00:00Hey everybody, as you can see we'll be going over the There's a Man in the Woods short film today,
00:06discussing how someone can spiral so far down the pit of despair that they become unrecognizable
00:12and the ramifications of child neglection. So I hope you guys are ready. We begin with a man
00:20coming out of a hotel room and stops to tell us that there's a man in the woods, laughing to
00:26himself about how ridiculous it is. As we flash back to him being a teacher, watching over his
00:32elementary school students as they eat honeysuckle, except for one kid who hoarded them all to himself,
00:39Sid, who then made up a lie that there was a murderous man with a shotgun that looked like
00:46Batman in the woods. And this happened for a few days where the kids wouldn't go down there anymore,
00:52except for one, Sid. The man tried to show them that there was nothing to be afraid of,
00:59even talking to them individually, but Sid kept up the lie, scaring everyone. And finally,
01:05after some time, the parents finally heard the rumor and started blowing up his phone.
01:11The man tried to explain to Sid's mother that he was lying to have the honeysuckle all to himself,
01:17but she of course wouldn't listen to him, and she got other parents riled up as well.
01:22Eventually going to the principal, and by the body language you see, she was saying the classic line
01:28of, I know my little angel wouldn't make up a story like this. Eventually forcing the principal to fire
01:36the man, and he wasn't able to get another teaching job forcing him to downsize into living in a sketchy
01:42hotel. And we hear his narration progressively getting more intense as he goes, with us seeing
01:49him turn to cocaine and drinking making him see hallucinations of the killer, with his reality
01:56becoming distorted, with us then seeing the final line of the film.
02:02Do you hear that, Sid?
02:06There's a man in the woods.
02:09Now I have to say, this was a great animated short film that I have remembered for years
02:15now. And there will be two characters I talk about in this section being Sid with his mother
02:20and the man. But Sid and his mother will be first. Sid is the obvious troublemaker of the class,
02:27hoarding the honeysuckle to himself and even taking it from other students. He then came up with the idea
02:33to scare the other kids into not coming down, so he could have it all to himself, which is when
02:40the
02:40lie of the man in the woods came about. With Sid giving him characteristics that he at least knows
02:46will scare the other children. With him having no problem going down to pluck as many as he wants.
02:53He then continues to lie to his mother, escalating the situation even more.
02:58And this is where my problems with Sid ends, because at the end of the day, he is a young
03:04kid who never
03:05deserved what happened to him by the end of the film. Now his mother is the one I have a
03:11major
03:11problem with. This may be a bit of a stretch, but she seems to be a single mother since we
03:17don't see
03:18any signs of a father in the family, and kids that grow up in a single parent household are more
03:25prone
03:25to have behavioral problems. And we see that she seems to be neglectful as well, watching something
03:32on the computer while she puts a pre-made meal in Sid's lunchbox, not paying any attention to him.
03:39Then when she hears about the man in the woods, rumor, she does what any responsible parent would
03:45do in calling the school and having a meeting with her son's teacher. And from the details in the
03:51animation, you can see she was confrontational from the start, with the teacher trying to calmly
03:57explain that he looked down there in the immediate area and saw no signs of anyone, with her then
04:03seemingly telling him to search better or, like he said later on, to search the whole forest.
04:10With him then getting fed up with it and telling her straight out that it was her son who started
04:15the rumor, with her lashing out at him, and then getting many other parents involved. I can imagine
04:22she was also the one that messaged the other parents, that then mass messaged the teacher.
04:27She then goes to the principal and you can see how she is acting differently with him,
04:32being less aggressive and acting sympathetic. We then see her sitting outside of the office when
04:38the teacher gets fired, and you can see on her face that she enjoyed having power over him.
04:43And I can see her being the one leading the movement of denouncing him, since we see when
04:49he is trying to get a new job as a teacher, they have posters with his face on it crossed
04:55out,
04:56saying, think of our children. She completely destroyed his life, and she didn't know, but
05:02her actions put into motion the events that would take her child away from her. Now what she could
05:09have done to stop all of this was to not get angry at the teacher and have a conversation with
05:16her son
05:17about if he lied, and he probably would have told her. She could have also brought the parents together
05:24to search the woods with all of them, and not just push it off on a singular teacher, giving the
05:31parents
05:31peace of mind and having the teacher participate to get back into the good graces of the public.
05:38There are probably more ways to better conclude this conflict, but that's all I can think of
05:44right now. If you guys have any better ways, please say so in the comments.
05:49Then we come to the main character himself, The Man, who is voiced by Michael Ho, who did a great
05:57job
05:57with it. He seemed to be a good teacher keeping an eye on all the kids when they were plucking
06:02honeysuckle, noting the way Sid was acting, and you can see he felt sad in seeing a child act that
06:09way.
06:10Then, when Sid made up the story, the kids with their imagination started to see him everywhere,
06:17so he tried to show them that there was no one down there, but nothing worked. And this is the
06:24moment
06:24his anger at Sid began, once he saw him going down by himself, obviously knowing the story wasn't true,
06:32but continuing to spread it. Once the parents started to message him, he planned on nipping
06:37this in the bud by talking to Sid's mom, but it backfired on him because she got angry at him
06:43for
06:43saying her child was lying, and brought multiple other parents into it, demanding him to do an insane
06:49amount of work in searching the whole forest. And you can tell the man does care about the children
06:55through his actions and his desk having art that his students made on it, even with him saying that
07:02he would have felt terrible if a kid got hurt due to his negligence, but he knows they are safe
07:08because
07:09it's all a fake story. And with all of this mounting pressure from the parents, the school is basically
07:15forced to fire him. So he is angry, but he will just try to go to another school in the
07:21area, except
07:22that those parents slandered his name so badly that no one will take him now, forcing him to move out
07:29of
07:30wherever he was staying into a hotel. Most likely now falling into a deep depression, he turned to drugs
07:36and alcohol, which is not a good combo, further twisting his mind saying that if the school had a spine,
07:43they wouldn't have fired him. Blaming all of that that has happened on Sid. And that's when we come
07:50back to the beginning of him getting into his car. He is now fully in his delusions, drinking even
07:57further as he is on his way as we see beer bottles in the other seat. As the video goes
08:03on, we hear and
08:05see his mounting anger until he is just in a sea of red. With him then getting calm because he
08:11is about to
08:12make Sid's lie into a reality. So first thing, this man was screwed from the start. There was almost
08:21nothing he could do to stop himself from getting fired. If he actually checks the whole forest,
08:27who says that the parents would even believe him? Then with him getting rejected from all of his jobs
08:33that would involve teaching, the best thing he could have done is to suck it up and start over,
08:39sadly. And even then it would have been difficult because that slander campaign would follow him to
08:46other modes of employment that might steer them off of hiring him. I honestly felt extremely bad for
08:53him having to numb himself through illegal drugs and anything else he did, and whoever gave him the
08:58drugs was probably the one who gave him the gun as well. But most of my sympathy went out of
09:05the window
09:05once he decided to kill Sid. Yeah, he started your downfall, but it was his mother that was the main
09:13catalyst for what happened. And I'm not saying that he should go after her or anything either.
09:20All of this was just a series of unfortunate events that no one involved could have imagined it would
09:26escalate to the point that it did. There is a lot of blame to go around, but it mainly falls
09:31on the man
09:32who was an adult and didn't have to go to the point of ending a child to make himself feel
09:38better,
09:38or to make himself feel like he got justice for himself. It became a sad end for everyone involved.
09:46Before I close things out, I want to talk about the creator, Jacob Stryline. Because I have reviewed
09:53his work before, which was Swelter, and since then he has been doing decently well in the industry.
09:59Working on a kids series, Storybots, a Disney series, Amphibia, and on the newest version of the
10:07Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Along with all of that, he also has a YouTube channel where he uploads
10:13some of his other works, which I have to say are pretty good, so make sure to go check him
10:19out,
10:19and I will link his channel in the description. But overall, this was a very enjoyable film,
10:25and I am a bit surprised I was able to talk about it for this long. I of course would
10:31like to know
10:32what you guys thought about it in the comments down below, and if you haven't, please like the video
10:37if you enjoyed, and subscribe if you want to stick around. You can also check out my other short film
10:43reviews, or you can check out my other content as well. With all that done, I guess I will see
10:48you
10:48guys later. Bye guys!
10:51Sous-titrage ST' 501
