Gemini Home Entertainment: Cosmic Horror Meets Analog Video

 Gemini Home Entertainment: Cosmic Horror Meets Analog Video

Supernatural horror, as a genre, can come in many shapes and sizes. From books to television to even comic books, the idea of something unknown and unexplainable lurking just at the corners of human vision has always fascinated us. I should know, given I've written books inspired by those very ideas. But, with the Internet allowing storytellers more tools to create and share the worlds they envision, a whole new slew of horror content has been cropping up in the last decade or so. This ranges from shows like Marble Hornets, a webseries about the popular, faceless Slenderman monster, to "creepypasta," Internet horror stories, some of which are incredibly chilling ("Candle Cove" being one of my favorites). 

But recently, a new type of video has been cropping up on YouTube: Analog horror. A subgenre of found footage, analog horror typically throws away the idea that found footage has to rely on a character in the story holding a shaky camera the whole time. Instead, analog horror presents itself as found footage of decades-old tapes, television programs, and interviews, with some typical aspects of found footage shaky-cam thrown in--albeit sparsely. The YouTube channel that popularized the genre was Local 58, a channel run by Kris Straub, the author of my aforementioned favorite creepypasta "Candle Cove." If you want to get a feel for what analog horror is like, I recommend checking out the first three videos on his channel (each of which are very short): You Are On the Fastest Available Route, Weather Service, and my personal favorite, Contingency. The reason this has become a genre of its own is likely because there is a fear factor among younger audiences who aren't familiar with more analog ways of consuming media, the older, grainer feeling of the videos presented lending to the immersion.

The same qualities of terror found in the above Local 58 videos can also be seen in Gemini Home Entertainment, a series of interconnected mini-documentaries that create a world of skinwalkers, underwater alien creatures, and cosmic horror bordering on the Lovecraftian. To expand on the story of Gemini Home Entertainment would do a disservice to the series as a whole. This is because Gemini's most interesting aspect is its world-building. The videos don't follow a central character, only ever mentioning and featuring characters as part of the larger world the videos take place in. Instead, every video presents itself as a documentary about a different subject--the ocean, space, etc.--with little bits of horror sprinkled in until the very end, where a new piece of the puzzle of this horrifying world is put on the table. It's up to the viewer to decide how each of the puzzle pieces fit before moving on to the next video to see if they're right or not. The best part of Gemini is that there's clearly a definitive world being built and a story with central characters and an antagonist happening in the background. But front and center are the mysteries of the world being created and the attentiveness of the audience to put it together. It's like being the detective in a mystery novel, only you're trying to make sense of horrors beyond our world.

To give you an example of how Gemini presents itself, I'll discuss the first video and how some of what happens therein relates to later entries. This first video is titled World's Weirdest Animals. Presenting itself as a documentary about unknown animals in rural Minnesota, the first three minutes of the show are rather mundane. The first thing viewers see is a title screen, Earth in the background, the text "World's Weirdest Animals" in the center. Throughout the documentary, a text overlay discusses unique--and most importantly, real--facts about two different animals. First, viewers are shown the state of Minnesota against a dark green background, with a light musical melody playing in the background. Part of Minnesota is highlighted red: "Wilkin County" says some text on the screen. This is followed by a highlight of "Animal #1," the Greater Prairie Chicken. Footage of the chickens are shown, with genuine facts about the animal presented for around a minute. Next, we're sent back to the map, with an area labeled "Clay County" highlighted red. We're presented with "Animal #2," the Burrowing Owl, and more facts about it, again for around a minute.

After this, we cut back to the map. There's a bit of a longer pause but nothing too out of the ordinary just yet. Until the music stops. Until all of Minnesota is highlighted red. The text on the side of the screen reads: "Everywhere." The green background slowly fades to brown before the camera cuts away to introduce "Animal #3": Woodcrawlers. The documentary discusses how these soundless hunters nest in the homes of large families, "where large swarms can adapt easier." The audience is treated to typical shaky-cam found footage as the cameraman films a house. The presentation as a nature documentary, though, continues with the text on the screen: "You will hear screaming. They stole their voices." Followed by prompting for viewers to "burn the bodies, lest they stand up again."

The final text we see onscreen is accompanied by film of a laundry room, the cameraman seemingly peering inside the infested home. He's spooked away, however, when two large claws come out from a doorway, almost soundless in their sudden appearance. What's interesting to note here, though, is the text on the screen at the time: "Nature's mockery." This phrase comes back a few videos later, explained in more detail. While here it can be interpreted as the filmmaker's description for what these Woodcrawlers are--a mockery of nature--the term takes on a whole new meaning as the series continues. Things like this are what I love about Gemini Home Entertainment; you can be presented with the most mundane of information, only for it to hold great meaning as the videos reveal more about what's going on. It's ingenious, the type of storytelling only someone with a knack for subtlety can pull off.

The rest of the first video presents itself in a more typical found footage style. This, however, is atypical of the series, happening maybe six or seven times over the course of 16 videos, with the longest bout of shaky cam occurring in the first video; for a little over 2 minutes. In these 2 minutes, the cameraman walks up to the house at night, getting a better view through the windows in the dark. Through the illumination, the audience can see there are people standing in the house. Except they aren't acting like people should. Some of them are making strange movements, while others are standing completely still, their limbs twitching every few seconds. At the end of the video, one of them spots the filmmaker and begins to sprint at him. The camera starts to glitch and, before we can see a conclusion to the conflict, the screen cuts back to the World's Weirdest Animals title screen.

Each episode of Gemini Home Entertainment is presented in a similar manner, though as the series goes on, more cryptic information gets interspersed earlier in the videos. It gets to the point where there are some videos completely dedicated to dropping a ton of information on the audience, none of who's titles I can spoil for fear of revealing too much. The story being told here, though, is sprawling in just how many elements are being juggled. But, because they're presented in little 5-7-minute snapshots, it's both easy to digest and easy to binge. At the time of writing, the series would take roughly an hour and a half to watch if done in one sitting. That's enough time to process everything going on in the world being built here as well as theorizing what might happen next. Gemini definitely feels like it's still in Act 1 of a larger tale, but what that might be--if such a larger tale exists--only time will tell.

As of writing, Gemini Home Entertainment does not appear to be finished. New videos have been coming out every few months and aren't on a schedule. A new layer of this world's madness could drop at any time. I know I haven't said much about the overall series itself, but trust me when I say there is so much going on here that I would be remiss to spoil. Experiencing mystery entertainment for the first time is always best when you go in as blind as possible. So I implore you: If supernatural horror presented in an analog, documentary style sounds up your alley, check out Gemini Home Entertainment. The channel has a playlist here with every video in order of release. I encourage you to wait until dark, then start on your journey into a unique horror experience. It's a frightening, well-presented world that only grows more cosmically terrifying the longer you watch.

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