#spooky month 4: deadly smiles | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

yumespooki · 3 months ago

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☆Why Gregor is so important than you think and the series' relationship with tone

Im obsessed with an old man and I have all reasons to be also I have to sleep but I really need to make a colleague of gregor photos as the header image-

◇Part 1 - How The Tonal Shifts happen to be

Episodes 1 to 3 was all silly fun, though we have the idea that the series is gonna have a progression to having a consistent plot and story since Episode 2 setting up the episode formula of events/segments:

Skid and Pump doing mischief around town, there's separate segments of major characters that they come across and the villain that sets up the plot - who are in concept supposed to be parodies of horror villain stereotypes.

And its all fitting in Pelo's style except its actually understandable and not have characters turn cartoonishly eldritch every 2 seconds.

Yknow we got SM 1 was an average pelo video then SM 2 is where we got the formula, everyone were just trope templates and the one that sets up the lore

SM3 is where things get normal but it's still silly, you can tell by the soundtrack, Moloch's theme is on dubstep it bangs BUT also introduces the Episode ending set up for its next villain.

Then SM4 happened. Oh Deadly Smiles my beloved, still my personal favorite

This where the good shit happens with different segments under 20+ minutes with finally having a grasp on how the episode formula works

Though this episode is kinda.. the chillest one among the episodes???

Everytime Skid and Pump goes around town with Spooky Swings playing, it's always fast paced and they immediatly go to the next in a few seconds but in Deadly Smiles, they take long stops before going to their next location. Most Characters also spend most of if not any of their screentime without Skid and Pump in it. [especially Kevin] it has its own unique tone and its cozy solely for it being winter themed.

Other than the more chill pacing, You got the rabid doll running place to place and getting thrown around to people to people to show what hes suppose to parody that when Dexter actually shows that he can be a threat is a really effective moment and really got me going "Oh shit OH SHIT"

But the scene that truly shaped Spooky Month the way it is now is the scene where he snaps at the kids, that moment is so important to the series because of the sudden change of tone to spooky/silly to scary. We couldn't see Dexter as a threat before this because the tone and plot prevents him to be one especially to poke out the trope of Doll killers but at this moment, the moment he expresses his situation and conditions, he went specific. and from there you don't see Dexter as a simple parody for the sake of being a parody anymore, Especially being a parody based on Chucky --who uses dolls on his advantage-- but For Dexter, below the surface is a man doomed from the circumstances that he desperately wanna get out of.

Episode 5 immediatly tells you its meant be atleast scary from the get-go since it was already established seconds into the episode, and only in the last minute with Lila it left us with an ominous note

Ok to be for real, I consider Episode 5 kinda standard compared to Ep 4 and 6 but is more better than the early 3 eps and I appreciate as the middle ground between Deadly Smiles and Hollow Sorrows. And also more cop screentime my luvs

And mainly the reason why I said this because of Bob. The villains of Spooky Month is always tied with the tone because they are the guys that bring the tension. Bob's kinda monotonic because his behaviour pattern in this episode is repetitive: He slowly approaches people, give them meat fact, dosent or fails to kill them, gets slapped with slapstick. Even at the climax where he's actually at his most effective by being actually terrifying, he still gets disrupted for comedic purposes.

He has a balance of being actually terrifying and being a parody by his slow movement trying to set up tension.

Incomparison to Dexter, yea he gets thrown around but they get to take him seriously at the right moment and being thrown around to different people showing this disadvantage will show you the wide range of what the characters will do with the doll, Bob just scares them throughout the episode.

And I can't be mad about it because Bob purposefully is doing that to distract the cops from the cult case especially thinking he can't die.

But Bob is still effective as a villain. He manages to get you on edge and also opens questions to more lore stuff. And this episode is also the most creepiest because of Bob's behaviour along with that Lila encountering him along with finding out he's in her photo book probably shaped Lila to her behaviour in episode 6.

Still a good ep. Alot of insight of other characters' lives is my main highlight of this ep

Then Episode 6 has Father Gregor finally established as a proper character now that's where the interesting THING starts;

◇Chapter 2: Why is he weird in a weird show

When Father Gregor is on screen, do you feel.. put off especially when he's first introduced into the episode? Like when we were first introduced to doll Dexter with actual spinechilling ost and visuals we were already accustomed to this to be something expected through the Newgrounds endings with its ominous tone, expecting to transition it to the main story especially in with Tender Treats being almost that except more heightened.

But with Gregor, I don't have the exact words to explain the tonal dissonance he gives us. He has a very clear leimotif soundtrack throughout the episode everytime he's on screen even disrupting themes of other characters or locations [like the candy club like what the fuck gregor excuse yourself] that it even turns to a more epic variation of itself with Moloch's exorcism.

since this guy has seconds of screentime on his 1st debut,he's unpredictable especially when each episode has a formula of events with characters that we are familiar off. and we know that there is atleast something goofy going on with them - except for the cops but for them they act silently or accompany moments with the characters - But Gregor dosent accompany character moments he's the goddamn spotlight, the emphasis on his scenes are on HIM like out of nowhere we got this guy coming along. Its kinda of a new breathe of air to have him around because we never got anyone else to come along with the Spookeez all around town and setting up their dynamic with the kids.

Oh and finally we simply state the whole point of Gregor and why he's so out of place -- his seriousness. He was never associated with the series' shenanigans, and questions his surroundings. He dosent enable himself with the series' comedy and at somepoint that it tries to bring him along for a second with the spooky dance. Hes not only unfamiliar in story wise but by environment wise. there was a little analysis essay I made a while back with how Gregor as a person in the setting is off to the townsfolk as they are mostly unfamiliar with Religious figures as the church was newly built, and everybody else never acknowledges his presence as a priest — Kevin and Frank calls him an old guy/man Radford dosent take him seriously because he mostly seen priests through movies, Jack has to ask if Gregor is one and Skid and Pump dosent know how the term father works in the church that even tells something. Only a few characters recognizes his role as a priest being Michelle, John, and Evermore.

Now let's move onto Gregor not following the goddamn script of being part of a parody

Ep 6 has the basics of a parody of exorcism movies: demon - check, priest - check, the victim check that's your main elements, but they never utilises these as.. parodies, because when one of the core elements acts like a normal guy and has a standard behaviour of a priest in those kinds of movies that wasnt exagerrated for the parody and has never been that early into the series to being so associated with the silliness of it making fun of horror. We had time with Moloch since Episode 1, 2 and 3 We witness his time from being just a gimmick character to being one of the mysteries and coming back as a serious threat.. or is he? Because on the 2nd half of the episode, Moloch's running away from Gregor, and attempts to fight back by trying to possess anyone on his way but in the end Moloch is defeated and the kids seeing this breaks their relationship with Gregor. At this point he himself is also an antagonist.

With Gregor breaking the law of parodies, and also breaking the traditional set up of villains for this series, he also differs alot of the standard priest character that he's supposed to be because usually those characters cannot exist outside of being the guy battling the supernatural forces—they are not the main focus. With Gregor, he's more than just an exorcist as for the most part we see him as a normal priest first, exorcist second. he's so determined in his job that any threat given to him makes him more motivated and half of the episode he spends his time teaching the kids to behave.

◇<Gregor and Tension>◇

We already established Gregor as a villain so what else is weird about this bald fuck

From Episode 4 we now get ourselves a consistent line of villains with Dexter being a strong start with the earlier mentioned being the guy responsible for the main story's tonal whiplash

Dexter, Moloch and Bob are villains with their main thing and concept as something terrifying — Dexter's an insane doll, Bob's a cannibal butcher and Moloch's a child eating demon who gives terrible side effects at something he possessed dead or alive.

Horror villains always relied in creating tension to make anyone scared. Dexter creates tension with his uncanny presence as a doll, along with his fast movements contrasting this with Bob, being slow and uses psychological intimidation than being fast, and watches his victims reacting to the situation their put into. Then for Moloch, he is tied with Gregor because how he creates tension is in complimentary with him.

The scary thing about Moloch comes from the ARGs mostly since that's where they build him up as a serious thing to handle in the series after Episode 3, but unfortunately for him as his debut as a serious threat has to be shared with just a dude

OK Moloch's scenes relies on a psychological effect because of his ability to possess people which he possess characters we seen before and are individuals. If you think about Dexter, we saw him killed off for a fucking joke then proceeds to be a threat for a whole episode by the result of his decreasing sanity of being stuck inside a doll. then you realize he's also someone's son. Both got killed by Moloch and used their images as his best attempt to manipulate Gregor which only angers him and makes him more determined to finish him off. Even psychological moves dosent work on him. Now at that point, Moloch lost the hold of the tension's weight. Rather than heightening a terrifying scene like a typical spiritual fight scene, Gregor steals it and heightens it by what made him unnatural since the start – he's constant seriousness that defies the the overall tone that it becomes a keypoint from the episode onwards, making Moloch run away.

Their last confrontation has Gregor on the upper hand with a successful exorcism and a banger of an ost that I still think about to this day, and it was never something to replicate horror. They were no terrific aftermath or a good ending, only the tears of children that comes after it, a dislikeness to the religious figure, and an awareness to how the series' main thing of silliness and chaos was all from an unsupervised kid and a bit carefree mother.

◇Chapter 3: the old man has a hold on the narrative

At the start of Episode 6, We were dismissed with a moment with Skid and Lila, about her situation arranging the house and Skid's Dad with her distracting Skid to go play with Pump. We know somethings off but this was already delivered from the ending of Episode 5.

Gregor states himself at the start as a guide to the children to reflect and be better, but how he delivers this wasn't clear to Skid and Pump and goes around apologising with no single thought other than this being important to their parents. The episode's main point was because of Father Gregor assisting the kids.

then the second that they got the parent thing shoved to their faces is with the cops, also one of the more grounded characters in the series but again they enable the goofiness of the series especially with Jack and his lowkey high kill count- Now that's when the themes of family are very stressed with the whole thing now about to ingrain in Skid and Pump's head.

Now to the scene where Skid and Pump cries for Moloch and now hates Gregor. It's all on him – he leaves without the need of approval but get his message and judgements clear. As he leaves the main cast and onto the church, he's finally at his most vulnerable. the tension spotlight is not on him anymore and has no control of the atmosphere as the Cult comes into the scene.

But what he does have control of was the effect he gave on the kids as his message of apologising and reflecting was the episode's ending note. Not only that, We got the tonal shift to scary, serious to bawling our tears out?? It was implied throughout the episode that the themes of family, especially broken ones are strong and the last scene of Skid apologising and hugging his mom was the perfect completion to build all of that. Not only the tension between Moloch, and Gregor is there the other important thing was the emotional tension.

This signals that Gregor's presence was such an impact that it still lingers, like the piano at the last scene that he's always accompanied with in the soundtrack. in the end it shaped the kids that gives a significant emotional weight into the narrative from now on.

And what do we do now if Skid and Pump finally reflected?? Will things change? Will they not go out and do havoc anymore? Will things lose the general comedic feel to something more serious? We don't know

But it's all really thanks to Father Gregor Raguel.

Conclusion:

Tldr: Gregor is so odd to the show because of how serious he is that it extends to him breaking in series and horror traditions to the fucking narrative of making the series have some emotional weight

#father gregor #father gregor raguel #spooky month father gregor #skid and pump #spooky month

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