Che: The guy on the green bike

Che wears clothes as rugged as his beard. His moccasin jacket and cowboy-tough jeans are worn like a second skin, and with his green linen beret and knotted dreadlocks he looks like a soldier, an apache and a shaman all rolled together and boiled for good measure. The look is completed by his camouflaged boots which look like they could be made of Kevlar. “I sleep in these sometimes,” he says as he grabs his right leg and lifts it onto the bench. “A good pair of boots will last you twenty years. A lifetime if you look after them.”

He is best known as the man who rolls around Leicester on his signature green Rat Fink, a customised beast of a bicycle today worth £600 new, complete with orange trim wheels and a clown horn on the handlebars. It is now locked up outside of one his many haunts – today, the Deli Marche by Bede Park. Not that anybody would dare steal it; no pawn shop in Leicester would touch the Rat Fink. It’s too well recognised – like trying to sell Mr Bean’s mini. Anybody seen riding it other than Che would be met with mob justice. His real name is not Che – it’s Pete Redford. His handle comes from his beret, which is emblazoned with the flag of Cuba and the hopeful face of Che Guevara, a seal-of-quality on his laid-back approach to life. “Just keep cool,” he says, complete with two fingers held up in a Churchill victory salute.

Che’s earliest memories are of his childhood in Africa. Although he was born in England, his family moved to Nairobi when he was 6 months old. His father was an electrician and served in the RAF, and his posting meant that Che spent the first ten years of his life with no memories of England. He grew up with his brother under the African sun until 1962 when their father died. “He was working building a hotel, up a ladder fiddling with all the wires in the ceiling, when he got electrocuted. He fell off of the ladder and that was that.” He rubs his mouth and sighs at the memory. But when asked what he thought of England, as a young lad seeing it for the first time after a life in Africa, he cracks up laughing.

“I hated it,” he cackles.

His widowed mother could not support Che and his brother once they were back in Britain and she sent them to a boarding school near Wales. “I hated it there too. It was all too posh, and all…” he flaps his hands around foppishly. “LA-DEE-DA, you know?” For just a moment he sounds like he is ready to jump off on a Russell Brand-esque tangent, but instead relaxes and chuckles. “There was this one teacher we called Adolf. Like Hitler.”

Che says him and his friends were the special enemies of a teacher with an unfortunate Charlie Chaplin moustache who liberally used his cane on them. Che, a self-professed troublemaker at the time, was a repeat offender and a daily target for punishment, until they made a game of running away at the sight of him.

“One day we ran away all the way out of school. We ran off all the way to Ryl, this town, 10 miles away in Wales. One of us had a flat there – or, you know, his parents did – and we got in using his key.” He begins repressing a loud laugh. “We went to the fridge looking for a drink,” he chuckles, “and instead we found all this beer! We drank all of it! We were only 11!” He belly laughs before gasping out; “and then we hear this knock at the door, and we’re all drunk, and one of us goes to see who’s there. It was the headmaster! He’d tracked us down all the way home!”

After a while his laughing settles. He is ready to laugh at every story he tells, even as he finishes the saga by saying he and all of his friends were caned for disgracing the headmaster by answering the door drunk. He has even learned to laugh about the car crash that paralysed him when he was 18-years-old.

In 1977, Che had a job fixing cars in a garage while he was in college studying graphic design. Things, as he puts it, were good; he had a girlfriend but girls still came to see him at the shop, he was getting paid, he was in the RAF cadets with plans to enlist after graduation, and against his own expectations he was able to pass his driving test. On the same day he took a £150 loan from the bank and bought a car. “I used it for posing,” he says. “I rolled around in it with my arm out the window. No seatbelts, no care, just driving in my village. Just posing in it.”

Two weeks later he was posing some more on the roads near his village. As he drove down a hill he found a motorway bridge being built that he hadn’t known about. He doesn’t remember quite how it happened.

He flings his hand out in front of him. “There was this wall. I smashed into it on the driver’s side. Even as I crashed I knew my legs were gone. And then I passed out for 6 months.”

When Che came out of his coma, he found he had suffered complete paralysis of the right half of his body. There was shrapnel buried deep in his leg that the doctors would not remove and he had lost his speech. His girlfriend had been pregnant with his baby and had met somebody else while he was gone. “My whole right side was gone. And I was so thin,” he says, wrapping his forefinger and thumb around his wrist. “I was in a wheelchair, in and out of hospital for years. The doctors wouldn’t operate on me. They couldn’t help me and I was stuck.”

Forced to drop out of college and stuck between his house and the hospital, his mother made a drastic move to help her son. On the promise of a doctor who said he would operate, he moved to Majorca and met Dr Ramirez. After 6 operations and intensive therapy, Che regained his speech and his freedom. But they did not return to England. With no money for the journey back and heavy medical bills to pay, Che and his family couch-surfed the tiny Spanish island, picking up part time jobs and living with friends when they could find them, hotels when they could not.

In time, Che opened a second-hand shop on the island. “’Good As New’, it was called,” he says. “We sold everything. Mostly clothes and household stuff. But not jewellery. You can’t sell jewellery in Spain. It gets stolen on beaches, and if they bring it to you it might be stolen… yeah, we never sold jewellery.” He bought a villa in the mountains overlooking the bay of the Port D’Andratx, with a pool so he could invite friends over and space to look after people’s cats (a service a surprising number of people needed, he says). He stayed in the Spanish sun for 10 years, but the sun is what drove him away. “I kept thinking of England – I missed the weather. You spend 10 years in Spain and the weather is the same every day, you get sick of it. So I went back.”

His mother stayed on the island, and he would visit her twice a year up until she died. He hasn’t been back since, and says he has no plan to. “Unless these girls I know go with me. I love my girls,” he cackles. He arrived back in 1990 and moved around trying to find a corner of the world to settle. He stayed in Bristol to be with his grandfather, and then moved again to Weston-Super-Mare for 6 months. Then one week his brother asked him to come down to Leicester.

“I fell in love with the place,” he says, gesturing around him and out the window. “It was around 1991 by now. I got a place in De Montfort flats and I’ve been there ever since.” He folds his hands on his chest. “And I’ll stay here until I die.”

So what about the bike?

“The bike? I just saw it one day in the shop and bought it there and then. It helps me get around since I can’t walk so well, and I don’t like, you know, normal bikes.”

Today is Che’s day off. He works “whenever” at a studio in town as a graphics designer - but today is a day for seeing his friends in all the cafes of Leicester, where he is on first-name terms with the owners and a handful of the customers. Does he have any plans for the future? He puffs his lips. “I want to get my dreadlocks curled at some point. That’ll look cool.” If he had the drive he says he would buy a little shop in town and get back into his second-hand business – “put some window frames in to make it look nice, get some girls in – it’d be a party.” But that doesn’t seem part of the plan right now. For now he’s able to enjoy good breakfasts and hot coffees and see Leicester on the green Rat Fink on his own terms. Leicester General Hospital take care of him when he needs them and are “marvellous” compared to what he got in 1977. When the barista – who Che greets as John – brings over his cappuccino he tells him to talk about his Vietnam uniform. Che shrugs; “I have a Vietnam uniform. I never went of course, but I’ve got one of the GI uniforms they had back then.”

If you ask Che how he feels about the cataclysmic crash that set the course for the rest of his life, he only says that he’s lucky to be alive. And if you ask him if he has any advice to give – on anything – he’ll grin. “Just keep cool, man.”

Narcos is not the new Breaking Bad

It would be fawning to talk about Breaking Bad having a legacy only two years after it ended, but it affects what we are watching today. BB’s popularity blew up with a certain pipebomb and after pulling in 10million people for its series finale the audience were left bloodthirsty, and hungry for more drugs and money. The race was on; the first studio to put out a show about drug kingpins and Mexicana violence would get to hoover up all those baying viewers.

Here’s how to make a series that fills that niche. Take 15 years of history that has been marinated in blood and cut it into 10 hours. Take care to pull out any deeper detail, then stuff it with sex scenes – four or five per serving will do. Stab it with violence and roll in cocaine. Leave to simmer in a Spanish-speaking country, turning the heat up and down every 10 minutes. Add lashings of mustachioed all-American voiceover work for that homegrown flavour. Serve on a bed of money. Serves 10 million.

And so we have Narcos, a stylish and bloody history lesson that avoids complexities and drama and just serves double-helpings of that savage cartel action everyone is after. Settle in for the true story of Pablo Escobar, the Columbian crime lord responsible for making cocaine such a big deal but still not well known enough by people in the 21st century to spoil the series. The show is grounded in facts and real people, but make no mistake; this show would not exist if not for BB. It has been made to keep a grip on the viewers still riding that wave of methylamine; a Netflix exclusive about a drugs empire built on the sins and aspirations of one man? And it’s based on a true story this time? Thanks, this is just what I needed to tide me over while Better Call Saul gets it act together, I haven’t seen anybody get killed on that yet.

So, Narcos borrows its more action-packed themes from Breaking Bad. No harm there. I just wish Netflix didn’t have to distill their most popular show just to keep people watching. Narcos takes the hottest story on television from the past ten years, boils it down and produces itself in crystalized form, a hit of savagery and hot grit straight to the brain. It was advertised as “your next Breaking Bad,” with more sex, more death, colder characters, crueler mooks and enough drugs and cash to fill a hundred lonely desert graves. $6million? Spare change, here. Two episodes of Narcos is enough to overdose for one sitting. Binge at your own risk.

This trend continues in every aspect. Breaking Bad featured Mexican cartels, so more than half of every episode is in Spanish to make the clunky and exposition-heavy chat spicier. There is no time for talking though, and violence solves most problems inNarcos. Watch it on mute – better yet, turn the subtitles off. You can still tell who’s winning based on who is on the biggest killing spree. Conversations are made of bullet-point sentences that discuss who bites the dust next. Only five minutes are spared in the opening of the second episode to show how this real-life empire’s smuggling operation worked, but this is rushed through so Escobar’s greasiest henchman can shoot a dog. There is a fifteen year career to cover in only ten hours, so the smart and satisfying lab-work that held up Walt’s empire are not dwelled on for Escobar’s cocaine operation. Skip the know-hows and the detail; there are still people to kill.

Narcos’ advertising team isn’t the only one using Heisenberg’s lost kingdom as bait. Over on the Hollywood track,Sicario (already reviewed in this section) shows us one ill-informed recruit’s struggle to work in the climate of paranoia and mistrust surrounding the efforts to shut down a drug operation on the U.S.-Mexico border (in Texas this time, not New Mexico). 4od advertised it as another whirlwind bulletstorm, one team versus the dangerous shadowy crime lord, with enough funny-flour and money to fill that hole in your heart.

These stories are nothing new, but their studios are not giving them a chance to stand on their own merits and must dangle a bag of blue meth to hook viewers. Have some faith, chaps; content aside, the directing in Narcos, while efficient, is top-notch work, and Escobar was a shark of a man with such a stunning career that he should outshine any fictional drug emperors. BBC Live5’s Mark Kermode even dropped the magic O-word while reviewing Sicario. They are electric stories in their own right; don’t cut them with methamphetamines just to pull in a spare fanbase going cold turkey.

Genie

Dylan squinted up and stopped. The endless orange leafed trees had been interrupted by green. Appearing now as he walked closer, there was a line of pine trees he hadn't noticed, or maybe just couldn't see before. They were tall, taller than the surrounding trees, and stretched in both directions like a line of soldiers. Beyond them was a wall of white.

He walked through the ranks and found himself in a clearing thick with fog. Dylan was stunned. Left and right, the pines went on and curved to meet in a circle somewhere in the far distance that couldn't be seen through the mist, a ring of harsh trees that held the mass of fog like so much cotton. The ground was no longer wet and leafy, but thin and dry like a scattering of crumbs.

He tried to see through the fog, but it was solid. Even with better eyes he could have had no idea what it held. He was aware he couldn't hear any birds in the forest behind him - he couldn’t hear anything.

He stepped into the mist was soon engulfed. He walked about thirty paces but saw nothing else.

"Nothing but fog," he muttered as he looked behind him. "Nothing but fog..." His bad eyes did not mean so much in this mist, as everything looked the same.

He had been walking for some time when a huddled shape took form in the distance. He thought it was an out of place boulder. Why not? In this fog anything at all would be both a welcome sight and out of place.

Dylan stopped about five paces away from the man on the floor. He looked sick. He had no hair, and his skin was a diseased yellow except for red splotches around his cheeks, like a drunk. He had no wrinkles, but there were cancerous sun spots on his crown and hands, which rested on his knees. His filthy robes covered his legs and hid the shape of his body, and the cloth on his right knee was rusty with dried blood. He sat very still as he watched Dylan with young, vividly blue eyes. After a moment he slowly tilted his head.

"Good day," said Dylan.

The man did not reply. He was looking Dylan up and down.

"I... heard a story about this forest, that... about a man who could help people."

"And why do you need help?" the man said in a high and boyish voice. He sounded almost like Daniel.

Dylan licked his lips and tapped his hand against his thigh; he had just told a stranger that he believed in folk tales he had heard from a drunken friend enough to go looking in forests for them, and wasn't sure how much more he should say. Part of him wanted to turn around and leave. He glanced around, but except for the man on the ground he could see nothing else for the fog.

"I have been made a captain by my lord-commander, and I will need to lead men in battle."

"Do you need a stronger sword-arm? I cannot give one of those now. And your voice is strong, so you should have no problem giving commands..."

Dylan swallowed. What?

"No I... my eyes are poor. In the battles to come I need to see the field, assess, know where to send my men."

The man on the ground made a soft "hmm" noise. He leant back slightly. "What do you bring?"

Dylan brought out his satchel and opened it. He looked in at the gold and coins and what else he could gather from his house. He put a hand in and combed through the contents, which chinked quietly. "I haven't much here, but I can bring more back when-"

"Fool."

His words caught in his throat and he looked at the man. "What?"

"You bring gold. Wealth. Coins that buy food and favors but will never buy what you need. Many men come here and expect the man-made will pay for the god-given. Never. Only the god-given can pay for the god-given."

Dylan had not moved, his hand still in the sack. The man's words had run a cold finger down his back. God-given?

Awkwardly, he strung his bag closed and let it hang limp from his hand. "What can I offer then?” he said as he held the man’s stare. “For the god-given?"

The man on the ground tilted his head back and looked Dylan over again from the bottom of his eyes. After a moment he said "Do you have sons?"

"Yes. Two."

"Do you wish for more?"

He swallowed. He still had not moved, not one muscle. His palms were sweaty but he did not want to be seen rubbing them off on his clothes. "Perhaps. A man is remembered through his acts and children. My lady-wife would like a daughter someday too."

"Ah." He fell silent. In the quiet Dylan felt the man look him over as his eyes rested on his body for moments at a time; to his hands, at his ears, his mouth, his knees, through him to where his back still hurt from the siege. "Hmm," he said again, quietly. "Tell me about your wife."

He thought of her, the woman he had danced with at the autumn feast who now cooked quietly in their house and raised their children and waited for him to come home from wherever his lord-commander ordered him, the woman who he shared silent meals with and lay with and worried she would not be there when he came back but also knew she had nowhere else to be.

"She is a wonderful mother."

"What does she look like?"

He thought about the way his father had laughed and slapped his back after he had first met her, and remembered the way he and his friends had talked amongst themselves on the night of the dance about her before he had stood up and introduced himself. "The envy of all the women when we were younger. So many of them are going dull in their eyes and hair, but her hair is still like it was ten years ago. Still young and red." Dylan smiled. "Daniel has the same hair." His smile vanished. He had not meant to tell the man his son's name.

The man had stopped looking Dylan over and was now looking him in the eyes.

"Her hair?" He paused. "Would you still love your wife without her hair?"

Dylan was surprised. "Of course, she-"

He stopped and suddenly regretted what he said. His heart had been ticking hard and the breaths he took through his mouth did nothing to stop the swelling in his chest. After saying Daniel's name he felt like he had said too much, and now he knew that he had been very wrong to ever mention Leigh. His throat clenched and he glanced away. He could still see nothing beyond the fog. There was only him and the filthy, sick looking man sat on the ground who was still staring at him.

“Of course.”

"Hmm." He sat up straighter. "I will take your wife's hair and give you the eyes you wish for."

"My wife's hair?" It couldn't be done. There was no way it could be done. How could this robed creature take one person's hair and give another person better eyes? He should never have come here. He had never believed in folk stories yet he had come out into the forest looking for a legend. There was no such thing as magic, it existed in the tales he told his children.

And he could not give away Leigh's hair. It was hers.

And yet...

"Have I anything else to give you? I cannot-"

"You have nothing to offer me that you will not need in your new position. Painless knees would be welcome but the ones you would get would not serve you in battle. Your liver is healthy, but the one I would give you would kill you before you will ever reach the field. So I will accept your wife's hair."

The captain stared at the man on the ground. What horror was he suggesting?

"What you're saying... it isn't possible-"

"Then leave. Your wife keeps her hair and you keep your eyes. You become a captain and you live on. These are your choices; I can give you better eyes, or you can leave with the ones you have."

Dylan did not know how the man could do such an unnatural thing, but he was suddenly sure he could do it, the same way he was sure that he would find this help if he came to these woods. He could leave with the eyes he needed to see and fight and lead and give his family a richer life and leave a legacy after he was gone - and somehow the price was Leigh's hair.

Dylan stood in the silent fog. The bag of gold was still dangling at his side. He lifted it into his hand felt its useless contents, then put it away and sat down. He nodded.

"You must say it."

He licked his lips. "Okay."

"Say it."

He paused. Then he swallowed and looked at the dirt between them. "You may take my wife's hair."

The man raised one of his hands and held it above his head, while his other hand placed his thumbnail against his hanging palm. The robes on his arms slid down as he did so. Although his skin was smooth and young his arms were sickeningly thin and his veins crossed them like blue marble. With a twist of his thumb his palm began bleeding, which he held out. Dylan took it palm down. Instead of taking it, the man grabbed his wrist and twisted his hand around so his palm faced up before gouging him with his nail. Dylan winced and gasped, and the man clapped their bleeding hands together before closing his eyes. His breath began to grow deep and rasping.

Dylan's eyes began to twitch back and forth. Horribly, he felt suddenly aware of his whole body. He could feel blood pumping hard out to each of his fingers and his crossed legs began to cramp at the thighs and calves. He felt like he was rising and tried to pull his hand away. The man's grip was weak, but he could still not let go or jerk his arm back, as if stuck to him, joined by the unseen flesh between their clasped hands. His head exploded in pain and his eyes rolled upwards. All he could see was the red-black of his own eye sockets and all of his muscles were shrinking in cramps. His arms began to spasm and his jaw clenched so tight his teeth grinded. Some horrid sensation gripped his eyes, like tiny hands seizing them all around.

These I take and these I give. May the gods forgive you for scorning their gifts.

All pain ended and Dylan fell on his back. He legs flung out spasming and he pushed and scrambled on the floor until he was lying on his front, his hands by his head. He breathed in hard ragged gasps and his muscles ached like they did in the mornings when he was still being trained years ago. The man was coughing hard and had fallen forward onto his elbows.

Dylan looked up to him and winced. His eyes hurt. He looked far left, and far right, and rolled his eyes around. Whichever way he looked, they ached and tugged. He crawled forward and pulled the man gently backwards until he was sitting again.

"Why do they hurt?"

The man finished coughing but kept his hand over his mouth. His eyes were closed. "Because they were not made for you." His voice was raspy. He wiped his palm on his right knee on the patch of dried blood.

They said nothing. Eventually Dylan took his hands off of him and crawled to where he had sat to slouch back, still getting his breath back. "What happens now?"

"You leave, and become a captain" The man said in a low voice. He did not look at Dylan. His eyes were only half-lidded and he looked at his lap and away at the ground.

"You mean to say... my eyes..."

"You will be able to fulfill your duties."

Dylan was amazed. Was it possible? He looked around, but the fog still hung about and he could only see as well as before the man had cut his hand.

"How can I thank you?"

"You have nothing to thank me for." He still had not looked up.

Dylan cleared his throat and stood up shakily. "Who are you?"

"A servant and an enemy. I grant the wishes of men against the wishes of the gods." He looked up. His eyes were brown. "Now go, and make use of your gifts."

Dylan stood still. Then he turned and walked away towards the endless white cloud, and for as long as he walked he knew the man was staring at him.

Finally colors began to appear and the trees’ jagged forms pierced the fog again as the ring of pines circled around him. Deep within the clearing Dylan felt the man was still sitting there, looking to where he stood with sore brown eyes that made no difference in the thick white miasma.

The trees around him had never been so clear and colorful and beautiful, wet dirt on bark, dead leaves underfoot and dying ones above. The rain had stopped and a crow was screaming in the canopy, a black bird amongst dark leaves. He could see it.

Demon media coverage - Campus centre reopens after roof damage

Campus centre reopens after roof damage

 

 Posted by Alastair Ulke on February 18, 2014

The campus centre was closed off on Saturday after gale force winds damaged the DSU roof.

Barricade tape was used to stop students from using the paths by the building after pieces of the roof were blown on to the pavement during the night.

One of DMU’s security staff said: “During the night the wind loosened the trimming around the roof and early this morning pieces came off and hit the pavements.

“One piece blew over the top of the building from the Student Gateway building side and landed near the Art Factory. Another piece hit a parked ambulance.

“We can’t say when the campus centre will be open again as it is too windy to send anyone up to fix it.

“Once the wind has stopped we will repair the damage and campus can open again.”

DMU’s security staff were alerted to the danger around 2.00am on Friday night after a parked ambulance near the Student Gateway building was hit by the dislodged metal.

Security has since closed pathways, blocking access to the main building and the front access to the Art Factory.

Jeevan Kaur Bal, a first year drama studies student, said: “It’s not that bad, it’s a Saturday and no-one needs to use those buildings today.

“I’m just glad no-one was hurt coming home from a club last night.”

Dylan O’Leary, a DMU psychology student, said: “You know it’s bad when the roof can’t handle it.”

Some dance students were allowed into the main building’s dance studios by staff to work on a vital piece.

As of Monday 18 February both the campus centre and Art Factory have reopened.

---

This was posted on the Monday after the Saturday on which the damage was done. Here's hoping for published coverage, because the stuff in my portfolio is starting to turn yellow with age.

A suggestion for the examining body of NCTJ law

I was looking over a law paper today and I have a suggestion for the examining board. I think they need to use a different language if they really want to capture 'the kids' interest in learning law.

Here is the original question as I read it.

And here is how I think the question should be put to engage students, with an appropriate answer.

10.          You are the gruff, middle-aged editor of a struggling Midlands newspaper. Your wife left you last week and took half the money. It’s a rough business and a rougher city. The revolver you keep next to your heart is your second best friend and only your third most deadly. You can see the city through the half closed blinds of your office. What a rotten town. The paper puts out every piece of smut that goes on out there and you lost your faith in all that’s good in the world long ago. You’ve overlooked the publishing of every dirty crime and interviewed every man who ever got blood on their hands. Every time you open your drawer there is a seductive chink of glass and slosh of whisky inside. Yeah, it’s a rotten town, and a rotten business… but as long as you're around there’ll at least be good journalism. The spirit of freedom.

What’s the word today? Some suited-up broad is in hot water, accused of murdering her husband. She wouldn't be the first dollface to put an end to her man’s beatings with a clothes-iron lobotomy. You just got word from Jefferson that she’s been found guilty. Damn shame. Pretty girl, she won’t do well in the slammer.

The phone rings. You pick it up and answer in a hard-boiled manner that’s usually enough to get rid of the coo-koos who call the office. “Ya’ whadd’ya want?”

“Well hey there, Mr Editor,” says that greasy weasel.

“Ward Weinstein. I thought I told you never to call me again.”

“Yeah, well, I gotta listening problem. You hear about that broad sent down for murder? Well, I got some great pictures for ‘ya.”

You don’t like the sound of this. “Whadd’ya mean?”

“I managed to grab a few quick snaps of her on the stand with my phone. Great pics, editor. I tell ‘ya, she’s got a swell set a cans and she’s crying like dames do in the box. Not only that, one of the main witnesses was smiling all the way down the corridor, all smug and greasy, and I managed to snap that too. It’s front page stuff I tell ‘ya. You can have ‘em for 20 bucks and you don’t mention where you got ‘em, see?”

What do you do, big guy?
 
Answer.               I’d slam my fist on the desk and say “Now you listen here, you slimy punk! Don’t you know the law? Section 41 of the criminal justice and evidence act states that it is illegal to take or attempt to take, or make or attempt to make any sketch or portrait of any person in any court, its buildings or its precincts, or of any person entering or leaving a court or its building, whether it’s the front door or the can, see? Further, the publication of any such photograph, sketch or portrait is prohibited as an offence in itself! I’ll give ‘ya, the act does not define what ‘precincts’ are, and this has caused practical difficulties in interpretation, but I can tell ‘ya that what you’re saying will send us both to jail! You rotten weasel! You crooked pig! I oughta’ give you a good shiner! There’s plenty of room in Glen Parva and you wouldn’t even make it as far as the showers in there! You ever call here again I’ll palm you off on the pigs without a second thought!” With that I’d slam the phone down and light a cigarette. Yep. What a rotten business.

The Slender Man: Full Movie review

Well we wasn't standing there a second ago.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAKUE_6sA08

Shaky cam horror will smack of one of two things depending on how much money is involved. If funding is lacking it is an honest way of showing this, and the audience will consider this as part of the film's atmosphere, such as Blair Witch Project, the home-video trickery of which stuffed mashed potatoes down the backs of many-a-trouser while only costing £15,000 (Or dollars, unsure). If the budget cheque is signed by The Federal Bank of Hollywood the jittering hand held camera is considered Director's Vision, and you get films like Cloverfield having people puke in the aisles. The problem with high-budget films in this style is that there's all too great a temptation to focus on the animated creation for a few seconds, staying as still as possible so you can see every carefully crafted throbbing vein and drooling orifice. At this point the illusion is gone and you're able to cope with this foul demon no matter how many jump scares he pulls on you because you know you could rid of him with CtrlAltDelete.

"The Slender Man" lies skew in the middle of the budget spectrum, or at least when it comes to using computers with shaky cam. It's somewhat established that Slenderman videos are done using handheld cameras, and that the general reason the characters are filming in the first place is a school project (or something) before they attract the attention of a paranormal child abducting businessman. This way when the series first starts all that's needed are some isolated locations, a YouTube account and some thick stockings to pull over a tall guy's head.

And why not? Slenderman is recognized as not really belonging to anyone, and the creator who first posted his photoshop work on SomethingAwful has no interest in making money off of the exponentially growing popularity. Even the producers of this film, Super Movie Bros (SMB), have added a disclaimer to the YouTube video asking viewers to distribute and use it as they please: "Slender Man belongs to the internet."

Super Movie Bros have followed the hand-held camera style because they know that's how people like their Slendy, but they've got some production values on top of this. People familiar with the stalking suit will agree that he usually appears when you aren't looking and doesn't move a whole lot. Here's where the computer work of SMB's incarnation of Slenderman has drawn something away the atmosphere, because this Slendy apparates on screen before your very eyes. At one point in a fixed camera moment he rises out of the carpet like the T1000, tentacles a-flailing (that's another point; the magic of computers has broken new ground in Slendy videos with the appearance of his tentacles, normally only seen in pictures. Your enjoyment of these may vary). They still have many moments of the camera swinging around and having him suddenly where you were just looking (be prepared for the "He's behind you!" moment; You'll know when it is), but Slenderman's onscreen debut is a center screen screamer against a man shouting at the top of his voice; this'll get you the first time, but after that it holds as much tension as a jack-in-the-box, especially when you realise they've left a man-sized gap in the shot for him to spring from.

Don't think that that means this isn't a scary film, because it is, and the said "swinging" moments get me every time.  But that's just the half of the film you were expecting; to SMB's credit, some of the best moments are actually when the sinister suit doesn't show up. There's a mild mystery plot line to tie the appearances together, and this has some superbly chilling moments. The opening scene has a little boy playing baseball with his half-hearted father with thick woods in the background, a bit like that field you used to play in as a kid or maybe even like the further reaches of your back garden. Things go badly from there; you just know the ball will go a bit too far into the woods and someone will have to go fetch it, no matter how you wish they wouldn't have to. These moments are as tense as the hands clasped over your eyes, and portrays a scene nothing short of a nightmare. I was more scared of a particularly dark corridor I couldn't see the end of during some dialogue than I was of any distorted screamers. (I can't really pass that of as "some dialogue" either; amplified by this rising buzzing you first think is background noise, the onscreen character voices the parental fears of how easy it is to steal a child if you let your guard down. It's damn frightening).

Despite some great horror using the bare minimum resources of Darkness and Nothing, there are some moments that didn't need to be included; the last thing I wanted to see in a Slenderman movie was a shoot-out, and the detached villain's motive monologue wasn't needed (neither was the sobbing screams over the top of it which damn near blew my speakers). There are better ways to have the villain explain his reasoning than having him explain his reasoning, and there are better ways to kill off a character than straight out killing them off. But what the Hell, the film's free and they had 15 minutes left by that point, whatever they need to do. Besides, immediately after is the "running through the forest at night" scene you've been dreading, at which point they made the great directing decision to switch to a lower quality camera - now entering Silent Hill folks.

I've always figured that the easiest genre to make is horror, because the script can be forgettable as long as The Scare makes up for everything, but this is why we get aisles of crap who reveal what The Scare looks like as soon as possible and rely on revulsion and gore after that. Super Movie Bros are in great taste, making use of the simplest tricks and oldest fears, hitting a very special spot somewhere on every human amygdala that makes the unknown a possibility and child abduction a reality. Get some friends (or don't.) and watch this on full screen  Then enjoy another night running from your bathroom to your bed and not opening your eyes until morning.

You can watch the film from YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35HBFeB4jYg
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