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Malum by Bitbendaz
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popularity : 55% |
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alltime top: #14547 |
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added on the 2023-07-08 22:15:01 by Stalvik^bbz  |
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comments
Weird trip.
rulez added on the 2023-07-08 22:28:39 by gaspode 
Nope, this doesn't work on AMD either.
very scary PC demo
.cut 3:09-3:20 and make proper final version.
Great horror trip!
Made me feel a bit sick but that might have been because of the camera shake and extreme closeups combined watching it fullscreen (on YouTube). I appreciate the gloomy 3D corridors with neat glossy floor reflections. Unfortunately the 2D art looks AI generated - and I have no idea if they actually is - it's just that the highly detailed concept art style carries that stigma in my mind. I have nothing against the technique personally and my advice is to just keep working on it.
As a horror movie fan I'm left with mixed feelings. Horror imagery without a purpose is just a shock video and I honestly have no idea what's the story trying to get told here. I'm sure it wasn't "mental illness bad" even though that's always a subtext when showing derelict insane asylum environments. The problem with just stringing cliches in a sequence is that you'll still end up sending a message but probably not something you intended.
Since Chucky made an appearance here maybe it's appropriate to make quick comparison to Child's Play. If you consider how much screen time is spent on building tension vs releasing it with nasty images, you can see it's actually just tense drama with the occasional goofy puppetry sprinkled in. Still, as a viewer I can feel a knot in my stomach when the characters unknowingly treat Chucky as just a regular toy. Don't go there! Don't open that door!
It's _not_ about the blood and guts and padded cells, it's about the characters I care about and the deep-seated human curiosity to hear the story on how the other ape almost got eaten by a sabre-toothed tiger but got away. And then we laugh feel alive again!
As you can see you've taken on a very difficult task in translating horror to the short demoscene format without characters. It can be made to work if you're satisfied with just vignettes. Consider Oscar's Chair for example where we know the antagonist (?) only by name yet it's still effective. If you plan on just riffing on horror imagery in a less ambitious way, then it's worthing taking a good look at Shad 2. It's actually mostly scifi corridors stylized due to necessity (low poly) and artistic vision (cartoonish videogame look). The occasional gross thing is easier to stomach and they don't carry as much symbolical weight as cinematic shots. They are just schoolboyish scribbles in comparison.
I'm taking your endeavour seriously on purpose because I care - both about demos and horror. Looking forward to your next production, as always.
As a horror movie fan I'm left with mixed feelings. Horror imagery without a purpose is just a shock video and I honestly have no idea what's the story trying to get told here. I'm sure it wasn't "mental illness bad" even though that's always a subtext when showing derelict insane asylum environments. The problem with just stringing cliches in a sequence is that you'll still end up sending a message but probably not something you intended.
Since Chucky made an appearance here maybe it's appropriate to make quick comparison to Child's Play. If you consider how much screen time is spent on building tension vs releasing it with nasty images, you can see it's actually just tense drama with the occasional goofy puppetry sprinkled in. Still, as a viewer I can feel a knot in my stomach when the characters unknowingly treat Chucky as just a regular toy. Don't go there! Don't open that door!
It's _not_ about the blood and guts and padded cells, it's about the characters I care about and the deep-seated human curiosity to hear the story on how the other ape almost got eaten by a sabre-toothed tiger but got away. And then we laugh feel alive again!
As you can see you've taken on a very difficult task in translating horror to the short demoscene format without characters. It can be made to work if you're satisfied with just vignettes. Consider Oscar's Chair for example where we know the antagonist (?) only by name yet it's still effective. If you plan on just riffing on horror imagery in a less ambitious way, then it's worthing taking a good look at Shad 2. It's actually mostly scifi corridors stylized due to necessity (low poly) and artistic vision (cartoonish videogame look). The occasional gross thing is easier to stomach and they don't carry as much symbolical weight as cinematic shots. They are just schoolboyish scribbles in comparison.
I'm taking your endeavour seriously on purpose because I care - both about demos and horror. Looking forward to your next production, as always.
Enjoyable demo that works surprisingly well IMHO. And (even though I sort of understand Kempy’s criticism) the ending sequence left me with s smile on my face that I’m glad that I didn’t miss :)
So after a bit of hex-editing, I finally got this (and the previous 3-4 demos) to run - hugs Stalvik :)
I'm bound to agree with cce, but at the same time I think this demo made me understand Bitbendaz a Bitbetter (hur hur), and I think it's best to view their work as "themed", rather than "genre work": they don't do The Thing, they use The Thing as set dressing for the classic demostyle - it's not "horror", it's "horror demo"; it's not "disco", it's "disco demo". It's like the difference between a horror film and a horror themed techno event or a horror themed birthday party: in the former case, the horror is the point - in the latter, the horror is just changing the flavor slightly, but it's never the core of the experience. (In this sense, Umbra was something of an outlier - that was proper genre work.)
There's pros and cons to this approach: it's always safe since it relies on the "demostyle" backbone to not stray away too much from what the audience expects, but of course you could also criticize it for that since it just cherry picks some of the things and never fully commits.
In this particular case, the craftsmanship on the audiovisual side was well done enough that it worked for me, at least.
I'm bound to agree with cce, but at the same time I think this demo made me understand Bitbendaz a Bitbetter (hur hur), and I think it's best to view their work as "themed", rather than "genre work": they don't do The Thing, they use The Thing as set dressing for the classic demostyle - it's not "horror", it's "horror demo"; it's not "disco", it's "disco demo". It's like the difference between a horror film and a horror themed techno event or a horror themed birthday party: in the former case, the horror is the point - in the latter, the horror is just changing the flavor slightly, but it's never the core of the experience. (In this sense, Umbra was something of an outlier - that was proper genre work.)
There's pros and cons to this approach: it's always safe since it relies on the "demostyle" backbone to not stray away too much from what the audience expects, but of course you could also criticize it for that since it just cherry picks some of the things and never fully commits.
In this particular case, the craftsmanship on the audiovisual side was well done enough that it worked for me, at least.
great horror demo
great ambiance
reminds me of this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGp8kQcsWEU and thus makes me think the soundtrack should've been proper metal
looks fantastic. but i can't decide if i do not like the music in general or only the voice. unfortunately either one almost made me thumb it down. but still i like how it looks. so a piggie it is.
Music completely doesn't fit (except for the very beginning of the demo) and quite spoils the demo for me. I do like the visuals though, as these are great.
An updated version of this demo is now available. This version should work well with AMD setups. Big thanks to Gargaj for assisting and testing these fixes!
11/10 enjoyed - bbz rule.
Bitbendaz never disapoints. Great stuff guys. Killer track as always from myggen bzzzz.
Ok.
Thank you all for your feedback and to those voting for us at Edison, much appreciated!
cce - I think you give us too much credit though, the goal was never to tell an actual story ala Carpenter, it was simply as Gargaj nicely put it, to make a demo with a horror theme wrapping. That being said, one on my personal goals was to try to evoke some kind of feeling for the viewer, making them uncomfortable was the aim. But considering the overall lack of feedback for this demo, maybe we should just stick to happy chiptunes and lowres graphics going forward :P
cce - I think you give us too much credit though, the goal was never to tell an actual story ala Carpenter, it was simply as Gargaj nicely put it, to make a demo with a horror theme wrapping. That being said, one on my personal goals was to try to evoke some kind of feeling for the viewer, making them uncomfortable was the aim. But considering the overall lack of feedback for this demo, maybe we should just stick to happy chiptunes and lowres graphics going forward :P
I guess my point was that gross imagery needs to be justified by a story. If you don't have that then the piece should be real pretty. In other words, you need to balance out the ugly with the beautiful.
Quote:
I guess my point was that gross imagery needs to be justified by a story. If you don't have that then the piece should be real pretty. In other words, you need to balance out the ugly with the beautiful.
So you are telling me its not pretty then? ;) And I dont agree with that something _needs_ a story to be appreciated, I mean, 99% of all demos dont have a story and those who try usually fail miserably.
Whoa, this one is actually very good! I tend to frown upon gore-looking scene prods; they too often come off as way too corny, and I don't like the genre at all (tbh, I still wouldn't endure it if I had to watch it fullscreen instead of on YT). However, this one is very thoroughly produced and feels much more consistent than previous Bitbendas productions. (No offense! Just a personal opinion!) Both the music and gfx are where they should be. Editing feels slightly lost in the music, but I guess that's just a thing for DnB, it's always a challenge and there's very little chance editing will live together with it, happens rarely even in big money music videos. Either way, a standout piece and great team work! Thank you!
nice trip and a dnb soundtrack, totally diggin' it!
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