The Horror Show
Song Of Dreams
by Scott Ackerman
Scott Ackerman is a very interesting filmmaker. An ex-pat living in Japan for about a decade now. He’s a dedicated YouTube vlogger with impeccable attention to details. He’s also a talented storyteller.
Song Of Dreams, a feature length production with a running time of just under an hour and ten minutes, is a first person narrarated documentary-style horror film around the subject of glitch art; the practice of using digital or analog errors for aesthetic purposes by either corrupting digital data or physically manipulating electronic devices.
The main premise of the film is simple enough and is explained in the first two minutes: Scott receives an anonymous phone call telling him that his old friend, Andy Aikman, has gone missing. Shortly afterwards a package from the missing and/or deceased Andy shows up on Scott’s doorstep containing, amongst other strange artifacts, a video card filled with glitch art that Andy has been collecting.
From this point onward Scott is thrust down a rabbit hole as he uncovers the whereabouts and fate of Andy’s glitch art collaborators, all the while giving the audience a thorough description of the history of glitch art and simultaneously weaving the story together through his concise style of narration.
The style of the film itself mirrors the subject matter of glitch art. It also contains some very inventive creepy-pastas and urban legends created by Ackerman. They’re quite convincing and Ackerman delivers them with such resolve and conviction that many viewers have believed that the characters mentioned in this film were real people.
I won’t give away any more spoilers for Song Of Dreams, but if bizarre tales of the deep web appeal to you then this film is a must see. The fascinating content and Ackerman’s inventive style far outweighs the obvious budget limitations.
Check out Song Of Dreams by Scott Ackerman (the film is embedded above) and be sure pass it around!
Richard Leggatt, HMS
The Horror Show Menu.