have a story now would we? No, instead the girl is another one of those Creepypasta protagonists who put themselves through things they normally wouldn't, because curiosity is contagious. She admits it herself even.
At this rate Blake has become the more sensible one, the Kyle if you will. He even likes Ed, Edd n' Eddy, guy has good taste.
Also at this point I'd like to bring up a big issue with the translation of a Creepypasta to film. The pasta is written in a way that you can easily imagine what is happening and seen. We see the stuff said in the story on film, yet we get the narration reaffirming it. It comes off as quite redundant, and is only gonna get worse once we get to the game played.
Have some faith in the audience, we can see what happens, we don't need the narration to reaffirm it.
Also, Blake scribbled out a code, and she is able to read it from the back. It is so clear that the numbers aren't even flipped the other way. Lest this code was so secret Blake wrote it in a fashion only he could decipher, this is a goof that overtakes any other. After repeating what she heard in a flashback, seconds apart from one another mind you, she makes a remark about how snow was not possible at this time where they're at... after it was established he went mad over a Pokemon game.
By the way, this is something that was present in the original story.
Also by the way, we're only 14 minutes in.
So she starts the game, adjusts the volume in an attempt to levy the weight of stupidity of not listing to her brother. But hey, it looks like they managed to fix the footage format, only problem is that it led to a new wave of incompetence. You see, footage is playing on the GBA, that is for sure, she got to the first menu and selected start, but there is a telltale sign that can be found on the right. If you haven't guessed by now, they plated GBA footage over a still image of the girl holding the GBA.
What the actual fuck?
Oh they knew, which is why they showed a crop shot of the image the next time we see the screen, it doesn't fix shit though. This is quite the advertisement for Game Boy Players. I'll give them this, it gave me an idea for a video.
She turns up the volume to set up one of the creepy payoffs to the game, and now the elements of the original Creepypasta game are shown. To avoid the risk of repeating myself, I'll be skipping a bit here, but not the actual video, want to try and be as fair as possible. But just keep in mind, this is your typical weird things happen in a game one's familiar with and you're supposed to feel scared things.
Why should I go over common conventions of video game creepypastas when everyone and their mother talked about them countless times before? Credit where its due, the visuals match-up well, if only because there was an actual romhack made based on the pasta, and they had access to it. The narration is still intrusive though, and it's hard for me to ignore.
So blah blah blah, Pokemon die, there's no way out, things seem weird, and her considering an "X" to be scary suggests she would be a big fan of the Sonic.EXE stories. That or it's her least favorite letter in the alphabet. Also seeing the dead Pokemon, they're not hyper-realistic, granted, but not as scary as they're trying to make it out to be. Pokemon is a big part of people's lives, but even then there're very few those would make emotional attachments to, at least enough to match this girl's.
Compared to Tom though, she didn't come to the conclusion this was a hacked game.
Also, obligatory loud noise. Those didn't even make me jump, just saying.
And while I'm here, it'd be more symbolic if playing the game had the same impact on Blake as it did in real life. Just saying. There'd be no excuse for her not to play the game, he would've just died under mysterious circumstances and she would gradually unravel the mystery.
And apparently having a close eye to the speaker was so complicated that we needed to have a still image to represent it. There're simple alternatives that even filmmakers with bare basic equipment and skills can pull off. Just saying. I've just been saying a whole lot.
The girl's audio is so low, yet the story itself is so bare basic I don't even care to go back and have a closer listen. Also on the off chance they decide to blare more loud audio.
Also "Pokemon died instead of fainted." I smell derivatives.
To hammer in the emotional impact or scariness the pasta had gone for, who do you think they have as the big creature of the hour? Pikachu. Because who else could it be? Let me tell you, seeing the others mangled was apparently fine and dandy, but she has to amp it to eleven upon seeing Pikachu this way.
Oh, but Pikachu's happy enough, just as much as Sonic.EXE. Nothing scarier than happiness I guess.
But then, Destiny Bond. It suits the context I guess, but let's see how this goes.
Poorly.
We get our obligatory(?) breakdown and shrill noise, with a slight sprinkle of "Taking this seriously". Also he's under the assumption that Pikachu sprite is scary, when sensible people have been desensitized ever since Sonic.EXE. It's just annoying, and unintentionally silly. Especially when we see the director try and animate its mouth opening.
Remember, this is supposed to be scary, not making fun of how stupid many Creepypastas are, but as a legitimate horror. I'd quit now, but I'm only four minutes away from the end credits.
The girl casually saunters off and briefly sprints before resuming the saunter and sprinting again to a trash can, and the neighbors see her yell at a trash can.
"Steve, honey, that crazy girl's yelling at the garbage can again."
"That tears it we're moving to Kansas."
I'll give it this now, unlike Sonic Genocide City, the game somehow doesn't effect other ones, she can continue her Pokemon obsession in peace... until she breaks down for some reason- wait, she's still on about the cursed game?
So a news report plays, and they imply the girl went nuts and killed her family, until I remember that Blake is the younger brother. Way to overlook a good opportunity guy.
And, happy enough ending, except they state they had no idea who made the code, and nobody cared enough to bother looking, I know I didn't. Oh, and she doesn't want to play hacked games ever again, not after the experience she had. Hint hint. Also it's snowing, guess it's meant to be symbolic or something, but at least they had a stated 7 month jump to the right month for it.
In case you have a one minute memory span, they throw text reaffirming that the creator of the code was never found.
And that's it, there's still the closing credits, but there's a line to draw between Lavender Town, and people trying to add lyrics to it, also forced jumpscare.
Final Thoughts
So yeah, that wasn't very good. If there was irony in this, it was lost on me. I don't know if Bevan did this for the sake of getting reactions, I don't know if the ambition lied in the prospect of making a short film for the first time. This may be for laughs, but what is the punchline? This feels like it's played entirely straight, and went the way it did because that's just how the director wanted it. If this was meant to be a stab at the original pasta, the worst of this short film were unfortunately ideas implemented by the director. I would meet it halfway if it were just a straight retelling, but even that's generous. It's not the worst thing I ever saw, but if this is legitimate, there is so much wrong with it.
This film reaffirmed why there should always be a clear contrast between visual and textual mediums. People who'd go into this would have likely read the pasta first, and even if not, they could tell what is going on through the details alone. Even if you're learning about Pokemon for the first time, you can at least follow the narrative. I'm just saying, I've seen Sonic.EXE fan films and they don't rely on narration, at least the ones I've seen.
Now look, if this was based on something like Blood Whistle, a pasta so hamfisted and awful even from the text alone, then it'd be easier to see the irony in the whole thing, trying to play an unintentionally hilarious and melodramatic story straight and we can see how silly it is visually.
But as is, there are too many problems for me to immerse myself in an ironic way. The special effects are below what competent skills with MS Paint could get you, I've seen better special effects in videos by Irate Gamer and Spax3, those are second bananas to what are meant to be reviews. This is a short film, one reliant on special effects.
I can forgive stuff that downplays the intended effect, effect to scare that is, but I can't ignore stuff like how poorly the Game Boy Advance footage was handled. Beyond playing the actual game and one instance of progressing a scene, some of the GBA scenes could be nixed entirely. If it was a lighting issue, a Game Boy Advance SP was the best way to go. If this was to demonstrate Pokemon prowess, it seems to be negligible. If it were up to me, I'd hunt for a GameCube and a Game Boy Player just to make things easier.
I dogged on Michael Leroi for doing an obnoxious live commentary, and for that I apologize, the commentary makes it easier to go through the film a second time.
I think I just made an enemy.
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