Tricks and Treats: A Halloween Roundup
It’s the cyber-age, and that means you don’t have to leave home for a haunted house or corn maze to freak yourself out! Instead, shut yourself in, turn down the blinds, lock your doors (or leave them unlocked for an even more unsettling experience), and check out this list of creepy interactive websites, performance/art pieces, and music videos lurking on the Internet.
Unedited Footage of a Bear
One video I keep coming back to is Unedited Footage of a Bear. Originally aired on Adult Swim in 2014, the video only contains 30 seconds of actual bear footage before unraveling an alarming storyline in the format of a pseudo-ad for anxiety/allergy medicine. The video creates confusion and unease in a mere ten and a half minutes of disconcerting footage. So if you aren’t scared by clowns or men with chainsaws, give this video a ride and see if you don’t feel rattled.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gMjJNGg9Z8
If the creators didn’t suck you into their world enough, venture a little further and click on the link below for a fake website that’ll create even more unease.
http://www.adultswim.com/promotions/claridryl/
Still not freaked out to full satisfaction? Then here’s an Easter Egg hidden in the fake website that will finish you off: Click on the house in the background of the fake website. It’ll take you to an interactive game based on the original video that allows you to explore a house even creepier than the ten-dollar one you were going to visit tonight.
The 15 Experience
While curating this list, I stumbled onto a site called The 15 Experience, which features an interactive horror film set up in 15 different “hacked” IP cameras. Directed by Anastase Liaros and released sometime in 2014, the film, when it first came out, was a mystery to viewers, who couldn’t figure out if it was real or not. Well, it’s not real—but if you want, go ahead and convince yourself it is, and then click on the link to have some demented fun switching between the feeds.
"Voodoo In My Blood" by Massive Attack & Young Fathers
If you saw Gone Girl and Rosamund Pike’s acting both freaked you out and left you wanting more of her psychotic antics, then this music video is for you. Though she doesn’t say anything, Pike’s body-contorting performance set to the cool and daunting "Voodoo In My Blood" will remind you why she is more than capable of portraying the leading lady in films that aim to rub their viewers the wrong way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElvLZMsYXlo
Dining Room or There is Nothing
Meant to be played on loop, this one-minute video features a woman sitting at the end of a long dining room table in front of a cozy fireplace. Sounds romantic, right? Go ahead, click and see for yourself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns1SGo3WCF4
Transfiguration by Olivier de Sagazan
Painter, sculptor, and performer Olivier de Sagazan presents a truly odd and disturbing art piece. Beginning with the seemingly normal artist sitting in front of a grey backdrop, Sagazan’s performance escalates into a frightening one-man-show where he covers himself in clay and manipulates himself. Check out the oddity below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gYBXRwsDjY&feature=youtu.be
"Faith in Strangers" by Andy Stott
Really, all of Andy Stott’s music could be on this list- all of his music is jarring, mixing industrial buzzing, heavy dark synths, drifting female whispers/breathing, and clunky bass lines. His music gives you the feeling of being in an abandoned warehouse at night and stumbling on a jam session between Aphex Twin and David Lynch. The reason this song is on this list is because of a lost Youtube comment posted a year ago:
I have never commented on a YouTube video before but I just wanted to share this experience I just had while listening to this song. My friend and I just had a car crash while listening to this song (min 3:36 to be exact) and we could've died if it wasn't for me dodging that iron fence in the middle of the high way. It was strange because I've been fantasizing about listening [to] this song with her for weeks and once I got the chance of playing it, everything got so mellow and we ended up falling asleep. It was really strange and I still can't figure why this happened.
–Ramon Aponte
I never loved this song until this comment showed up and enchanted me. Ever since, the song has had a spell-like quality about it that is so off-putting, it's become an addiction trying to pinpoint exactly why I keep coming back to it.
Oh, and be forewarned: the gorgeous video by David Dean Burkhart might give you vertigo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BIYV3BLcno
Happy Halloween!
–Tay Marie Lorenzo