stanley wong + tyler russel: pac-man the movie.

I stumbled on this randomly on YouTube today. It’s destined for viral greatness. This is what I love about user-generated content on the web. Real fans of real stuff who can create what they want and send that little baby into the world for everyone to see. What did people do before YouTube? I honestly don’t remember. I guess I went outside and talked to people… or something like that.

Described as “the twisted tale of four ghosts trapped in a maze while being stalked by a giant yellow monster”, they cleverly flip the hero of the story from Pac-Man to the ghosts and then throw in all of those action/horror movie clichés we’ve come to love and groan at.  We’ve got the mentally unstable screaming guy, the crying girl who just doesn’t understand why this is all happening to her, the surprise attack from behind right after guy has made speech declaring they’ve all survive, and slow-mo heroic death sequence set to a John Williams-esque aching strings and piano score. Give these guys 100 million dollars and they’d have just about every Michael Bay movie you’ve ever seen. Themeatically, they’ve got this shit locked down.

They key to its success is how earnest they are. Any sort of wink wink nudge nudge that they’re in on the joke would totally kill it. It’s not a lampoon, it’s a tribute. The result is ballsy, totally entertaining, and filled with an energy that could only be injected by people who are 110% into putting their vision on film. Plus, it takes some real commitment to be this into your character while wearing plastic table cloths. 

I say brilliant. I can’t wait to see what they get up to next.