31 Shinbi's Apartment Ghosts!
DAY TWENTY TWO: MACHINE GHOST
Written by Jonathan Wojcik
SEASON 03, EPISODE 12: in the series second major medical haunting, a Hospital unveils a new type of robotic surgery assistant to the public, only for the whole clinic to experience a wave of technological glitches and breakdowns repeatedly preventing the use of their latest equipment to aid in delicate procedures.
The pattern worsens as the new robots begin to lash out violently at medical personnel, and soon, one of the machines actually grows in size and changes shape, becoming a huge, fearsome mechanical monster pieced together by the angry spirit from scraps of medical equipment. Strong enough to smash its way through walls, it even reduces a significant portion of the surgical wing to burning rubble, and it's lucky that there are apparently
no casualties that we know of...or IS that just luck?
ORIGIN REVEAL:
Mere days before the haunting, a critically injured man required a long, difficult emergency procedure. The clinic had a new, experimental system still in testing,
most of its known bugs ironed out, but as long as nothing went wrong, they could save this patient's life in a fraction of the time it would have normally taken; time they could free up to treat more patients, maybe even save more lives in the long run.
The man wasn't conscious to give his consent to this experiment, but the staff wagered it was a risk worth taking and one that they could get away with for two simple reasons:
This patient was a vagrant.
Already elderly, living on the street and with no known family...who would ever know or care at all if their gamble took his life?
After an intense battle with the rampaging machine, the spirit's story is revealed to everyone present, and the same surgeon throws himself at the spirit's mercy rather than ask for forgiveness. Not even demanding revenge or justice of any kind, the man only asks that what happened to him must never be allowed to happen to anyone else, and he'll be content to move on.
Hari then obtains MACHINE GHOST, whose slow but durable metal body makes it quite possibly her heaviest tank.
FINAL REVIEW:
While not the first ghost in the series to haunt a machine, this is the first to have a full blown sci-fi robot body. Its crudely bolted-together appearance, organic upper teeth and gums and asymmetrical appendages give it a wonderfully Frankensteinian feel, its single red eye hearkens back to
Hal 9000 and I love how the lower jaw just has metal needles for teeth. It's also actually
named "Red Eye" in the Korean version, which is a LOT cooler than the straightforward "Machine Ghost!" Its haunting and backstory are both very quick and simple to describe, but the realistic ugliness of that backstory still hits very hard. As usual, a ghost that's more "cool" than "creepy" only really loses any points in the horror category.
AESTHETIC:
ABILITIES:
STORY:
HORROR:
BONUS FUSION FORM REVIEW:
ROBOTIC SLENDERMAN
...Huh? Uh, alright then. The fusion of Slenderman with "Red Eye" sounds like it would look pretty awesome. You would expect a tall, lanky robot that combines the single eye with Slenderman's camera lens, or something. Instead, it's simply Slenderman sticking out of the top of Red-Eye like he's driving a little mecha suit around, and that's
funny, but it's kind of underwhelming. An interesting extra note that we can give this review, but we already know this series can do better!
NAVIGATION:
