2 minutes of loling
Reviews for "Squidwards nightmare"
I just fall out of my chair and lunching a "Mother f******!!" out, you have my respect, 5 stars
DARK! I can see a lot of classic inspiration in this and I am talking all the way back to the days of silent films where the music was played by an orchestra or from a recording. There was a host of things reminiscent of David Lynch's work. But something also really came out at me. i could not help but think about the Pink Floyd animation to the Wall. Specifically the scene where the kids are putting a bullet on the train track and one of them is yelling, "Pinky, get off the track!" Likewise there was a bit of the old old old movie Puppetmaster in this. Not the Sci fi movie with space parasites but the one with a creepy old puppet master who makes puppets of people. It was an old B/W silent French movie if I remember it correctly. It has been a very long time since I seen it but the scene where Squidward is yanked up reminded me of a scene from that movie where one of the victims is literally plucked as if he more strings from the stage by a huge bony hand. There also was a whiff of Slenderman in this.
David Lynch set out to capture a Nightmare on film and did so with Eraserhead. That movie was a hallmark for its time since people have since the beginning of movies capture a nightmare. It is a lot harder than any of you aspiring animators or cinematographers can imagine. The ambiguous logic, the strange transitions in scene and mood, setting, camera angles, lighting... in a dream or a nightmare things don't make sense. That is what made Eraserhead such a weirdly disturbing classic. Nothing about it made any sense at all. it was visceral gut reactions and nothing but emotion twisting.
While not exactly Eraserhead caliber you came DAMN close and actually embraced probably the TOUGHEST thing to do in any artistic media. You also pulled this off with Claymation. While I would give you Parody Points in regard to the fact you singled out a Sponge Bob character and chose the most miserable one of all to do this with (come on, face it, Squidward is a rain cloud on a sunny day!). There was a fit to the form and function of this that took this FAR past any parody.
I would say there were things I found missing in this. When grasping at nightmares you need to think of other things to make the whole of what you are looking at wrong while nothing is out of sorts. Blurriness and haziness of vision and strong epileptic seizure inducing bright flashes can add to a nightmare as well as making things at times way darker than you would normally do. Even bad edit clips where things jerk badly as a scene progresses fits a dream state perfectly.
I would say out of all the nightmare transitions the scene where things went to his mother and himself and then his mother becomes a zombie... that was the most extreme and was actually led into quite well.
The beginning was a bit stale. There was room to add to the Nightmare logic and it was all simple things. Take for instance the cupcake he was staring at. It should have lost its color as he stared at it. Even better would be to have those Jerking flashes where its like a bad movie edit where as he was staring at the cupcake with each jerk it appeared to get moldy and then go back to being like it was when things stated. Then when he reaches for it a worm starts to crawl from it. FLASH, and on to the next scene... Sometimes even in the flash having a weird image like a freaky Sponge Bob mutant in the flash image or the hand of death reaching for him would have fit Squidward's fears well.
You see it is small details that can take you from a "Good" effort like this to something that leaves people raving so hard about it that five stars is deficient praise. There also is an issue of trying to compress too much into too little space. Balance is a tough word to follow sometimes. I will just say that as it went on it got better. There was improvement all the way through. The ending though left me a tad wanting. It came off way too "Alfred Hitchcock" to me. I can't reasonably justify deducting a full star over that issue. This was very close to a full five star effort.
This is a step in the right direction. I am sure if you take a different stab at this you might be able to REALLY grab us by our eyes and have us all bowing to mighty skill. For what this is in its time this is actually a great piece. I am not trying to be a dick and overly critical. There is always room for improvement but there is only so much one can do with the time given on certain projects. What you pulled off was time intensive and a labor of love. That shows. I still held up a lighter to this. The fact you completed it and got it on Newgrounds also says a LOT!
This had a dark Gothic feel to it mixed with horror and a spot of the ol' H.P. Lovecraft to it. It is kind of funny how your original idea mutated... Damn that Cosmic Radiation and its effects on us all (LOL). Keep it coming. This was actually quite talented work.
Thank you for the good work! This was pretty frosty for "good." You came damn close to squeaking a great out of me.
Creepy. Menacing, Simple.
"I call it bold and brash"
This does not belong in the trash, 5/7 gg no re.
I never thought claymation could spook me but I have been thoroughly spooked.
Great job creating the unnerving atmosphere.