Whedonesque : Comments on 6464 : (SPOILER) Gotta love a mystery!

This site will work and look better in a browser that supports web standards, but it is accessible to any browser or Internet device.

April 08 2005

(SPOILER) Gotta love a mystery! Strange things are afoot at The Unholy website. Recent updates since the last time this film was mentioned here. This is apparently the early makings of a guerilla marketing campaign for Nicholas Brendon's upcoming independent film with Adrienne Barbeau.

I've been getting emails from whoever's running that website. The guy's being purposefully cryptic and creepy. He's apparently massmailing to anyone who's responded, and a lot have based on the last one I got which had like almost a hundred different addresses in the TO field. A little sloppy, but not annoying in the way most spam I get is annoying. Just.. weird. I think he's trying to be scary. I say we humor him if it means getting juicy tidbits and spoilers about the upcoming film!

I'd recommend making sure your volume's up before going to the website link above, but not too high, that your computer can handle embedded wave files, and you highlight the entire webpage to catch all the stupid-fun "clues." Hope you can read backwards. I made some notes to myself in a vain attempt at uncovering the website's mysteries. Hopefully you'll have better luck than I did. Please share your own findings here, along with your opinions of whether or not you think this is a good tactic for their low-budget marketing campaign. Personally I think it's silly fun. I like this kind of weirdness. =)

ZachsMind | Cast&Crew | 09:55 CET | 22 comments total | tags:

If you view the source code, you'll find this (I spaced out the coding so it's viewable, and you can see where it's "hidden"):

beware of the experiment
< !-- watchnig us everywhere watching us please watching us -->

< /blockquote>

< !--You found me. Now you'll die.-->

.stnemele eerht eht swonk ehS . edurtreG dniF.

Cute, no? Personally, at 1:30 in the morning, I had to turn the sound off. Don't need nightmares (it's the sound that does it to me, every time...) like I did after going to the old Mothman Prophecies site, back in the day.

I haven't emailed, but I've been tempted to.

amystar | April 08, 11:36 CET

theres sound on the page? I don't hear anything. Maybe its cause I'm using mozilla.

Edit, I just went into the source code to get the link for the wav file..what is that?

[ edited by eddy on 2005-04-08 11:25 ]

eddy | April 08, 13:21 CET

No thanks. Anyone who puts 100 addresses in the To field instead of blind copying is not someone to whom I want to send my email address. I didn't get the sound either, so he's not coding it to be used by Opera either. Pity

Lioness | April 08, 14:02 CET

Lioness, I'm using Opera & it worked... but I'm at the office so I can't crank it up. I'm not a horror fan at all so it will be out of love for Nicholas Brendon that I buy a ticket for the film. I may not actually go into the theater ... don't want nightmares!!

gingeriffic | April 08, 17:48 CET

Oh ye of little courage! =) Think of the nightmares as extra movie, which adds to the value of buying the ticket and seeing the film.

I emailed 'Martha' back explaining that 100 email addies in the TO field wasn't wise and gave three succinct reasons as to why. I recommended in the future she should use the BCC field. Hopefully she'll listen.

ZachsMind | April 08, 18:10 CET

And now to solve the mystery of the "three succinct reasons". I'm at work now, so I'm going to check this out later.

brownishcoat | April 08, 21:59 CET

Gertrude! Possibly the best name ever!

Apocalypse | April 08, 23:36 CET

Check out this site:

http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=9158&postdays=0&postorder=asc

Koos | April 09, 02:58 CET

BrownishCoat said: And now to solve the mystery of the "three succinct reasons"...

Oh. I forgot to add the actual email I sent 'Martha.' Meant to do that but I forgot. Was gonna post the whole thing here but then on 'preview' I decided that's just too silly. Instead I'll just put my "three succinct reasons" as I had them in the email to 'Martha.'

First off, that [using BCC instead of TO field] unclutters what the receiver gets, making for a more effective impression. Secondly, some people don't like having their emails plastered like that for everyone else being massmailed to see. And third, it's more effective in guerrila marketing to give the illusion each person is being sought out separately. Gives that intimate feeling that has an edge on conventional (and more expensive) marketing strategies.

ZachsMind | April 09, 03:33 CET

ZM: Very persuasive! Thanks for the response.

Edited to add: I listened to the wav file. It's really creepy, but I can't understand what it's saying. Not sure if I have the ability to adjust the speed (Zach mentioned it could be sped up or slowed down); possibly, I'm always figuring out ways to do stuff.

I had to turn it off because I'm here alone and it's too freaky. My roommate's in the hospital, so she's no good to me now! The nerve of some people…

[ edited by brownishcoat on 2005-04-09 02:26 ]

brownishcoat | April 09, 03:48 CET

I slowed it down and thought I heard either "keep quiet" or "keep away" but couldn't confirm that when I zeroed in on where I thought I heard it. It's just hyperventilating and muffled screaming. Any attempt to make sense out of it is probably futile. However, perhaps someone with better sound editing software would have more luck.

ZachsMind | April 09, 05:51 CET

There is reverse speech in the "helpme" wav file, which you can hear by uploading the file to www.talkbackwards.com

I won't spoil what it says here, but I can say it is CREEPY.

Saturn Girl | April 09, 05:52 CET

By the way, I had to switch from Mozilla to IExplorer to hear the sound.

ZM said: "…but couldn't confirm that when I zeroed in on where I thought I heard it…"

Part of my Cakewalk software has a "Record Audio" program that outputs a graph of the sound file, so that you can see visually where the concentrations of sound are (I record a lot of music and voice files and it lets me pinpoint where to split tracks).

Hmm…

brownishcoat | April 09, 06:07 CET

The guys at unfiction.com (the site Koos posted the url to) have been at this since March 5, there's a separate forum for it which includes a description of what's been happening since they found the movie website. It's a fun read, though I wouldn't have the patience myself to go investigating.

Caroline | April 09, 23:38 CET

And there's still more hidden in the source code... at the top.

< !--.em pleh-- >

< !--cing yoou watchinn youu help mme caalll mmmee-- >

< !--shouldnott b be heere sshould not bee heereee reading tihss-- >

< !-- canatt bey trreeeaal -- > Conspiracy theorists to this day continue to investigate and probe the validity of this document.

[ edited by Arista on 2005-04-10 16:48 ]

Arista | April 10, 18:45 CET

I allready started investigating this mystery and have found out a few things, but I still need more information to find out just what the Unholy Trinity really is. I'm just dying to figure it out.

SpikeBad | April 10, 18:59 CET

I've listened to it backwards. I still don't hear anything coherent. All in all this sounds like a fun way to stir up interest in the movie, but it doesn't seem to go anywhere. I hate mysteries that are just clues with no actual valid solution to anything.

ZachsMind | April 10, 20:18 CET

I highlighted all the text on the page, and I got the following (what's bolded was blacked out.):

Following World War II, a U.S. classified military document was uncovered recounting events of a Nazi experiment of an occult nature being smuggled into an underground facility in Downingtown Pennsylvania. The stated purpose:

“To further Hitler’s ‘Unholy Trinity’ for U.S. governmental purposes.”

Lester Kraus is alive. The Witch is alive."

Conspiracy theorists to this day continue to investigate and probe the validity of this document.
Don't let your babies join the army. They don't know what they're fighting for

Hitler is on our side.

~~beware of the experiment~~

.stnemele eerht eht swonk ehS . edurtreG dniF.

redruIvI | April 10, 23:17 CET

Martha just send out a very long email that included the following reference to Gertrude:

You won't find Gertude. She will find you. And will only find you when she realizes what I've realized...you're all to be trusted. She is on our side. She has to understand that you are as well. Show her...and she will contact you. She will guide you. Tell her. Tell the world. Unholy is more than just a movie. www.unholymovie.com is more than just a movie. My life is more than just a movie. Tell it to the world, and she will know you're trying to spread the message, not destroy it. Don't try looking for her. She's in a shack in hell with only a radio and a television set. No phone. No address. Bring her back to us.

Saturn Girl | April 11, 21:15 CET

I was looking at the source code and I noticed a lot of entries have an "!" character at the beginning. It looked to me like this character is used to "turn off" certain things. I was trying to "turn them on" (take out the !), but I could not get it back to html in any coherent fashion. Any ideas from the more html-savvy?

brownishcoat | April 11, 21:29 CET

brownishcoat, the < !-- characters that you're referring to denote comments in HTML code. They don't really turn anything on or off. In the programming world, comments are used to clearly define what certain parts of your code are doing. In the source code for the "Unholy" site, the comments are used to addto the mystery.

Arista | April 14, 05:49 CET

Thanks for the info, Arista. Just trying to think outside my box. Back to the drawing board!

brownishcoat | April 14, 07:13 CET

You need to log in to be able to post comments.
About membership.

« Older Point Pleasant washes up on Britis... | Another chance to Vote For Firefly. Newer »