The Contract Allows Us To Do Whatever We Like With You.

[rionaleonhart]

Okay, I have seen only two episodes, but Derren Brown's Trick or Treat is absolutely terrifying. I cannot believe there is a second series. The first I can understand, because people didn't know what they were letting themselves in for, but a second series means that people must have watched the first and thought, 'Yes! I want that! I want to be kidnapped and stranded in an unfamiliar country! I want to be abused in the street and made to think I am trapped in a box! This sounds exactly like my idea of a good time.'

Does this really sound like your idea of a good time, Trick or Treat applicants? Does it really?

I am also rather disturbed by Mr Brown's apparent willingness to offer his guests Mini Rolls containing delicious chocolate and cream and razor blades. I mean, I'm assuming there was some sort of trickery involved, and he didn't just stick the blade in one of them and hope, but I cannot see where this trickery can have come in. And he's breaking into people's houses in the middle of the night, and he's leaving people in enormous mental distress, and I feel he may have gone past 'so scary it's hot' and hit 'so scary it's really freaking scary'.

Not that I don't still find him hot.

I wish that, rather than just saying 'BY THE WAY THIS GUY WAS FINE AFTERWARDS OKAY' on the screen, the episodes would actually show the participant being fine afterwards. 'HE WAS GENUINELY PLEASED TO HAVE TAKEN PART, PLEASE ENJOY THE CREDITS AS WE PLAY THEM OVER FOOTAGE OF THIS POOR MAN SOBBING IN AN EMPTY THEATRE' is not, I have to say, entirely reassuring.

I tried to find clips from the ventriloquist's dummy episode, which was one of the most disturbing things I had ever seen, but alas I could not, so here is a clip of Derren Brown being rather charming on stage instead. He wants you to touch his goatee!

Also, Derren Brown paying for things in America with blank paper. I particularly enjoy 'Can I buy some of your sole?', and it's always fun when they show the attempts that don't work.


(I told a Real Life friend that I was alarmingly attracted to Derren Brown, and she thought I meant Dan Brown. I was horrified. It's like telling a friend you once stole a can of cat food and having her respond with 'YOU EAT KITTENS?')

Comments

[nixwilliams.livejournal.com]

johnnypurple and i were just talking about how there ought to be fic of derren brown and the stig*. that is the one thing that would make this bitter life worth living, we said.

and then we ordered chips.

* may or may not be the same person/thing/entity/god.

[rionaleonhart]

I have actually been vaguely wondering, in a not-actually-going-to-write-it way, about Top Gear fanfiction in which the mysterious force behind the bodyswap or the genderswap or the universe-switching or the Pokémon attack turns out to be Derren Brown, rather than the Stig. I suppose that Derren Brown actually being the Stig would also work.

[reipan.livejournal.com]

in a not-actually-going-to-write-it way

O RLY? We've all met you, my dear...

[vzg.livejournal.com]

derren brown and the stig

Drat! If this had been suggested before I would have totally included it as a prompt in the PB. Because I am apparently compelled to do that (http://oxoniensis.livejournal.com/395384.html?thread=23605112#t23605112) (NSFW).

[make-a-move.livejournal.com]

I can't watch the one with the ventriloquist's dummy. Seriously. I have a phobia of them, and it would freak me out so badly if I watched it.

The episodes where a treat is involved make up for the scar of the trick ones. Just wait until you get to the old lady and the piano girl. You will flail in glee and happiness and want to pinch his cheeks for being so lovely.

[rionaleonhart]

The ventriloquist's dummy episode is absolutely terrifying. The dummy alone would make it creepy enough, but then there's a whole surreal sequence at the end, with a bizarre stage show in front of an audience made out of paper, and the entire thing is just very, very uncomfortable.

I am looking forward to something slightly less horrific!

[lo0o0ony-lauren.livejournal.com]

The piano girl episode is honestly one of the loveliest and most uplifting things I think I've ever seen on telly.

[dracothelizard.livejournal.com]

"Also, Derren Brown paying for things in America with blank paper. I particularly enjoy 'Can I buy some of your sole?', and it's always fun when they show the attempts that don't work."

He's got psychic paper!

Also, are all those things he does actually legal, or is it okay because people volunteered to be on the show? But the Zombie Game Guy didn't volunteer, I think, and he was still kidnapped.

[rionaleonhart]

It is undoubtedly psychic paper. Is this further evidence that Derren Brown is the Master?

Well, in Trick or Treat he gets people to sign contracts before he, say, kidnaps them and abandons them in Morocco. (In the Morocco episode, he persuaded the guy's girlfriend to give him a key, then crept into his house at three in the morning, woke him up, gave him the contract to sign when he was still sleep-dazed and it was too dark to read it and then sent him back to sleep, which strikes me as cheating slightly.) I don't know exactly what the situation was with Zombie Game Guy.

[dracothelizard.livejournal.com]

I certainly think he's some sort of Time Lord who is stranded on Earth, like the Stig.

...

If Derren Brown was an American, he would totally get his ass sued off all the damn time. As it is, perhaps Brits are too busy being happy they're not the victims?

[the-wanlorn.livejournal.com]

Oh my god what kind of creepy show are you watching?

[rionaleonhart]

A severely creepy show. Derren Brown, fascinating illusionist-hypnotist-magician, appears in your life at an unexpected moment and offers you an unseen choice of two cards. If you pick the 'Treat' card, he will do something nice, like teach you to play the piano. If you pick the 'Trick' card, he will do something less nice, like - I have not yet seen this episode, but I have been assured that this is what actually happens - send people to kidnap you, chain you up, tie you inside a sack and then throw you into a lake.

He is an alarming man.

[the-wanlorn.livejournal.com]

[make-a-move.livejournal.com]

He trains you how to undo the chains and get out of the sack and how to hold your breath for longer under water, but then he will abandon you for two months, and then send people to kidnap you and do all that Riona said. So it's not all bad.

[the-wanlorn.livejournal.com]

NO THAT IS STILL TERRIBLE.

[rionaleonhart]

Well, exactly.

So far, I have seen two episodes, both tricks. In the first, he broke into a guy's house at three in the morning and woke him up to say 'hi, I'm Derren Brown, pick a card', then, after he picked 'Trick', used a fake photobooth to send him into a catatonic trance and had him wake up on his own in Morocco, without explanation. There was a nice little interlude in this one in which Derren offered four guys a plate of five mini Swiss rolls; they each took one and ate it, and then it was revealed that the fifth roll - the one none of them had eaten, the one one of them had been keeping hold of, so it couldn't have been switched - contained a freaking razor blade.

In the second, he made a guy believe that he was a hypnotist's dummy, then put the dummy in a box, which left the guy panicking and saying, 'Let me out! I can't see!'

There is no way to convey the true creepiness of the second episode through text.

I cannot find any good Trick or Treat clips, which appears to be when Derren is at his creepiest, but here is a video of him being extremely creepy with a voodoo doll (apparently, that YouTube video is no longer available in my country (SERIOUSLY DERREN BROWN IS FREAKING BRITISH WHY CAN'T BRITISH PEOPLE WATCH HIM), but perhaps it is available in yours. If not, give this link a go), to give you some impression of how creepy he is.

(When he is not being creepy, he is, entirely inexplicably, completely adorable.)

[the-wanlorn.livejournal.com]

THAT IS SO FUCKING CREEPY DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD:

[rionaleonhart]

BUT ALSO HOT, RIGHT?

...RIGHT?


I'll just be over here.

[the-wanlorn.livejournal.com]

No your kink is totally not okay this time.

[rionaleonhart]

Here are more educational videos for you:

Derren Brown very politely steals a man's watch, wallet and phone (again, not available in the UK, but I'm fairly sure this clip is the one of which I am thinking).

Derren Brown paralyses a woman in the middle of the road (ditto ajfdhahdgdhfgh stupid YouTube).

Derren Brown takes great pleasure in freaking out a film student.

[rionaleonhart]

Oh also there is the bit where he gets some guy's friends to help kidnap him and then leaves him in a building full of zombies.

[the-wanlorn.livejournal.com]

OH SHIT I SUDDENLY LOVE THIS MAN.

[amy-wolf.livejournal.com]

In the second, he made a guy believe that he was a hypnotist's dummy, then put the dummy in a box, which left the guy panicking and saying, 'Let me out! I can't see!'

There is no way to convey the true creepiness of the second episode through text.

Trust me, you made it sound creepy enough.

*hides*

[lo0o0ony-lauren.livejournal.com]

Lol lol lol it somehow sounds so bad written out like that.

It's probably also worth saying that the cards are ambigrams, so there's not even any real element of chance - it's just, does he like you, does he think a trick will be funny, does he think you'll have a breakdown if he throws you in a lake. Oh, DVB. ♥

Also, I totally love the mini rolls thing, and not just because I watched nothing but The League of Gentlemen when I was fourteen. THE DERREN BROWN BAKERY. I KNEW IT.

[make-a-move.livejournal.com]

I think they're only ambigrams in the first series, aren't they? The second series they're clearly defined words.

[lo0o0ony-lauren.livejournal.com]

Yessssssss I think so. Although, I haven't seen the second series for an absolute age, so I can't really recall. But in all the horrific ~waking up in Morocco~, ~hideous ventriloquist dummy~ ones, he just picks for himself. Bad man!

Your icon is like my favourite picture ever, by the by. So distracting.

[rionaleonhart]

I can forgive a little cheating in the first series, because I do not think I would have been able to cope had lovely Anne got a trick. (Just saw that episode. Verdict: adorable! This is a nice change from all the pure evil, Derren.)

[make-a-move.livejournal.com]

I can't watch the ventriloquist dummy one, it gives me the shivers.

You can nab it, if you want. Just, credit blah blah blah fishcakes, if you do.

[rionaleonhart]

Speaking of the ambigram thing, I just watched the fifth episode of the first series.

THE DOUBLE-TRICK CHOICE.

OH DERREN BROWN YOU ARE SUCH A BAD PERSON I LOVE YOU.

I also love that they apparently had not considered the possibility that the guy they were kidnapping might try to call the police. I wish I could have seen whoever was on the other end of the line.

[cryforthemoon.livejournal.com]

And yet I cannot help adoring him. Waaah.

[rionaleonhart]

There is just something terribly adorable about him. I watched the 'behind the scenes' feature on the second series of Trick of the Mind today, and Derren is so cute in it. I just want to cuddle him. But I also want to run away extremely fast. How can anyone be so charming and so evil simultaneously?

(Your icon! ♥!)

[cryforthemoon.livejournal.com]

I refer you to Simm!Master.

(Chosen specifically because that photo has the chair-like-mine in it. I are geek.)

[amy-wolf.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'm going to go off and have lots of nightmares now.

Derren Brown kidnaps the Top Gear presenters after getting them to sign a release form and he and the Stig fight it out for who gets to keep them, y/y?.

I am also tempted to change my amnesiafic idea so instead of the CIA dumping Richard in Mongolia with no memory (as part of a "Learn the secret of the Stig" plot gone wrong) to Derren Brown doing it as a prank. Although this would be a bad idea, as saying his name might make him appear.

[rionaleonhart]

I am also tempted to change my amnesiafic idea so instead of the CIA dumping Richard in Mongolia with no memory (as part of a "Learn the secret of the Stig" plot gone wrong) to Derren Brown doing it as a prank.

I fully endorse this change. (Would this mean that Derren Brown would actually show up in the fic? I have fallen behind so appallingly on reading fanfiction, but perhaps this would tempt me back in.)

[amy-wolf.livejournal.com]

He'd turn up at some point. Which is disturbing to contemplate.

But if I write him that much, he'll turn up and lock me up in a sack and throw me in a lake! I don't want that!