Animal Crossing has been the subject of numerous creepy pasta and sinister urban legends. From this chilling Let’s Play from the Something Awful forums in 2008 to the conspiracy theories about the grave in the New Horizons trailer, some fans can’t seem to accept that this is just a nice game where people are nice. If you’re going to make Animal Crossing spooky, at least go as high effort as this elaborate trailer for a fake horror movie.
YouTuber Evil Imp’s horror trailer has an A24, arthouse vibe. There’s a lot of dramatic lighting, a possessed Pietro, and even some very family unfriendly blood. What’s most remarkable to me is that I can only identify one shot that was composed in post—the one of Isabelle saying the murderer has escaped. Animal Crossing doesn’t have murder, and thus Isabelle would never speak of it.
Videos by VICE
Youtuber Evil Imp made this trailer by using the native video capture on the Switch and, for some of the shots, Harv’s Island in Animal Crossing. Harv is a character introduced in the Welcome Amiibo update for Animal Crossing: New Horizons. In that game, he was a laid back hippie who lived at a campsite and offered you furniture in exchange for doing favors. In New Horizons, Harv is still a laid back hippie, but this time he lives on his own island, where he has a cabin he allows players to use for photo shoots.
When you’re in Harv’s cabin, you can pose and dress characters any way that you want, including giving them different expressions. Using the game’s camera, which allows you to change camera angles and add filters. Don’t think this kind of thing is easy just because Animal Crossing essentially lets you create sets and you can capture video on the system. Any Animal Crossing fan can tell you that villagers have a great habit of ruining perfectly composed screenshots by wandering into or out of frame. At Harv’s Island, the characters are stationary, but that limits you to indoors sets only. Also, after you collect all the shots you need, you’ll have to upload them and edit them on your computer. This person, who made another elaborate Animal Crossing video, used fifty individual clips that then had to be stitched together.
I’d love to see more high effort videos like this, but I can’t imagine how time consuming they must be. Let me know if Evil Imp decides to make another trailer, though. I do feel like it’s about time for another Wickerman remake.
