The You Tube channel is loaded up, my headphones are plugged in, and hopefully this Saturday afternoon (evening?) nobody in my family is going to try and distract me while I go scare the pants off of myself.
Okay... Introduction. Here we go.
(wait a second, I'm not going to need transcripts for this, am I? Crap.)
0:01 - Okay, artist's dummy in the background. Token transparent metaphor, if I ever saw one.
0:05 - I keep wondering what sort of bizarro mental track these guys went on, that they considered framing device pitches for "Slender Man Vlog series" and then thought "exercise/ fitness guide!" Okay, admittedly this is no pretentious student film or Iraqi war journal, diff'rent strokes and all that jazz.
0:29 - What the fuck is up with this synth intro? Even without the central series premise it already sounds ominous and terrifying! And this is supposed to be an exercise vlog! Or maybe I just really need to expand my musical horizons a lot more. (Post-grunge baby, I confess.)
0:32 - Roads. Ha ha ha. "Geddit, geddit? It's just like the Marble Hornets intro, only they're driving faster!!1!"
0:44 - Is Vincent supposed to be the Pretty Boy of the cast or something? Or its resident Ace, or Estrogen Brigade Bait? He's the one actually doing most of the physical exercise stuff, that's the impression I'm getting.
(*grrrrrrr* BA-KAWK, BA-KAWK! sorry, chatting with a friend online. random tangent.)
0:48 - Where the hell did I pick up that fanon bit about EH being full of homoerotic undertones? Whoever you are, I so hate you right now.
1:01 - I swear to God Jeff looks familiar. Or at least his haircut does. Kinda like the pregnant girl's love interest on Saved! or the protagonist of The Chumscrubber. (I'm sorry, I actually haven't seen The Chumscrubber in ages.)
1:07 - Oh, for pity's sake, forest shots. It's like they're preempting their entire series with pre-established subliminal hypnotic suggestion or something. Convincing their viewers that yes, trees are evil! (Must... resist... Shyamalan quip...)
1:11 - And a... bay? Harbor? Whatever you call it. (Water is evil. Whether it's Marble Hornets, Jaws, Doctor Who or World War Z(1), you can always find some tenuous symbolic basis for water being evil.)
1:15 - More trees. (Shut up, this is just the opening credits. Then again isn't nitpicking stuff to death the main point of live blogging?)
1:19 - I'll admit that shot of the hand waving across the scenery made me laugh the first time. Calling this the first sign of EH not taking itself too seriously.
1:28 - Okay, token unexplained footage with pants-wettingly scary audio distortion. (And I keep closely looking for Slender Man in this shot. Probably a stupid idea. Must stop doing this.)
1:29 - "Sorry about this clip. It somehow slipped past our editor." *giggle* Not even going to bother angsting over willing suspension of disbelief here, I'm just looking for any excuse for a good laugh.
1:31 - Oh fuck, I think I did just see that familiar-looking silhouette at the last minute. (Or... did I?) Don't you just hate it when that happens?
So... second viewing of Episode 1. Only one more to go before I venture into truly unfamiliar territory. Eeep.
_____
(1) In my college thesis I seriously made the claim that water as used in the book was synonymous (or at least closely linked) with bad things happening. Yay for pretentious literary epileptic trees!
