And so it was that Stephen Merks awoke one morning, weary eyed and depressed as usual, knowing he was going to have to drag himself back to a job that he hated that barely paid enough, only to discover, when he went to brush his teeth in the bathroom mirror, that his reflection showed something wholly unexpected. Rats! Rats living in his head! Two rats, specifically, whom he'd later come to name Matilda & The Boss, nested in one of his eye sockets and his brain. And as Stephen stood there, pondering his newfound companionship, realizing his life had just taken a sudden and confusing turn for the strange and unusual, he couldn't help but think to himself, "...fucking Mondays, man."
Have you ever been in Stephen's situation? Have you ever woken up, tired of life, exhausted at imagining your ho-hum dreary life day in day out, only to discover you too have rats living inside of your head, eating you from the inside out? If so, then this is the blog post for you! That's right, we're presenting Rat-B-Gone, for only 3 easy installments on 19.95, you too can take your brain back from those pesky rodents who want to make life even more frustrating than it is daily!
Personally, I wish I had rats living in my head. At least I'd never be lonely. Stephen's lucky, if anything. If Pixar has taught us anything, it's that having rats control your every move is actually a good thing that can improve your life! I mean, sure, one of Stephen's eyes is dangling rather gruesomely out of its socket, and his brain is open for all the world to smell (you're welcome for that scent of terrors you'll be stuck imagining all weekend with now), but on the whole, I think Stephen's a lucky fella. Matilda & The Boss only want what's best for him, after all. That's why one is controlling what he sees and the other is steering his mind. Stephen clearly can't be trusted to take care of himself. If he could, he probably wouldn't have rats burrowing into his skull, after all.
This mask is wonderful, just from concept alone. Let's not even get into semantics yet about composition or sculpting or color or detailing or any of that fun stuff and let's discuss concept. Right off the bat, this thing screams originality. Alright, sure, something living inside of someone isn't the most original concept in the world, but it's still better than Mummy or generic superhero costume, you know? You put some thought and effort into it, at least, is what I'm saying. You didn't want to just make the same ol' boring thing everyone else was churning out on the assembly line, no, you wanted to do something really truly different, and by god man did you do it. It's not the most well designed face or even the most well sculpted mask, and the detailing is minimal at best - especially quality wise, like, you couldn't even get real hair for it? come on man - but none of that really matters because the concept itself is so fantastic that you're willing to let all the other crap slide just a bit.
That isn't to say the detailing and sculpting are bad, by any means, don't get me wrong. The hair, while not real hair, is decent enough if you really study it and what's even better are the giant gaping holes they included on other parts of Stephen's head. Look at that, for instance, right above and slightly behind his ear. Gorgeous cadmium red, with a nice fleshy texture, right in between all that black hair which really makes it pop. Great placement, great coloring, and a perfect example of why I'm willing to let other aspects of its design slide a bit because even if they aren't magnificent, the ideas they went in with were great enough to overshadows its meager shortcomings.
Something else you might not have noticed at first glance is the fact that the rat isn't actually popping out of his other eyeball, it's coming out of the center of his nose for fucks sake! That's even more horrifying and brutal, honestly! I mean, things coming out of your eye socket? That's trite. That's been done. We've all seen that far too many times. But how many times can you honestly look me in the rat infested eye and say, with sincerity, that you've seen something come out of the bridge of someones nose? That's right. Fucking never. And what an absolutely painful thing that has to be. I've thankfully never broken anything in my body (aside from that one time I smashed my finger in the van door growing up, but even then it didn't break the bone, just my fingernail, which eventually fell off and completely regrew), so I can't even begin to imagine what it must feel like to break something, but especially your nose. My nose doesn't work well to begin with. Despite using it as my primary breathing apparatus, I can't smell anything with it and often times I simply forget it exists, so to break it would be...just...awful, oof, yikes.
But that one gap on the side of his skull wasn't enough, oh no! I'm willing to be that where's The Boss burrowed in and popped out his nose from, but the back gap has to be where Matilda forced her way inside and up to the brain through. It's almost like they actually included a true entryway for each rat, and that's really neat! Again, just a small protrusion with a fleshy tone and texture to it in the middle of the bald spot Stephen can't comb over, but it works so wonderfully well. The amount of interior of head that's visible from the exterior is, admittedly, kind of disgusting, but I love it for that.
This mask really falls into the category of excellent mostly because it's not poorly made - despite not being anything overly incredible either - and the concept is so fantastic that it really carries it across the threshold that allows you to overlook its minor faults. Not a lot of masks can get away with that, and often times the ones that do have neat concepts that might let them get away with it still aren't made even halfway decent enough to let the concept save them. Stephen Matilda & The Boss here are one of the rare exceptions to the rule, and this mask is fantastic if only because, despite not being entirely wholly original as I stated before, it's still so different, and well made enough, that it gets away with it. Those fleshy holes, the semi detailed hair, the placement of the rats (and the rats themselves, frankly) and the overall gory tone of Stephen's face, or what's left of it anyway, has made this mask a real hit, even in spite of its slight flaws.
So, if you somehow one day find yourself in Stephen's predicament, even if that day is a Monday (why does everyone hate Mondays? I hate each day of the week equally, thank you very much, don't single them out), then maybe instead of thinking of what a possible inconvenience this might be to you perhaps think of how goddamned cool you look now. Trust me, someone out there is going to appreciate your new sense of style, and then you'll really be happy Matilda & The Boss chose your cabeza for their new dwelling.
Who knows, you might even get a movie deal out of it. Hollywood is rife for reboots right now, after all.
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