Broken

I broke it in half. The DVD. I took it out of my player and just snapped it.

Then I went and did the same for the rest of the boxset. But what if the other Buffy DVDs had the same problems? I broke them too.

I broke my entire DVD collection. I cut my hands with them. With my hands wrapped in a towel, I picked each broken DVD up and tossed it in a trashbag and then tossed that in the dumpster.

No more DVDs. I don't even watch TV anymore.

Books. Books are good. I can read books.

I flipped open a book yesterday. I...can't remember the title. But...but I remember reading it. My hands turned the pages by themselves.

Epilogues and Recriminations

So I pressed the enter button on the Easter egg. It wasn't a new episode, though.

There was a man, in his fifties I believe, with gray hair. He was looking down at his hands and then looked up. He spoke with an Eastern European accent I think.

He said: "This...this is my greatest work. My grand acheivement. Yet...yet it is not mine. I made it to worn others of her, but it was her work all along. All along. This is what she does. She digs within you and soon, the actions you perform are not your own. I was a man like Arlecchino once, I am afraid. I was...not nice and dabbled in things I should not have. She was my punishment...my Colombina. But she was never Colombina. She was never..."

He paused then for a few seconds and then took a deep breath. "She is not human, like us. She knows nothing of love or jealousy or hatred. She is attracted to these things, though, because...because she doesn't know them. And so she moves us about, makes mimics of us, makes us look into mirrors and see our own dark reflections."

He leaned in closer to the camera. "If you are watching this, that means you have attracted her attention. I would warn you not to watch, but I know that is futile. Once she has her hooks in you...her strings wrapped around you..." He nervously swallowed. "Soon, I shall take my own life. Even this final action will be hers."

"I have said all I can." He raised his hand and held a tangle of strings. "Though warnings will do no good, I have warned. You will not heed this warning, as I never did." He spread the strings out across the desk. "You can only hope, like I do, that the end will be swift and merciful." He leaned over the desk and suddenly the strings twisted like snakes and curled around his neck like a noose.

I hit the stop button on the remote and the TV went black.

Another Easter Egg

So, I've been toying with watching that episode again. I know: I must be really stupid. But I've seen it once now, so watching it again wouldn't be as scary. I'd know what is going to happen before it happens.

So I entered the DVD into the player. But first I fooled around a bit with it, just pressing the arrow buttons around...and I found another Easter egg.

I haven't watched it yet. Is it another episode? Do I even want to watch it?

Fuck.

Sleep No More...

...Macbeth doth murder sleep.

So, yeah, haven't exactly been sleeping this past week. That last episode was just...something. Something really fucking creepy.

And the sleep that has been coming has been filled with strange dreams. I can't really remember them, except that I saw that wooden mask Colombina was wearing. I think...I think someone else was wearing it.

Episode ? "The Grand Guignol"

Short summary: everybody dies.

Longer summary:

So, when we last left off, it looked like Arlecchino had performed some sort of dark ritual to make Colombina live again. Except he's still performing the ritual when this episode starts and it doesn't seem to be working. He's getting pretty angry and finally he jumps down from the balcony to the center of the ballroom. He starts threatening everybody with a knife that appears in his hand, until he gets a good look at the Pale Prince, then he starts to run for the door.

But the door opens before he gets there and in walks Colombina, still covered in that weird string and wearing a dark wooden mask. "How?" he says.

"She is here for the end," the Herleking says. "The end of all of us, the end of life and living, the end of food and drink and dancing. When we follow her we will all be of the end."

"Then I shall not follow her!" Arlecchino says. "I shall follow me, as always, and kill her again!"

At that point, Colombina's arms reach out and the strings fly out and encircle Arlecchino's neck. They strangle him until his face turns red and then tighten until his head (believe it or not) pops off, blood spilling on the dance floor. "It has begun," the Herleking said

and

and

and suddenly it wasn't claymation anymore, it was live-action. Arlecchino's blood looked dark and real and Herleking had a look of sheer terror on his face and the Pale Prince...he was there one moment and then suddenly he wasn't. I didn't get a good glimpse because the whole episode becoming live-action was quite a shock.

Then suddenly we see Colombina again and she's walking forward toward the camera and all the strings around her skin are moving and curling and you can see a little of them behind that wooden mask. It's just so fucking scary. Then strings starts bursting through the floor and all the dancers and revellers get entangled and strangled and die. And the Herleking steps forward and bows his head towards Colombina and he stabs himself before the strings surround him.

And then and then and then the strings all rise up, pulling all the dead bodies up like puppets, and the strings make them dance in a sort of perversion of their previous dance. And Colombina stands in the middle, still and silent.

Analysis: fuck that. I'm never sleeping again.

Episode ? "The Last Masque"

Short summary: a bunch of dancing, a lot more weirdness, a lot more creepiness, and a dark ritual.

Longer summary:

So, when we last left off, Arlecchino was placed in "Bedlam Hospital," a mental institution. There, he's regularly beaten and starved (which is pretty much what he deserves after what he did to Colombina), but he also finds some sort of book of witchcraft or something (it's very vague - at one point, the book just seems to appear on the frame).

The Harlequinade has started now and the Herleking is walking around with one of those foreign dignitaries called the Pale Prince (a very creepy faceless figure in what looks like a suit). At least, I think his name is the Pale Prince - the others call him by a variety of names. "Oh pale prince," they say, "oh faceless friend of fire and forest! We are humbled by your visit to our territory." What is creepier is that the Pale Prince doesn't say anything to them at all - he doesn't even talk.

At this point, Arlecchino uses black magic to escape Bedlam Hospital (I think - he disappears and reappers, like a jump cut). Later, the dancing starts and the Herleking proclaims that since "she is rising" this will be their "last masque." In the balcony above the dancing, Arlecchino appears and starts some sort of dark ritual.

And then we cut to Colombina's dead body on a wooden slab. There's like a chorus of dark figures in the background singing this creepy song. It goes like: "The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, the worms play pinochle with your snout. They eat your heart, they eat your soul, they eat you up and leave a hole."

As this creepy song is being sung, these weird strings rise up around Colombine's body and wrap themselves around her. They cover every inch of her flesh. Then she starts to move.

No credits again.

Analysis: I really do not know where to begin (and, frankly, I don't want to). But, for some reason, it's kind of fascinating watching it. I'm sort of hooked on how just plain weird it is.

Episode ? "Harlequinade"

Short summary: Tim Burton crossed with David Lynch. Uh, yeah.

Longer summary:

Made with some sort of bizarre claymation-type animation, this was actually pretty short. Thirty minutes, more or less. It's just that it was thirty minutes of weird creepiness (sort of like watching a claymation version of Eraserhead).

So the plot is this: Arlecchino and Colombina are puppet operators. In fact, they operate the Punch and Judy puppets seen at the end of the last episode (weirdly, actual Punch and Judy puppets are shown when Arlecchino and Colombina control them - a weird mixture of media). They are both getting ready for the Harlequinade, a big gathering that will have food and booze and dancing and, of course, a Punch and Judy show.

Both are nervous about the Harlequinade because the Herleking will be there along with some foreign dignitaries (believe me, I'm paraphrasing - I could barely hear them whisper something about a prince). Also complicating things is that Arlecchino and Colombina are married and Arlecchino is fiercly jealous and suspects her of cheating. (I looked these names up later and they are, in fact, from Commedia dell'arte.)

Finally, at the end, Colombina messes up a line of dialogue and Arlecchino starts beating her. I mean brutally beating - even though they were claymation, I could practically see her pain. And then Arlecchino strangles her with the Judy puppet's strings and kills her (yeah, he's a great guy). The very last scene is him being dragged away and placed in "Bedlam Hospital," a mental institution.

No credits.

Analysis: ...do I even want to attempt to analyze this? It's so grotesque, it's would be funny if it wasn't so creepy.