A Level Portfolio Project. Day 4: The 'saac + substance

 THE BINDING OF ISAAC

    I grew up watching people play The Binding Of Isaac and now that im older I watch myself play as the previously mentioned Isaac. It's one of my favorite video games ever made, I think I have about 1000 hours on it and I could honestly do 1000 more, hell after I'm done with this I'll likely go and play it. As you can likely gather from the title, TBOI take great inspiration from christianity, being a light retelling of the abraham story, one important as it explores the idea of faith. While the original has Abraham, a worshipper of god being told by said god to sacrifice his son, Isaac, to him, thereby showing his devotions, the game has Isaac living in a small house on a hill with his mother who watches christian broadcasts on the television, until one day god gives her the command to strip away all his clothes, toys, and drawings and to lock him in room, eventually telling her to sacrifice him and show his devotion. Now where the original story has god stepping in at the last second and telling Abraham "hey it was all a prank :P," telling him to sacrifice a lamb instead, the game has isaac finding a trapdoor in his room and espcaping into the basement. where he know needs to fight his way through a giant maze full of monsters, items, and trauma. All of the items and monsters in the game being based off of either Isaac's past trauma, or of religion.

    Now, that's all pretty fucked up, but the comedy element comes in the fact that the game is all meant to take place in a child's mind, Isaac is actually just imagining that he is having an adventure, so you have a lot of very silly material that fills the game. One reoccuring piece of imagery in the game is that of poop, poop is actually a reoccuring piece of imagery in every videogame by the developer, Edmund Mcmillen, who's made a lot of beloved indie classics, classics that do in fact feature a lot of poop. There are items based off of poop, enemies based off of poop, poop bosses, poop obstacles, a whole character in the game is based off of throwing literal shit at his enemies, however once you unlock that enemy you start to realize there is a dark side as to why you see so many references to the brown stuff (if you dont mind me calling it that). See Isaac's mom never went into his room and ended his life, he likely tought it would happen and went to hide in his toy chest, and in there he suffocated to death while comforting himself with stories and adventures, which is what the actual game is. The chracter you unlock is called by the game's community as "Blue Baby," being a reference to one of Mcmillen's old games, the character is just a blue version of Isaac with X's in his eyes and you find him laying inside of a giant chest, the implication is that this is you playing as a blue, suffocated Isaac, and the reason you throw shit at your adversaries is because of the myth that once you die you shit your pants. The reason that the game is because isaac was likely thinking, right before he died, that he was going to shit himself as he was dying. Now that, is a messed-up joke.

    Now that long example I gave was just meant to give you an idea of how the game rolls, it's not scared to pull any punches and that's a big part of what I wanna bring to my story. I love the dark, depressing mood that you feel when you play though the game as if it's aware of how dark it is and it doesn't care about how uncomfortable that makes the audience, it leaves you to just instinctivley laugh, almost as if that's the only reaction you can really have. Of course those themes of religion and in how they can traumatize a child will be heavily applied to my short film, Otto's sister will have past trauma from being a lesbian and being forced to go to conversion camp. I think the way the game shows you Isaac's perspective, thereby hiding the darker truth behind it, makes the story very interesting, it forces you as an audience member to piece the pieces of his life together.

THE SUBSTANCE

I'll try to keep this one a little short.

The Substance came out in 2024 and took the world by storm, being nominated for multiple oscars, including best picture and director. Just like Isaac, it's a pretty clear metaphor for a kind of worship, not the religious kind however, but the material one. 

    The Substance picks apart at the material, patriarchal, and most times disgusting ways in which women are given and taken influence in hollywood. Demi Moore's character being a washed up celebrity who's old age has taken away her sex factor in the eyes of the industry, that is until she starts taking a (are you ready for it?) SUBSTANCE, that turns her into a young, beautiful Margret Qualley, the procedure of taking the (oh i'm gonna do it again!!!) serum eventually having some unexpected, monkey-paw effects.

    The film's dark satire is shown in the ridiculous way it goes about depicting the rich and powerful men of the industry, beggining the film by having these tight close-ups of the TV executive eating shrimp in a truly disgusting mannor, or using a urinal while making a truly inspiring face. 

    The gross-out aspects are quite funny for pretty childish reasons but they serve to depict that these men are just as gross on the outside ad they are in inside. 

    For my short I intend to have such similar chilidish yet dark humor that The Substance, and The Binding Of Isaac have.