Editorials
Tune in… Or Else: Kris Straub Has Created a Viral Internet Nightmare With ‘Local 58’
Even though television is dying (or realistically speaking, just moving over to the internet), the style of the medium, particularly the lo-fi aesthetic of public TV stations from the 80s and 90s, is still extremely popular. Dated graphics, jump cuts and audio issues, it all reminds those of us old enough to remember classic television’s dominance in our lives, and how there was always a bit of a thrill whenever it looked like things were going off the rails on the other side of the screen.
Author and filmmaker Kris Straub understands this, which is why he tapped into the dark potential of this particular brand of nostalgia with his hall-of-famer Creepypasta story “Candle Cove”, a story that unwinds the tale of an obscure children’s show of the same name, written entirely in the style of old message board posts. It’s eerily convincing in its simplicity, and it went on to become a viral hit that would be adapted for the first season of the criminally underrated SyFy anthology show “Channel Zero” (gone, but not forgotten).
Straub has chosen to follow this up with another nightmarish story delivered under the guise of public television in his ongoing video series Local 58. Initially published on the now defunct website local58.info, all entries in the series were uploaded onto YouTube in late 2018, and quickly amassed a cult following.
The first episode of the series, “Weather Service”, sets the tone immediately. There is no central protagonist presented to us. We see a simple graphic of the station’s logo and call letters, a brief glimpse at a programming schedule, and are then jolted into an emergency broadcast message, complete with those freaky beeps and VCR-era font we’ve come to know and loathe. The message advises of us a weather warning, a “meteorological event” that will last until sunrise. It then advises the viewer to stay indoors and avoid looking at the sky.
Disturbing, yes, but it gets worse when the broadcast is interrupted yet again, this time by a message set against a red screen, telling the folks at home to disregard the previous warning, and encouraging them to view this mysterious event. In fact, it urges them to. “GO OUTSIDE NOW” it commands, until other conflicting messages appear in bursts—“AVOID MIRRORS,” “DO NOT LOOK UP,” “IT’S IN THE LIGHT,” this messenger warns. The final image is a jittery shot of a full moon hanging in the sky. In the distance, the sounds of panicked screaming can just barely be heard.
It’s heavy stuff, right? You know so little yet have been given just enough details to let your imagination run wild with possibilities. Is this the work of some hacker? Ghosts in the machine? A trick from a hostile alien force? It’s hard to call it. And that’s just within the first two and a half minute video. You don’t know what to believe. Can your own eyes be trusted?
Well before you think about it too much, it’s best to move ahead to the next broadcast, “Contingency,” possible the most disturbing entry to date (and it’s got some stiff competition). From the beginning, there are some noticeable differences; Not only is the station’s logo changed, but the replacement of video distortion with scratches and marks commonly found in old damaged film suggest we’re watching a clip from a different era in the channel’s history, possibly the 1960s or 70s. When the broadcast day ends, the signal is instantly hijacked, and we’re subjected to what looks like an old bit of newsreel footage, a message from some organization known as the “U.S. Department For The Preservation of American Dignity.”
The message is chilling: the film, designed to be shown to the public in the event of America succumbing to an invasion, displays a waving American flag as text crawls up, letting Americans know that the USA has surrendered to “her enemy.” The soundtrack plays a distorted version of the Star Spangled Banner, as this message, ostensibly from President Lyndon B. Johnson, cryptically calls for average citizens to resist to the very end, lest the enemy claim our independent spirits.
It doesn’t take a lot of guesswork to figure out what that means, but the video becomes truly terrifying when it spells it out through a series of messages: “YOU TAKE AMERICA WITH YOU”; “ACCESS TO A LOADED FIREARM IS IDEAL”; “JOIN YOUR NEIGHBORS, YOUR FAMILY, YOUR GOD.” That’s right, this is a decree from the U.S Government to fight for your country by literally committing suicide, going so far as to give you instructions (“place muzzle upward to roof of mouth”). As the video goes on, this becomes less of a proud battle cry, and more of a tyrannical demand. One of the later messages reads “It is against the law to delay – THIS MESSAGE WILL REPEAT UNTIL THERE ARE NONE TO READ IT.” And right as it gets to the part where it instructs you on how to take out your kids, the broadcast stabilizes, and Local 58 returns to normal, writing the whole thing off as a bunch of “technical difficulties.”
Maybe it’s the current sociopolitical tensions plaguing American society, but there’s something particularly horrifying about the dutiful and lethal groupthink that film espouses. As insane as it is, it feels possible—bear in mind that CNN does in fact have a premade sign off video in the event of the Apocalypse. Seriously.
The following videos only get more disturbing. “You Are On The Fastest Available Route” seems to be aired as a “midnight movie,” and consists only of dash cam footage showing a driver following a driver being directed by a GPS deeper and deeper into the wilderness—until they stumble upon a creature that they cannot reroute fast enough from.
The most recent video, “Show For Children” airs what looks to be an old cartoon from the early days of animation: Cadavre in “A Grave Mistake.” It plays like a goth version of an old Disney toon, where a cute little skeleton wanders around a graveyard as a smiling moon hangs above him, grinning a touch too much. As the poor little guy stumbles over open graves and flees them in fear, the music dissipates, and the moon goes from a grinning goon to an anxious, glaring monstrosity, hovering over a grave that Cadavre eventually falls and dies in. Straub knows just how to gradually raise the tension by mixing cartoonish and starkly graphic imagery, and allowing certain frames to linger for too long.
But what is the connection between all these pieces? Online speculation abounds, but the recurring images and motifs—an ominous moon, the threat of invasion, mind control, etc—have led most engaged with the series to believe that the story centers around an alien invasion. This writer generally agrees, although I believe it remains to be seen. It could just as easily be a story of sinister government experiments gone awry, or supernatural entities gaining control of television signals to exact revenge of some sort.
What I can say with certainty is that this a great horror web series, brilliant in both its depth and its simplicity. Straub uses a masterful blend of original art and stock footage and FX to craft a unique and engaging story. It’s the kind of mysterious, “less is more” form of horror storytelling that the internet is an especially strong vehicle for. If you’ve yet to check out Local 58, I recommend you seek it out on YouTube, watch all the videos, and subscribe to see what happens next. It’s must see TV.
Watch…or surrender…
The problem with filming sequels back-to-back is that, unless you can afford expensive reshoots, there’s no easy way to adjust course in between movies if fans react badly to where the story is headed. That’s why it’s important to have a complete narrative thought out well in advance lest you accidentally kill a budding franchise.
However, this isn’t always the case. Every once in a while, it seems like the cinema gods smile upon certain chaotic productions and gift moviegoers with complete franchises that feel like more than the sum of their hastily produced parts. Ted Nicolaou’s Bloodlust: Subspecies III is precisely one of these miraculous pictures, with the raw talents of the artists involved (as well as the continued support from Romania) turning the feature into an effective conclusion for a series that kind of made things up as the filmmakers went along.
That’s why I’d like to invite my fellow readers to join me on this third part of our journey through the Subspecies franchise as we look into Bloodlust and talk about how it remains a surprisingly satisfying finale to the original trilogy.
A Trilogy Planned on the Fly
Released only a year after Bloodstone found plenty of success in rental stores and mail-in VHS catalogues worldwide, 1994’s Bloodlust was produced at the same time as its predecessor in (mostly) the same locations and with the same team. This means that the movie benefited from all the same upgrades as Bloodstone, with the crew now being more experienced with the ins and outs of surviving a low-budget Romanian production and the cast really settling into their characters.
At this point, everything from location scouting to the makeup process had been streamlined, with Wayne Toth and Norman Cabrera, the main duo behind special effects, even switching out time-consuming prosthetics for latex gloves in order to speed up Anders Hove’s monstrous transformation. The titular “subspecies” demons were also once again relegated to a mere cameo appearance due to the laborious puppetry required to bring them to life.
The only real hiccup came from the fact that actress Denice Duff had replaced the first film’s Michelle (Laura Mae Tate) and was immediately expected to portray the character as both an innocent victim in part II and as a secondary villain in part III. According to behind-the-scenes interviews, the hectic production schedule that blended two different movies meant that Duff would often find herself having to alternate between two incredibly different versions of Michelle during the same shooting day – though it’s obvious that she’s having more fun with Bloodlust’s more traditionally vampiric version of her character.
In the finished film, we pick things up immediately where the previous entry left off as Rebecca (Melanie Shatner) is forced to leave her vampire sister Michelle (Duff) behind in the dungeons of Castle Vladislav due to the rising sun. This allows Mummy (Pamela Gordon) to use Michelle’s blood to revive the vicious Radu (Hove) so that he may continue his quest for the coveted Bloodstone – a magical artifact that perpetually drips the Blood of Saints.
Meanwhile, the dreamy US embassy agent Mel (Kevin Blair) agrees to help Rebecca plan a rescue mission, though they’re unaware that Radu has become infatuated with Michelle during his attempts to guide her growing bloodlust. This all culminates in a climactic confrontation meant to tie up all of the series’ loose ends in one of Full Moon Pictures’ most ambitious productions.
The Evolution of Radu
Like its predecessor, Bloodlust: Subspecies III was also warmly received by fans who argued that the series was an even bigger success than Full Moon’s other major horror franchise, Puppet Master. This praise wasn’t unanimous, however, as 1994 had seen the rise of a more modern breed of sexy vampire popularized by Anne Rice, with old-school Nosferatu like Radu being viewed as obsolete when compared to the likes of Lestat and Gary Oldman’s take on Dracula.
In a way, one might argue that Nicolaou’s film is something of a swan song for the classic vampire story, as Bloodlust combines all of the traditional elements we tend to associate with these tales into a single tragic yarn that ties a neat little bow on Radu’s story as well as the old-fashioned monster movies that he represents. The finale remains shocking despite the fact that this is the third time we see Radu get brutally killed onscreen, with the brief tease that he may one day return feeling more like a nod towards the nature of evil rather than sequel bait.
The film dabbles a bit in gothic romance and even explores the inherent power fantasy behind transforming into an immortal creature of the night, but the filmmakers never lose sight of Radu as a demonic force even when he’s willing to betray his beloved Mummy for Michelle’s sake. In fact, his twisted “love” for his fledgling makes him even creepier as we get the feeling that his passion comes from a dark and disturbing place.
Anders Hove is at his absolute best in this film, with the effects department boosting his moments of what the younger generation would call “aura farming” whenever Radu emerges from shadows like a 90s version of Count Orlok. There are even a couple of surprisingly effective jump-scares here, which is why I’d argue that Bloodlust cements Radu as one of the most memorable cinematic vampires of all time despite his humble origins.
Subspecies Saves Its Best For Last
Nicolaou and Vlad Panescu also saved the best for “last” (more on that in a bit) regarding the film’s visuals, with the cinematography and overall atmosphere of Bloodlust absolutely surpassing what we saw in the previous films. Everything feels appropriately climactic this time around (including the wonderful soundtrack that was co-composed alongside an authentic Romanian orchestra), and I appreciate how this is the fastest-paced entry in the trilogy since the film doesn’t need to waste time setting anything up.
Bloodlust still suffers from some of the same low-budget blemishes as its predecessors, but there’s so much creative passion here that no amount of wonky effects work or stilted dialogue can get in the way of appreciating the flick’s gothic grandeur. That’s why it’s not surprising that the movie’s definitive(-ish) ending would later be retconned as fans begged for more Radu.
Of course, the next entry in this series would be a different kind of vampiric endeavor altogether, with the filmmakers attempting to engage with the same trends that ultimately killed Radu and his antiquated kin. That, however, is a story for another time. For now, I’ll merely insist that Bloodlust: Subspecies III remains a highlight of Full Moon’s expansive catalogue and is definitely worth seeking out today.
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