Every so often, I like to search around the flea market near my home for any interesting finds. I'm someone who's quite into antiquing, and I've picked up a lot of interesting finds. That is, until one day, when I decided to take a bit of a hiatus from looking around because of something I found just outside.
One day when I was out at the flea market as usual, I noticed a man sitting on a blanket outside. He looked perfectly middle-class- not destitute but not rich or anything. The man had a spread of DVDs on the blanket with a cardboard sign next to it reading "DVDS FOR CHEAP- NOT OFFICIAL BUT GOOD RIPS." I smiled a bit at his honesty before going in to check on the wares.
"Hello! What are you selling today?" I asked.
"I made some DVDs," he responded happily, but slightly wistfully. "My family's not doing too well right now, so they advised me to make these to sell so I can get back on my feet." I scanned the wares as he talked.
These were very obviously homemade DVDs, made as all-in-one deals for various franchises. A bunch of SpongeBob material, all of Lost, something that was clearly supposed to be a "Bee Movie full franchise" that was just a bunch of bee-related movies in one package... The thing that struck me the most, though, was an Alvin and the Chipmunks collection that advertised "ORIGINAL FIRST MOVIE!"
I asked the man to elaborate, and he explained, "I was browsing for bonus things to put on the Alvin disk online, and I found this really weird fan animation that basically nobody had seen, on some old forum that's still up for some reason. I downloaded the video, and checked back, but the whole site had apparently gone under in the few seconds that I had taken to download the video. To tell the truth, it's not the 'original first movie' or anything, but it was odd enough to put on there for at least someone to see."
I thanked him and considered the prices in my mind- just a couple bucks for each, a dozen or so DVDs in total. In the end, I decided I was going to buy them all for around 30 bucks- they were cheap, and if what this guy was saying was true, I wouldn't mind helping him out.
The man nodded gratefully, picked up the blanket and sign and walked off, presumably towards his home. I turned to my home as well- I had spent a good chunk of my flea market money on these and I figured I might as well consider this my trip for the day.
I went through a couple episodes each of most of the TV show selections and watched the Bee Movie, electing to put the rest aside for other days. The man wasn't lying, these were quite good rips of the source material- around Blu-Ray quality, with some occasional extremely minor graphical glitching and datamoshing. They even had subtitles, but I suppose the tradeoff was that there was no real DVD menu- just a clump of MP4s in various folders.
One thing, though, nibbled at the back of my mind for the next few hours, until eventually I couldn't take it- I had to find out what that "ORIGINAL FIRST MOVIE" was.
The DVD for Alvin followed most of the others' formula pretty well, including how all-encompassing the selection was- this was gigabytes of official Chipmunk material, from all the movies to each TV show and even a couple music videos. However, as I had wanted to do from the beginning, I clicked on the "BONUS" folder, presumably containing the "ORIGINAL FIRST MOVIE," and there it was. Alongside several behind-the-scenes clips from each movie, there it was- the strange video the man had alluded to.
The name, though, was odd- "ALVINPUPPET.MP4." The thumbnail, too, was strange- a screencap, presumably from the video, of Ian Hawke (the antagonist of the first 3 movies, played by David Cross) staring straight at the camera, smiling broadly. I didn't remember that happening in the movies, and it was too small, even at the largest thumbnail size, to determine if this was a real screencap from some kind of B-roll or something or a bizarre Photoshop. Nonetheless, the man had warned me it'd be weird, so I sat back, pressed play and began to watch.
There were no opening credits or titles or anything, it just began... and it was Alvin and the Chipmunks, the first movie- beginning on the scene where the Chipmunks were singing Bad Day in the tree, storing nuts. I was quite disappointed by this, as I had expected something much different at the beginning, especially from the name and the thumbnail, but I remembered liking the original movie as a kid, so I settled in. However, right as the tree began to tip from the chainsaw coming into it, the audio glitched and remained silent for several seconds as the tree fell, and the screen froze on a shot of the tree, fallen on the ground. I cursed to myself as I realized more than likely the MP4 was corrupted, but after a few more seconds, before I attempted to restart my computer, the movie jumped to life, cutting forward all the way to the scene where Dave is in Ian's office, playing him the tape of his Death Cab for Cutie ripoff "abyss of death" song.
Now I saw what was going on- this was going to be some kind of surreal fan edit, like a YouTube Poop or something like that. I always liked those, so I was marginally more excited than previously.
Dave loaded the CD into the player, but the song didn't play at all initially. There was a frozen shot of the CD player, still reading the disc, before the noises began.
As it cut back to Dave and Ian's reactions to the song, the song itself wasn't playing. Instead, there was something that sounded like a radiator and thumping, with the occasional noise I could describe as some kind of creaky door, or perhaps a small animal groaning. Three seconds or so in, there was a very jarring cut, and the actors for Dave and Ian- as well as the set- were replaced with what I assumed were lookalikes. The set looked a bit rattier, for lack of a better term, and Dave and Ian's new actors looked sweaty and just a touch nervous. However, the original song returned to playing.
As in the usual scene, Ian clicked off the CD player with his remote after around 20 seconds. He and Dave's actors acted out the scene where Ian tries to get Dave to stop making music, but they were doing so rather poorly, with large pauses in dialogue and clicking of tongues and "ums" scattered through lines.
One thing I noticed, though, is that Ian's actor seemed rather hesitant to say the line "we've come a long way since college," having to be prompted twice by Dave and darting his eyes back and forth as he said it.
After Dave delivered his final line, "Ever?" he got up and walked off set, but the camera stayed on a wide shot of Ian behind his desk, sweating bullets. After a couple seconds, the video once again cut to the actual movie- this time the chipmunks running through Ian's office's halls, halfway through Alvin's line, "Basket! Three o'clock!" It seemed almost like it fast forwarded to the scene where Theodore jumps up to the basket, playing at a slightly higher speed up to that point.
At the last jump, the one where Theodore actually makes it into the basket with Alvin's help, the screen cut to pitch black, and a disturbing but somewhat darkly comic image faded on-screen.
It seemed to be an extremely blown-out Photoshop of a render of Theodore from the movie, decapitated, his neck and eye forcibly stabbed through with a spike, his other eye having rolled up into his head. Cartoonish blood was dripping from his neck and stabbed eye socket, and text was faintly visible in the background in a blocky font: "YOU'VE GOTTA REALLY WANT IT." Accompanying this image was the same bizarre "song" played in the earlier scene as the image appeared almost to twitch. After around 5 seconds of this, it cut once again, giving me barely any time to process what the hell I just saw.
The video cut to a rapid montage of frames- like being extremely fast-forwarded- of the entire buildup where Dave attempts to catch the chipmunks before knowing they're in his house, and the conversation between the four ensuing afterwards, ending with the shot of Dave throwing them out in the rain. As the trio scampered up to the windows, only to find them shot, instead of the scene cutting after they slump in defeat, they just... sat there. The rain kept going, and there was an animation of the three softly breathing, so this wasn't a freeze-frame or looped footage, this was some strange extended version that went on for nearly 15 seconds. I was about to fast forward when, almost like the thing read my mind, it cut again.
The movie played out uninterrupted for a while, with the Chipmunks singing for Dave and him cutting his deal with them- the usual stuff. Then it seemed to cut into a bizarre, fast slideshow of different parts of the movie, no segment longer than 6 seconds- here were the chipmunks talking about their parents, there were shots of the Christmas montage, there's a bit of Christmastime Is Here (although the audio was seemingly replaced with the bizarre anti-song from earlier). Then, seemingly some relief came when the scene of the Chipmunks freezing up while Dave wants them to perform for Ian played out in its entirety. However, instead of Ian leaving for his "lunch," it cut to a black screen with ridiculously muffled audio- and, strangely enough, the hardcoded subtitles kicked in for this one. Here's the exchange, with names included:
IAN: I'LL TAKE THEM. DOESN'T MATTER WHAT THEY DO.
DAVE: SERIOUSLY? JUST LIKE THAT?
IAN: I HAVE MY PLANS, DAVE. I REALLY DO.
DAVE: WHAT KIND OF PLANS? IS THIS RELATED TO THAT WEIRD ALCHEMY NONSENSE YOU WERE TINKERING WITH IN COLLEGE?
IAN: DAVE, I WAS DRUNK 24/7 THERE! I'M NOT WORKING ON THAT KIND OF THING ANYMORE! THE KIDS JUST LOVE CUTE CHARACTERS LIKE THESE.
ALVIN: OH BOY, WE DID IT!
IAN: YOU THREE ARE GONNA BE VERY POPULAR, BELIEVE ME.
A short silence with heavy breathing followed, like some kind of stalker breathing into the phone of their next victim, before, you guessed it, another cut.
This was a scene I didn't know from the original movie at all. Alvin was sitting anxiously on a hospital bed as Ian paced- played again (and for the remainder of the video) by the lookalike from earlier. A doctor- who I recognized as the one to tell Ian the boys were overworked and their voices were shot- came into the room.
"Alvin's suffering from a case of lung cancer, I'm afraid," the doctor said sympathetically. "The asbestos from the JETT lounge seems to have made its way into his respiratory system. We've run our tests and it's not going to be fatal with the proper treatment, no need to worry... but you really shouldn't be overworking him, Mr. Hawke," they added, casting a pointed glare at Ian, who laughed.
"No need to worry," Ian said, almost mockingly. "The Chipmunks would NEVER go through TOO much work! We can push our year-long tour training to another day, right?"
"Year-long tour?" Alvin asked, horrified.
Another cut. Alvin, Simon and Theodore were in Ian's home, sitting on the couch. Simon and Theodore looked normal, but Alvin was gaunt, thin and pale, like a cartoon smoker.
"Warmups went great," Alvin said thinly, and Theodore hugged Simon for comfort as Simon sighed heavily and pushed up his glasses.
"Alvin, Ian's been working you to the bone," Simon said sternly. "First 20 takes on the snack commercials and now 30 different warmups for a single line! He sees you as a resource! Your voice is almost worn out, we can't see you like this anymore!"
"I don't want you to get hurt, Alvin," Theodore added timidly. This appeared to enrage Alvin, who got up and winced with a noticeable cracking noise.
"Damn it, guys," he shouted (and I had to remind myself this was a fanwork after hearing Alvin swear, even that mildly), "Uncle Ian knows what he's doing! This man has the talent to get us overseas and in front of screaming fans! I don't have to take this from you, not before our year-long international tour!"
"If you're going to be like that, fine!" Simon said. "Let him overwork you! Just don't come crawling to us when you're exhausted and near death in a week!"
Alvin spat and there was another cut, to yet another black screen.
Alvin was laying down on a table, twitching errantly in the middle of what appeared to be a large circle of salt and various unknown liquids splashed around him. He weakly frowned as Ian walked up to him. Ian smiled- a smile that almost seemed too large for a human- as he lit candles on each edge of the table.
"You wanna keep being famous, right, bud?" Ian asked devilishly, and he laughed loudly as Alvin nodded with what little strength he had in him.
Ian stiffened up, as if going through rigor mortis, and begin to chant something. I didn't recognize it as any language, and he made various sounds I wasn't sure a human could make. That same anti-song once again began playing, but this time overwhelmingly loud- I frantically mashed the volume down button on my computer but it seemed to not make a difference, so I just had to plug my ears until the scene was over.
Suddenly, it flashed to a later version of the same scene. Ian was gone and Alvin slowly got up. He initially looked normal, but then he looked at the camera- his eyes were gone. An ear-piercingly loud buzzing noise then played as that same screencap I saw in the thumbnail flashed rapidly on screen. I darted to cover my eyes and suddenly the video closed and a command prompt ran.
I was fully ready to run my antivirus but I noticed that the command prompt only did a single thing before it closed- created a file on my hard drive called "LIGHT.mp4."
I tracked it down in my videos folder and I checked the thumbnail- the same Ian screencap, but this time... only his head on a black background, his neck dripping the same cartoony blood that befell Theodore in the "YOU'VE GOTTA REALLY WANT IT" image.
I opened the video reluctantly, nervous to see what happened to Alvin and Ian, and was greeted with the visual of Simon in a small bed- with noticeably poorer 3D animation. If there was a "fan animation" vibe to any of this, it was probably from LIGHT.mp4. Nervously, he got up and checked a miniature alarm clock by his bed- 3:16 AM. He shuffled out of bed after this.
There was a noise of ripping and cracking and Simon's eyes widened in fear. He rushed into what was presumably Ian's office, the source of the noise, but no one seemed to be there.
With effort, he hoisted himself onto the desk, and clapped his paws over his mouth in horror.
Theodore's beheaded body was lying on the desk, his head separated and a pool of blood forming under both, and Alvin was standing in the middle of the desk, only he looked strange. Half of his face's fur seemed to be dead and pale, like when he was overworked in ALVINPUPPET, with a clear line of demarcation around his nose. Both of his eyes were pitch black, he was slightly taller and thinner and he was hunched over slightly.
"Hey, Simon, how's the haps? Boy, I feel great!" Alvin said- but he spoke in three voices. His own, Ian's and a deeper, more gravelly voice mixed in very faintly.
"WHAT DID IAN DO TO YOU?!" Simon yelled out in a mix of emotions- fear, panic, rage.
"Uncle Ian just did some classic Hollywood procedures on me," this thing that was presumably Alvin said. "Now we share a spirit! You should try it!"
"No! No, I'd never do that! You... you... YOU KILLED OUR BROTHER!" Simon responded angrily, tears running down his face.
"Oh, he just didn't understand what we were trying to do to him," Alvin-Ian responded in a smarmy voice. "So we had to get rid of him. He was the fat one, nobody really liked him- it's cutthroat in show biz! Literally!"
He laughed, alongside the sound of crunching bones, and grabbed Simon by the shoulder.
"Simon, I've seen the light. Not the light from when I was dying- a different light. Since you decided to turn yourself away from me my life's been great and it's all thanks to Uncle Ian! If you really want to be at your full potential in this band- able to tour FOREVER, able to score whatever you want- you need this! You need me!"
"This... this isn't you," Simon struggled out, still weeping.
"It always has been, Simon," Alvin laughed cruelly.
The screen once again went black and the sound of loud ripping and screaming could be heard before the video froze up, looping one split-second audio of a loud, Simonesque screech before one final image.
It was the Ian head from the thumbnail. It was slowly floating up and down, blood dripping and splashing on an unseen floor. Faintly in the background, I could hear the sound of a music box melody and someone singing along to it- sounding almost forlorn, a jingle in a melancholy key. It was Alvin- or at least a soundalike. I fast forwarded to the end of the video a second time after I watched it the first time to jot down what I heard, and this is my transcription of what it said.
"I see the light that's in the sky/Just watching as the time goes by/I've been deformed, you left me be/My brother Simon, can't you see?/I'm Alvin"
One thing I noticed was that when Alvin sang the last two words, the other two voices that were heard earlier could be heard singing alongside him.
As soon as this singing was done, my video player crashed.
Clearly whoever made this movie had computer skills and a twisted mind, I knew that much. I didn't let it get to me since weirder things have been made on the internet, and it was a goddamn Alvin and the Chipmunks fan film, but it still shook me when I first saw it.
Recently when I was booting up my computer, I noticed that there was a new entry in my videos folder.
I opened the folder and saw the filename and image.
"MYDEARBROTHER.mp4." With an image of the freaky Alvin from LIGHT.
Clearly, this thing won't leave me alone. I'll update with whatever else happens with this godforsaken thing.
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Author's Notes:
Cliffhanger, ooh, spooky! This might become its own series.
This is based on the beautifully funny Friday Night Funkin' mod "I'M ALVIN," which you should check out. Song goes hard.
I had not seen the movie before reading this so I had to download and watch it to fill out some details. Not actually that bad.
Also, I learned David Cross got death threats over being Ian in this movie. Gross! Don't do that to people.
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