The Internet Has Isolated The Essence of Sadness

Apologies in advance for the ridiculously emo title of this post. Also for the infinite sadness you might feel in a few moments.

About a month back I came across an interesting post on reddit by user KhaoticLegacy. Apparently Thai insurance commercials are generally short films unto themselves that depict tragic human stories meant to evoke compassion, heartbreak, and a very strong sense that you need life insurance. Like, yesterday. This Google search pulls up a whole bunch of them so you can see for yourself (thanks tiexano). Anyway, KhaoticLegacy noted that if you take any one of these ads and use YouTube Doubler to change the audio to the music from the (much adored) Dead Island trailer, what you end up with is the most sad thing ever. Every time. For real.

Check out this one example:

It's uncanny how well this works with every single Thai insurance ad. Seriously, here's another "favourite" of mine (make sure to mute the Thai ad). The first time I watched on of these videos I was instantly transformed from a grown, reasonably competent adult into an angsty, "misunderstood" teenager. Equally devastating is the mashup of the Dead Island trailer music with the already heartbreaking opening montage from Up! that you can find here if you're just feeling too chipper today.

This strange but mesmerizing phenomenon raises a number of important questions:
1) Why are these instantly depressing videos so strangely compelling? What does it say about the human condition that we can enjoy the experience of sadness?
2) Have the composers of the Dead Island trailer music found the perfect combination of notes to instantly evoke simultaneous feelings of compassion, futility, and despair? Can it make anything sad? Is that dog dead?
3) What is the deal with Thai insurance commercials?!

These questions and more plague me while I continue to find new, more poignant combinations of internet videos with the Dead Island trailer music...

Editor's note: I've been meaning to post about this one for a few weeks, sorry for the delay Chris!

Dead Island Trailer to Get Feature-Length Adaptation

Back in February I flipped out over the outstanding trailer for the videogame Dead Island. Since then the game has been released, and while it's received generally positive reviews the final product isn't exactly groundbreaking. The trailer, on the other hand, has continued to garner critical acclaim. First it won a Gold prize at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity (yeah, I hadn't heard of it either, but still). Now the franchise has been optioned by Lionsgate for a feature film adaptation, and it seems pretty damn clear that the trailer is the primary influence for the movie. The announcement press release reads,

Like the trailer that will serve as its primary creative inspiration, the film DEAD ISLAND will be an innovation of the zombie genre because of its focus on human emotion, family ties and non-linear storytelling. Said Drake of the property's acquisition, "Like the hundreds of journalists and millions of fans who were so passionate and vocal about the Dead Island trailer, we too were awestruck." He continued, "This is exactly the type of property we're looking to adapt at Lionsgate – it's sophisticated, edgy, and a true elevation of a genre that we know and love. It also has built in brand recognition around the world, and franchise potential."

So yeah, they're making a movie out the clear Dead Island trailer. I have kind of mixed feelings about this. On the one hand it's kind of ridiculous to think that they're making a trailer (that it should be noted had almost nothing in common with the game it ostensibly represented) into a movie. Writing that out feels like I'm describing a bad Mad TV / Cracked.com sketch. It also reeks of creative bankruptcy, like taking the whole remake/reboot phenomenon to its natural extension. The idea just leaves me feeling kind of... dirty...

On the other hand, the trailer was FUCKING INCREDIBLE. If they can capture the same kind of pathos and emotional resonance that made the original trailer so good then I'll be first in line on opening night. The press release seems to indicate that the powers-that-be have at least some sense of what made the trailer so good, namely "its focus on human emotion, family ties and non-linear storytelling." I don't actually care if we get anything like the simultaneous backwards/forwards storytelling like we saw in the trailer. As far as I'm concerned the key aspect is the original's tone, the sense of tragic inevitability that made the trailer so devastating. Granted the non-linear nature of the storytelling had a lot to do with evoking that sentiment, but I don't necessarily think it's absolutely necessary for the film to be successful.

Time will tell if this movie ends up being more along the lines of the incredible trailer or the fun but relatively unemotional game. Fingers-crossed that it's the former. For now, take a few minutes to re-watch the trailer (at the top of this post) and remember what all the fuss is about.

Zombies and the Dead Island Trailer; or, Holy Shit Effective Marketing Batman!

I've made no secret of the fact that I like zombies. There's something about them that just appeals to me on a (ahem) visceral level. Maybe it's the confluence of post-apocalyptic social dynamics with the pure uncanny terror of seeing the dead come back to life (especially the reanimated corpses of your friends and family). Admittedly that sounds a little weird when I type it out like that, but when the zombie genre is done right it explores themes of desperation, loyalty, resilience, theology, and triumph and tragedy alike. It's just such fertile grounds for examining the human condition. Moreover the idea of great masses of people suddenly becoming mindless killers is a concept that seems to gain more figurative weight with each passing day.

All that said, the zombie genre is one that has also frustrated me in recent years. The market is, without a doubt, over-saturated with the undead (that's almost ironic), and as a result there's just so much cash-grab crap to sift through that the good stuff seems increasingly few and far between. The Walking Dead TV series, for example, was among the great disappointments in the fall. Despite the involvement of Frank Darabont and the potential displayed in the pilot, the show's narrative meandered about without really accomplishing anything until the finale. At that point it pulled a thematic 180 that left me cold, and frankly I don't much care if or when it comes back. A new series in one of my favourite genres made by a film maker who I hugely respect, and they managed to lose me within six episodes. Not a good sign.

Sidebar: I really should do a piece on how great The Mist is...

I don't want to sound completely negative, there have been some great zombie flicks in the last few years. As I wrote in 2009, Zombieland was great fun, and took a new spin on the satirical side of zombies. Also the British mini-series Dead Set, while not necessarily bringing anything new to the table, proved that the genre still has some legs in terms of social metaphor. The series depicted a zombie apocalypse from the perspective of the cast and crew on a season of Big Brother. Turning the lens on reality TV made for some great fun, but the true appeal of Dead Set was in its high production values and fearless approach to narrative. Seriously, for a good old scary time watch the entire series in one go, it's not much longer than a feature film and definitely worth the time.

But all of this is just to get to the reason for the post: the trailer released today for the upcoming game, Dead Island. It feels slightly, well, icky to dedicate an entire post to a marketing promotion, but this trailer is worth it. I found it over at Kotaku, and they called it "The Most Heartbreaking Zombie Vieo Game Trailer You'll Ever See." By no means an understatement, but I think Joystiq does it better when they say that with this trailer the game goes from "completely off our radar" to "has complete dominion over our minds." That does sum up the effect nicely. But don't take my word for it, give it a look yourself:

Now that's how you market something about zombies. Gore, pathos, tragedy, desperation, it's all there! They even go so far as to show the violent death of a child in a marketing tool! Twice, technically. Dead Island now has my full attention by virtue of its excellent trailer alone. This video is the best thing to happen to the zombie genre in years, and if the game can live up to even half the potential seen here then we'll all be in for a real treat this fall.