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tom moody


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This flood of home video trash that's hitting the Net via YouTube, Google Video, etc, is funny and all but I'm not sure how closely I want to look at the freaks. I recently watched a video some Net-heads have labeled "Dad scares kid with computer."

I don't really like practical jokes, especially ones that involve startling someone. We all have autonomic reflexes, they're embarrassing, big whoop. Here, a Dad is playing a game or teaching his boy something, probably from a computer in another room in the house, while simultaneously monitoring the kid with a webcam. The kid is about 8. The game is boring, and the kid is asking his Dad questions about how to proceed. Suddenly Dad puts a horrible monster face--it reminded me of the subliminal demons from the Exorcist, eyes and mouth opened wide--on the kid's screen, which simultaneously emits a loud roar.

The kid screams and goes into utter panic, literally pushing the screen with the flats of his hands to make the monster go away. He looks up at the webcam lens, crying, his face a mask of utter fright, mingled with betrayal that his Dad would do something so shitty to him. He can't turn off his emotions, and the camera continues to impassively record his wracking sobs, while you hear his Dad's meek little doughy voice saying "heh-heh...heh-heh." The Dad offers no words of apology or consolation, and the sobbing goes on a while.

I was reminded of the film Peeping Tom, 1960, where a father, a scientist studying fear, puts reptiles in his son's bed while the child is sleeping and films the child's frightened reactions when he wakes up. In the film the boy grows up to be a psycho killer.

I'm not linking to "Dad scares kid with computer," sorry.

- tom moody 4-11-2006 3:14 am [link] [6 comments]