The Spooky Web w/Spidey

[Spidey Revivey]

The Spooky Web w/Spidey​

I've seen a fair share of horror movie review threads, and a few television shows, but nothing from the short video medium. There is plenty to discuss and examine on the internet. Youtube is a goldmine for the weird and creepy.

This is my horror media review thread, and there will be spoilers.



I will be reviewing these videos/subscriptions on a set criteria. I have provided examples borrowed from the ever popular "Hansel & Gretel" fairy tale to show how this list will be executed.

• Content. What I see. I will point out the important visuals and audio from the work.
  
  ex. Hansel & Gretel are sent away into the woods where they find a house made of gingerbread etc. etc. etc.
  
  
• Context. The bigger story, or the "hidden" meaning. This can be left up to interpretation, as many may see it as one thing while others will see something completely different. This is also the place where theories go.
  
  ex. Hansel & Gretel is a children's story with a moral lesson. Through it, readers can learn not to trust in strangers and so on.
  
  
• Subtlety. This is my way to "rate" the horror. For it it to scare me, there has to be some subtlety. It can't be over-the-top gorefest from the get-go. I don't enjoy jumpscares, as that is more of a bodily reaction than something that could keep me up at night.
  
  With that said, it can't be so subtle that I (or the casual viewer) would miss what's scary completely. This will most likely be the most difficult part of the review, as there are plenty of things that I'd pick up on and I'd find disturbing whereas to another viewer it isn't as apparent. Odds are, there will be several types of horror at play here, such as the horror we see on the surface "The mother's abuse...the witch's appetite...killing the witch..." as well as a deeper horror, like the one provided below.
  
  ex. In several adaptations, the witch is in fact Hansel & Gretel's biological mother. She wanted to eat the boy. So that's cannibalism on top of filicide. Killing and eating your own children is pretty disturbing, and with it being a story geared towards children this makes it even more unsettling. Not to mention the mother had to build a house made of sweets to lure the kids away from their dad. She even disguises herself and undergoes this nice-at-first persona. Include the fact that everyone is starving but the mother made a house made of food just leaves readers with more questions than answers.
  
  It may not be scary to the casual viewer who most likely grew up on a story like that, but when I stop and think about it it's pretty fucked up. Sure, the witch gets roasted and there's bits of torture, but the subtlety of what the mother is doing and why she's doing it makes this a creepshow.
  
  
• Authenticity. Determines if the video is based on anything true, if the video itself IS true, or if it's a complete work of fiction. This category will almost always be the shortest. Sometimes it's obvious, such as "Don't Hug Me. I'm Scared." since they're puppets. But maybe it's based off of a real event, or it's telling a real story in the context.
  
  ex. Hansel & Gretel is a Grimm's fairy tale. The story itself is fictitious, but there are many real accounts of abandoned children, cannibalism, and murderous mothers.
  
  
• Personal Seal of Approval. This is where I would say "you may like this if...". Some of us may enjoy a psychological thriller more than blood and guts shlock. I will tell you how I felt about the media overall, and may recommend said video(s) if you're interested in a certain aspect of horror.
  
  ex. If you're a fan of the macabre side of fairy tales, I'd recommend Hansel & Gretel. Reread the story as an adult and you may pick up on more than what you did as a child, which does bring in a purely authentic creep factor unlike any other.
  

I didn't want to put this in The Media Hub for a few reasons. One is I wouldn't want to subject anybody to the criteria I made here. This is my personal way of reviewing the work I will provide. I also plan to incorporate actual video footage in this thread, and I don't want some guy doing a review on someone like Ricardo Lopez and sharing the clip where he kills himself. Or anything like snuff. It may be horrifying, but for me that's a bit too much. You're more than welcome to do whatever with your own review thread, just abide by the rules.

I am very open to suggestions on what to watch next though, so do feel free to PM me or reply to this thread with something you'd think would make for a good review. Just keep in mind I will not review anything with nudity, pedophilia, or real suicide involved. Just please have some sense if you're going to share a video or whatever with me. Thank you.

 

[Spidey Revivey]

Reviewer's Note: I have not watched or read any reviews or theories on the material I am analyzing. All thoughts and opinions are solely my own, as I'd rather piece things together by myself than to borrow from somebody else. I could be dead wrong about the context of any given review, especially one that is ongoing such as this particular article. Please read with that understanding.

Horror Review #01: Poppy​

Content.

"Poppy" is a Youtuber subscription that has 3 distinct categories.

• Regular uploads (1)
• "Everybody Wants To Be Poppy" Animated Web Series (2)
• A video labeled "internet" with a hypnosis wheel (3)

(1)
The regular uploads usually feature Youtuber "Poppy". She is a 20+ year old woman with platinum blonde hair and a soft, almost hypnotic voice. The background is a screen that is always a muted pastel color. Almost all of her videos have an ambient soundtrack, which give the videos a strange atmosphere. Dreamlike in essence, she comes off as an innocent, submissive blogger who ponders on life and the big questions. She also happens to be a pop singer, and frequently mentions stardom and how much she loves her fans.

Example of a normal video:

[YOUTUBE]n06FqMYa3eI[/YOUTUBE]​

(2)
Her animated series is 4 episodes long. It features Poppy, who is purple haired here, and a friend named Rhexx on a quest to find a magical Kale shake. First episode they meet a talking Pho bowl. He sings "The Addams Family" cutely but incorrectly. Poppy talks about playing her new song. Video ends. Second video they encounter a talking heart with a stereotypical gay voice. His name is Wyatt. Pho tries to sing again but they aren't enjoying it as much. Wyatt will tell them where the kale shake is if she plays her new song. Poppy calls her friend Phoebe to bring her guitar made of skittles. Third video they sing her song "Everybody Wants to be Poppy" and it is revealed Wyatt had the shake the whole time. She drinks it and Pho tells her he gives her the best vibrations. They all laugh it off. Ending scene has a lizard on top of a dog as the camera slowly zooms in. Fourth video is Poppy performing the acoustic version of "Everybody Wants To Be Poppy".

The Playlist will play the last video of the animation first, and the first video last.




(3)
When the video labeled "internet" is clicked, the title changes to "Poppy puts you to sleep". The video is a hypnosis wheel and the audio is Poppy with a slight echo to her voice.

The uploader isn't Poppy in this instance. It is a Youtuber named Titanic Sinclair.



Context.

As I type this, it's very hard for me to figure out where to begin. For starters, I do want to touch upon her music career as that is the major thing about her blogging and the animation. "Lowlife" is a pretty popular tune with a view of over 7 million.

[YOUTUBE]lwnoSeiAFSY[/YOUTUBE]​

After watching the video, those who pay attention to detail may notice the several instances of Illuminati symbolism. From the very opening, viewers get The All-Seeing Eye with Poppy sitting down with her hands in the infamous position of Baphomet:

Spoiler

There is also a scene in which she runs red paint over pictures of herself that her fans are holding, as if she were autographing them in blood. Behind the cameras there are old businessmen in wheelchairs that resemble fat cat corporate people like Koch Industries. The video itself is a conspiracy theorist's nightmare, but it doesn't stop there.

Poppy isn't normal by any stretch of the imagination, if you watched the "Gravity" video closely, you would have noticed an odd glitch. This brings up the theory that she is either some type of robot android thing, or brainwashed by the Illuminati.

For me, it is more likely that the videos are narrating a story about an aspiring singer who is brainwashed to believe she is the perfect popstar. Her very first video is just her eating some cotton candy, and she's laughing and acting normal. Later there is a 10 minute video of just her saying "I'm Poppy" over and over again as if she were trying to get used to being called such. Every other video says something along the lines of loving her fans, or how viewers should Like, Comment, and Subscribe. But there are instances where things take a very, very, creepy turn...

[YOUTUBE]Y4nHLHDtyVA[/YOUTUBE]​

Something is definitely off about Poppy. In my opinion, it is a continuing story deeply rich in satire of the media industry and uses a David Lynch-like aura to get its point across. It's nightmare fuel in the modern age where we "follow" musicians in an obsessive, cult-like manner. Poppy is Pop Culture, even using small, subtle mannerisms of the teen idols from Japan such as her sexy but purely innocent demeanor.




Subtlety.

There are over a hundred Poppy videos, so following all of them for Horror is truly a test of will. From what I have seen, I am confident in saying that the scary aspect until now has been subtle most of the time with very few deviations. But when those small moments come, they are clearly meant to scare the viewer.

Mind control has to have some important part to the narrative. And what better way to prove this than the most recent Poppy video, uploaded yesterday on January 10, 2017:

[YOUTUBE]zl3GScxKuGY[/YOUTUBE]​

With the mix of David Lynch-esque music, the monotonous speaker, and the occasional black blood, it makes no bones about being something other than some Youtuber's vlog. It is telling a story about the Illuminati, about mind control of a young girl, and it's practically cracking at the seams.

I had Poppy in mind when I came up with this Short Horror Media Review thread. To me, it's as disturbing as it gets without being a completely jarring experience. There's no dead bodies in this, which is actually a lot scarier in hindsight...I'll explain after this initial review on what makes this very problematic.


Authenticity.

I'm comfortable in saying this this is a creative story. That Poppy isn't a real woman undergoing some MK Ultra stuff. She is some sort of art installation that just so happens to be a good enough pop singer to garner a few million views.

But MK Ultra itself was a real experiment conducted by the CIA. Mind control can happen. And there have been several cases where a pretty man or woman was thrust into the limelight for somebody else's personal gain.


Personal Seal of Approval.

If you're a fan of David Lynch, you'll like Poppy. If you're into bubblegum pop that just so happens to be telling a deep story behind its happy rhythm, you'll like Poppy. It truly is a unique experience to watch any of her many videos, as they range from the cutesy to the disturbing. If you find satire interesting, I think you'd like this Youtuber most of all. They blend their social commentary with their unnerving horror fairly well.




...


Did I say "they" on purpose? Oh yes. In Subtlety I mentioned how there were no dead bodies depicted. But I truly believe that someone did die off-screen in this narrative.

There's an even bigger story here than a girl under mind control. And it has to do with that third category about "Poppy puts you to sleep". Titanic Sinclair has more to do with Poppy than Poppy has led on so far in her uploads.

But I'll have to cover that in another review. That's right. The first Horror Review is really a two-parter. In it I'll discuss Titanic, and how Poppy is actually a replacement for the one Illuminati experiment that died.