rionaleonhart: final fantasy x-2: the sun is rising, yuna looks to the future. (i believe you are hiding something)
Riona ([personal profile] rionaleonhart) wrote2011-10-22 10:33 am

Enjoy Your Newfound Fear of Polka Dots.

Once again, Derren Brown both fascinates me and makes me want to bury myself under ten feet of solid rock so he can't get anywhere near me. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, DERREN BROWN?

EVERYTHING. EVERYTHING IS WRONG WITH YOU.

(That bit with the ice bath! I could barely watch.)

(Derren Brown could commit so many murders and nobody would ever catch him.)

(SERIOUSLY THAT MAN IS TERRIFYING.)

If you haven't seen Derren Brown's The Assassin and feel like compelling yourself to hide under your bed for the next month, it's available here on 4oD at the moment. It has more of a focus on hypnotism than most of his other work, and it is really interesting. And really scary.

And I've just watched a clip of Derren explaining some of the thinking behind the programme (his chatting persona and his stage persona are so different! They actually speak and move differently. Incidentally, if you've wondered where his little nodding tic came from, it's because he got so into the habit of nodding to manipulate people into being compliant that now he can't stop), and when trying to explain why he chose Chris as a subject he ends up describing him as 'in a nice way, kind of an empty vessel'. Derren. We're all just pawns in your eyes, aren't we? (But I can sort of see what he means; when Chris and Other Guy were asked what the icewater experience was like, Chris kept following Other Guy's lead in describing it (Other Guy: It felt X. Chris: Yeah, it felt X), which I'd assume is a sign of suggestibility.)

He also says that Hero at 30,000 Feet was born of thinking 'oh, can't we do something nice for someone for a change?' Because in Derren's world there's nothing nicer than tying someone to some train tracks and making them think they're on a crashing plane. See also: the time he tied a young woman up in a sack and then pushed her into a lake as a 'treat'.

And then I fell asleep and dreamt that Derren Brown had brainwashed some poor girl into chasing me around with a rifle. Get out of my head!

[identity profile] serriadh.livejournal.com 2011-10-22 04:07 pm (UTC)(link)
oh GOD that was so frightening. I don't understand why people aren't more scared when they go along to these things and get selected as subjects.

[identity profile] amy-wolf.livejournal.com 2011-10-22 04:26 pm (UTC)(link)
My reaction to having my hand shoot out and fling what I thought was a vial of acid at someone's face would involve far more screaming than anyone on the show ever demonstrates.

[identity profile] serriadh.livejournal.com 2011-10-22 04:28 pm (UTC)(link)
They didn't even do their usual 'We spoke to these people afterwards and offered them ALL THE COUNSELLING to make sure they weren't too upset about how we brainwashed them into vitriol-throwing maniacs' voiceover.

Though I liked the Sherlock-style onscreen text. "Here Derren is being VERY CLEVER and also scary".

[identity profile] amy-wolf.livejournal.com 2011-10-22 04:30 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, that would have been comforting. I know that if I'd been hypnotized into doing something like that, I'd definitely at least need someone to sit with me until I stopped crying and reassure me I wasn't a terrible person.

The text was quite good. Also, that would be a highly alarming crossover.