So, urbanspook is considered as "worst analog horror series ever" nowaday, what's your opinion on it now? I remember you said that's your favorite.
I think that there's three major reasons why its considered the worst.
Things going too far and handled too clumsily.
The creator being a contrarian ass.
Going a bit into depth on each one; for stakes burnout when the series started it started as a serial killer(s) painting disturbing portraits of their victims and the cops discovering these paintings and the victims they correlated to. It was an interesting beginning: a HUMAN threat (which was a breath of fresh air at the time because EVERYTHING was demons, mimics, or demon-mimics and while I love demons, mimics, and demon mimics as much as the next guy I also like a little variety in my monster diet), fascinating and arguably beautiful art pieces, and a tense atmosphere.
While it had a strong start, it started to slip by becoming a one-trick pony. It had an antagonist, but no real protagonist to follow. The 'Poster who got these police files' isn't our protagonist, the poster is our narrator, the literary equivalent to our plate and utensils which have the job of bringing us the story and giving us tools to eat it.
The police officers aren't the protagonist(s) either as they're far too nameless and faceless.
The victims themselves? The victims are the main point of the first problem listed.
As impressive as the voicework was for the 911 call with Isabelle, we simply don't learn enough about Isabelle, or... any other victim to really care about what happens to them. It was one thing when it was the first, second, or even third victim when it's setting the stakes, but when we ONLY get over the top executions with no way to connect to the victims, it sounds less and less like genuine horrific acts and more and more like white noise.
While Urbanslug, creator of The Painter series on the Urbanspook channel said to 'treat it as a Mortal Kombat death reel' the problem with that is, Mortal Kombat isn't a horror series, its a fighter game series. I've never played any of the Mortal Kombat games but even taking a glance that way it's easy to tell that the purpose of the gory, over-the-top deaths in there are there to make the winning player feel cool and powerful as they grind their opponent into the dirt and the losing player feel demoralized as they watch their character get torn to pieces. To reiterate, there is no protagonist, but there is an *antagonist*, the painting killer is framed as a force that needs to be stopped and we do not follow him or his accomplice, only their deeds. This creates dissidence from the 'intended viewing' as we the viewers aren't in the shoes of the victims and feeling fear or in the shoes of the killer and feeling powerful yet disturbing, we're faceless ghosts watching from behind the screens that start off feeling fear and intrigue only to have it burnt out of us as it does it over and over again but more or less gross.
Leading to the next point: Too far, and too clumsily. Horror as a genre isn't just 'fun halloween spooky ooo'. Sometimes it's sanitized for child consumption, but the horror genre's job is to be an investment in fear, in the macabre, in what makes the audience scared, disgusted, angry, or a mix of the three and thus covers topics that disturb the average person.
But engraved onto the other side of the coin, just because a topic IS disturbing and invokes righteous and rightfully deserved fear, anger, and disgust in people, doesn't mean it should be included in your horror story. Especially when this horrible act is brushed off.
In The Painter, a child named Cory was killed in a disgusting and sexual manor and his painting is dubbed 'Fucktoy Cory'. This murder is treated no differently than the others in universe, while in real life merch is made and sold of this painting, that has been contextualized to be a murderous child rapist's mockery of their dead victim.
In an alternate universe where The Painter might be a better series, the two killer twist and Cory's death could have been utilized better. Imagine if you will...
The police discovering gruesome murders and the paintings in different locations, corpses of the victims are posed as if they are the easels of the paintings they hold.
Carla's Teeth is held by a corpse who's mouth is slit ear-to-ear, all of the victim's teeth have been removed and stuck onto the canvas the victim was holding, the picture depicting a face made of soulless, bloodshot eyes, oddly undetailed skin, and teeth; the 32 real ones used to line the painting's over-exaggerated teeth.
Floating Jackie looked like it was floating in the bathtub before the witness took a closer look and discovered that it was being held up and out of the water by the hands of the victim it was depicting. The painting, like the victim's own face (found to be removed postmortem), was of a disembodied face in a red background or 'bath'. The painting's materials being watercolor mixed with the victim's blood.
James Secret face is found held by a headless corpse. The painting itself depicting a wet red skull emerging from skin and the materials used in it along with normal paint being the victim's blood, brain matter, hair, pieces of their skull, and saliva.
Two months later, several more paintings of the same art style were sent to the police station anonymously. However the titles and depictions of these paintings were not connected to any known cases at the time, and unlike the previous three contained no human matter as part of their composition.
The titles were as following; Wax Doll Tom, Lisa's Secret Face, Hanging Jimmy, Daniel After The Fire, Jennifer's Last Stare, Scream Maggie Scream, Fucktoy Cory, and last but not least... 'Self Portrait'.
Presuming that this is the killer's method of taunting them, the police go public with the case in the hopes of saving anyone that might be depicted in the paintings.
Next Episode:
A Police Officer, Bill Collins, who had been on edge before the paintings were discovered by the earlier disappearance of his wife, discovered a copy of 'Self Portrait' in his home and reported it to local authorities immediately as he was clueless to how it ended up in there and presumed it was snuck into his house by The Painter. Presuming that this must have been his calling card, that the killer liked to 'mess with his victims' before taking them out.
While searching the officer's house, police found a man matching the characteristics of 'Self Portrait' tied to an easel and covered in red paint.
Also found in the attic were paintings of Bill's Wife Jennifer (A copy of Jennifer's last stare), ten-year-old daughter Lisa, and two-month-old daughter Angel. The wife's painting was made out of her bodily materials yet did not have an 'easel' while the daughters' paintings were made of regular materials.
The man in the attic has been taken in to police custody.
Now we have our new protagonist, Bill Collins, interrogating this murderer who calls himself... Self Portrait. Self is uncooperative, cagey, and likes to use flowery language to describe his... "Artworks", presumably seeing nothing wrong with what he is doing. In police custody, he does nothing but taunt the police, especially Bill, to their faces. However, as the fourth easel is discovered while Self is still in custody, he confesses the truth: that there's a second killer who Self dubs 'Apprentice' and that they used to work together before Apprentice betrayed Self due to an 'artistic disagreement', leading to his capture.
As the alternate Series of 'The Painter' goes on, Bill learns more about the targeted people by interviewing them, tries and fails to catch Apprentice, interrogates Self Portrait from time to time, and is growing more and more disturbed by both Self and Apprentice's mindsets, meeting his breaking point and almost killing Self in a fit of rage that happens after interviewing 11 year old Cory Beck while looking at the painting that was titled 'Fucktoy Cory'.
The only thing that manages to keep Self safe from Bill Collins's wrath being that one of the other officers pointed out that a key difference between Self's paintings and Apprentice's paintings was that the titles of Apprentice's paintings are a lot cruder and more sexually charged than Self's paintings, but Bill still has doubts in his mind as again, Self is a very cagey and uncooperative person who didn't even try to verbally or physically defend himself when Bill confronted him. ...That and 'Fucktoy Cory' WAS sent in with the rest of Self's paintings...
Granted, I'm not going to pretend that this is a PERFECT version of The Painter, everything is bound to have a flaw somewhere, but at least this version gives us a protagonist who has a personal connection to the killers, stakes as opposed to a conga line of stupidly brutal deaths, and instead of just a morbid notch in a morbid belt, 'Fucktoy Cory' is what makes an already fearful, disgusted, and angry person fucking lose it and almost kill another human being with his bare hands.
...Point three is kinda an afterthought at this point but there's a thing about 'separating the art from the artist'; it's easier to do when the Artist isn't actively being a massive dick to people on social media and pulling Schrodinger's douchebag tricks.
