Z 世代在电影院的革命

我是凯文·罗斯。

I'm Kevin Roose.

我是凯西·牛顿。

I'm Casey Newton.

我们是《硬核转发》的主持人，这是《纽约时报》出品的一档节目，

And we're the hosts of Hard Fork, a show from The New York Times about

讲述科技与未来。

technology and the future.

讲那些已经到来的未来，凯文。

About the future that's already here, Kevin.

每周节目中，我们会带你了解科技前沿的新闻、采访关键人物，分享我们做的各种古怪实验，总之玩得特别开心。

Every week on the show, we bring you news from the front lines of tech, interviews with key newsmakers, wacky experiments that we get up to, and we just generally have a lot of fun.

是的。

Yeah.

无论你是对人工智能的发展感兴趣，还是想了解抖音上都在发生什么，我们都能满足你。

So whether you're curious about developments in AI or just what's happening on TikTok, we are here for you.

这就是《Hard Fork》了。

So that's hard fork.

你可以在任何听播客的地方找到我们。

You can find it wherever you get your podcasts.

明白了。

Okay.

娜塔莉，现在几点了？

Natalie, what time is it?

现在是早上八点三十六分，我得说清楚。

It's 08:36, I wanna say, in the morning, to be clear.

接下来我们要聊的是痴迷，这可能会让人有点害怕。

We're going to see obsession, which is gonna be scary.

你之前报道过贩毒集团这类话题？

So you're somebody who's reported on, like, cartels?

对。

Yes.

是的

Yeah.

你现在在哪方面

Where are

感到紧张呢？

you at on nervousness?

我特别害怕。

I'm I'm terrified.

这不一样。

This is different.

来自《纽约时报》，我是娜塔莉·基乔夫。

From The New York Times, I'm Natalie Kichoef.

这是《每日新闻》。

This is The Daily.

多年来，好莱坞一直在努力解决一个根本性的问题：如何让年轻人走进电影院。

For years, Hollywood's been trying to solve an existential problem, how to get young people to go to the movies.

而今年夏天，这件事以一种难以想象的规模发生了。

And then this summer, it happened at an unthinkable scale.

两部低成本恐怖片，由二十位导演联手打造，竟然让Z世代蜂拥走进影院，我不得不亲自去看场电影，弄清楚到底发生了什么。

Thanks to two low budget horror films made by 20 directors, which drove Gen Z to the theaters in such high numbers that I had to go to the movies to find out what was behind it.

我待会儿要吃个够。

I'm gonna get so much food.

我待会儿要在影院里把所有吃的都吃光，缓解压力。

I'm gonna stress eat everything in this theater.

今天，我的同事凯尔·布坎南会告诉你，年轻观众在这些电影里看到了什么，以及它们是如何点燃了整个行业的。

Today, my colleague Kyle Buchanan explains what younger audiences saw in these films and how they've energized an entire industry.

今天是六月十六日，星期二。

It's Tuesday, June 16.

我真的不知道。

I don't know.

我根本想不通自己怎么会答应做这件事。

I literally don't know why I agreed to do this.

我们本该让迈克尔来做的。

We should have gotten Michael to do this.

你好。

Hello.

凯尔，我特别期待这次对话， partly 是因为看完这两部电影后，我真需要聊聊了。

Kyle, I'm really excited to have this conversation in part because I need therapy after watching both of these movies.

我们在这儿，是因为现在票房上正发生点不可思议的事。

We are here because something crazy is happening at the box office right now.

这可是你的地盘。

And this is your world.

这可是你负责的领域。

This is your beat.

你跟我说说，到底怎么回事？

Tell me what is going on.

确实有大事在发生，而且还在继续。

Something crazy is happening and it's still happening.

有两部电影，《Obsession》和《Backrooms》，票房表现爆棚，简直让整个行业都震惊了。

We have two movies, Obsession and Backrooms, that are such runaway successes that they basically shocked the industry.

这两部片子成本几乎可以忽略不计，都是些年轻人拍的，他们起步于YouTube，完全不在好莱坞的体系里。

They were made for almost no money by young people who got their start on YouTube way way way outside the Hollywood studio system.

可现在呢，他们居然在好莱坞的地盘上，把好莱坞给打败了。

And now here they are beating Hollywood at their own game.

你说的‘爆红’，具体是指什么？

And when we say runaway hits, what do you mean by that?

我的意思是，《Obsession》这部电影，每周的票房都打破常规，这种走势以前从来没人见过。

What I mean by that is you have the film Obsession, which is defying gravity at the box office from week to week in ways that have never been done before.

还有《Backrooms》，才十天时间，就成了A24公司有史以来票房最高的电影。

And then you also have Backrooms, which became the highest grossing movie ever released by the studio A24 in the space of just ten days.

A24可是出过《瞬息全宇宙》和《Marty Supreme》这样的片子的公司，结果《Backrooms》轻松就把它们甩在身后。

This is the studio that released films like Everything Everywhere All At Once and Marty Supreme, and Backrooms lapped them like it was nothing.

但不只是钱赚得多，更关键的是，去看这些电影的人是谁。

But it's not just that these films are making money, it's also who's going to see them.

这些电影在Z世代里可是大爆了。

These are huge, huge hits with Gen Z.

过去几年，我跟好莱坞的高管、制片人、导演这些人聊过很多，最常听到的担忧就是：怎么才能让年轻人对电影感兴趣？

And talking to people in Hollywood, executives, producers, directors, all sorts of people over the last several years, the number one anxiety I keep hearing is how do we get young people to care about the movies?

没错。

Right.

这些年，说电影院已经没落、年轻人根本不进影院，这话都快成老生常谈了。

And for years now, it's become almost a cliche, I think, to hear that movie going is dead, that young people just don't go to the theaters.

这两部片子恰恰打破了这种说法。

This seems to disprove that.

确实如此。

It absolutely does.

而且，这些片子的票房有望轻松突破好几亿美元。

And, you know, these films are on track to make hundreds of millions of dollars.

你想想，就在这个时候，七年来的第一部《星球大战》电影《曼达洛人》和格鲁古也正在影院上映。

Like, to put that into perspective, this is all happening at the same time as the first Star Wars film in seven years, The Mandalorian and Grogu is out in theaters.

这两部电影的票房收入几乎一模一样。

And these two movies are making basically the exact same amount of money.

和《星球大战》相比，它们的制作成本简直微不足道。

They cost virtually nothing compared to Star Wars obviously.

我觉得它们证明了一点：年轻观众不想再吃父母那代的旧饭。

And I think what they're proving is young audiences don't want their parents' franchise hand me downs.

他们想要真正参与到这些电影里去。

They want a sense of investment in these movies.

只要你能让它们觉得这是一场盛事，他们一定会去。

And if you can make it feel like an event to them, they absolutely will go.

明白了。

Okay.

既然这是我们的前提，你能帮我分析一下，为什么会这样吗？

So with that as our premise, help me understand how and why this is happening.

年轻人到底是怎么和这两部电影产生共鸣的？

How young people are connecting with both of these films.

我们都得承认，我们不是Z世代。

And we should both acknowledge, we are not Gen Z.

我是千禧一代。

I'm a millennial.

我只是活在他们的世界里。

I'm just living in their world.

所以我真的得弄明白这一点。

And so I do need to understand this.

我们先从最早上映的那部电影《迷恋》说起吧。

Let's start with the first one to come out, Obsession.

你先说说这部电影讲的是什么。

Just lay out what this movie is about.

这是一部恐怖片，但开头几乎像一部爱情片。

So this is a horror movie, but it kind of almost starts like a date movie.

你有没有真的，比如，跟妮基调过情？

Have you ever actually, like, flirted with Nikki?

讲的是一个二十多岁的年轻小伙子。

It's about a young man in his twenties.

他暗恋自己最好的女性朋友，但一直不确定对方是不是也对他有好感。

He has a crush on his best female friend, and he can't quite tell if that crush is reciprocated.

妮基，等一下。

Nikki, wait.

我本来想问你什么来着？

I was gonna ask you What?

我刚才思路断了。

I I lost my train of thought.

他没有鼓起勇气去直接弄清楚，反而在一家小商品店买了一个玩具，许了个愿，希望他的朋友也能像他痴迷她那样痴迷他。

And instead of simply summoning the courage to find out, he makes a wish on a toy that he finds in a novelty store, and that wish is that his friend will be as obsessed with him as he is with her.

我希望妮基·弗里曼爱我胜过这世界上任何人。

I wish Nikki Freeman loved me more than anyone in the entire world.

可惜的是，他的愿望被放大了一百万倍。

And unfortunately, he gets that wish times a million.

我太爱你了，真的真的真的真的真的爱你。

I love you soak soak soak soak soak so much.

因为她对他着了迷，这种热情让人感到不安。

Because she becomes so obsessed with him that her fervor is unnerving.

我们今天过得很愉快。

We are having a nice day.

是啊，我们是。

We we are.

我们是。

We are.

任何试图阻挠她认为他们之间感情的人，都会面临真正的危险。

And anybody who threatens to get in the way of what she perceives to be their love is in real danger.

我爱你。

I love you.

我爱你。

I love you.

我们待会儿会讲到为什么这些主题能引起共鸣，但我猜这部片子能打动年轻观众的一个重要原因，是它的导演兼编剧本人也才二十多岁。

And we're gonna get to why those themes resonate, but I'd imagine a big part of why this film has connected with young audiences is that the guy who made it, who wrote it, and directed it is himself in his twenties.

没错。

Exactly.

对。

Yeah.

编剧兼导演库里·巴克尔今年才26岁，所以他拍出一部直接说中年轻观众心声的电影也就不足为奇了，而且他正是从YouTube起步的，而那正是这一代人活跃的地方。

Curry Barker, the writer and director, he's just 26, So it makes sense that he's making a film that speaks directly to young audiences, and he got his start on YouTube where that generation lives.

他独立制作了这部《执迷》电影，成本只有75万美元，我提这个数字是为了让你明白它有多成功——就在上个周末，全球票房已经突破了2.65亿美元，是原始预算的300多倍。

He made this film Obsession independently for just $750,000, and I'm telling you that to put its massive success into some perspective because at this point after this last weekend, it just crossed 265,000,000 at the global box office, which is more than 300 times that original budget.

天啊。

Wow.

年轻观众还在不断涌进影院看这部片子。

And young audiences just keep going and going to it.

明白了。

Okay.

我想弄明白为什么会这样。

I wanna understand why that is.

我不剧透电影了，虽然我一般不太看恐怖片，但这部片子真让我又怕又放不下。

Without spoiling the movie, which I don't like horror movies generally, but I found it both terrifying and extremely compelling.

为什么Z世代会这么多人去看？

What has made Gen Z come out in these numbers?

它到底凭什么成了他们眼中的大事？

What makes it an event for them?

这正是好莱坞所有人都在问的大问题。

That is the big question that everybody in Hollywood is asking.

为什么？

Why?

这可不只是因为电影作为恐怖片本身很出色，虽然它确实很出色。

And it isn't just that the movie is effective as a horror film, though it is.

我觉得很大一部分原因在于，它触及了Z世代关心的核心议题——比如 Consent、对亲密关系的恐惧，还有对别人喜不喜欢自己的焦虑。

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that it is grappling with, you know, Gen Z Moors, the things that this younger generation is obsessed with, ideas of consent and fear about relationships, anxiety over whether people like you or not.

它并没有用说教的方式去呈现这些。

It doesn't do that in a didactic way.

这些都藏在表面之下。

That's all just underneath the surface.

所以你可以和朋友一起去看这部电影，或者在社交媒体上讨论，每个人都会有不同的理解。

And it means that you can go see this film with your friends or talk about it with them on social media, and people are going to have different interpretations.

我觉得这部电影把握得特别巧妙，看完一遍、两遍甚至三遍之后，你还是会想细细琢磨。

I think that the film walks a really smart tightrope, and there's things that you want to dig into after you've seen it a first or even a second or third time.

没错。

Right.

它触及了约会、感情和性这些事在深层心理上令人焦虑和害怕的一面。

It plays on this idea that dating and relationships and sex can be scary, you know, anxiety provoking at a very deep level.

谈谈这部电影为什么观影需求这么高，大家非得去影院看不可。

Talk about how this film is being consumed because there is such a high demand to see it in the theater.

我觉得这正是为什么，即使在如今这个谁也说不清成败的好莱坞时代，恐怖片依然表现强劲，尤其受年轻观众欢迎。

Well, I think that's part of the reason why even in this nobody knows anything era of Hollywood movie making, horror still continues to do well, especially with young audiences.

真的没有什么比和观众在一起更特别了，能感受到他们害怕，感受到他们的反应。

There really isn't anything like that feeling of being with an audience, feeling them get scared, and feeling them react.

但对于Z世代来说，观众不只是和你坐在影院里的人，还包括线上一起讨论的人。

However, the audience for Gen Z is not simply who's in the theater with them, it's who's online with them.

跟我和我的朋友基兰一起去看《迷恋》吧。

Come with me and my friend Kieran to watch Obsession.

我

I

我对这部电影一无所知，只知道它吓人，而且好像挺不错的。

know nothing about this movie besides it's scary and that it's apparently good.

因为大家评价不一，所以跟我们一起来看，看完后我们分享一下看法。

Because everyone's giving mixed reviews, so come see it with us and we're gonna give you our opinions at the end.

我们看到很多人在积极回应。

We've seen a lot of people who are reacting.

这是我和我妈妈在看《迷恋》之前的样子。

This is me and my mom before watching Obsession.

我们是

We are

有那种看完《Obsession》之前和之后的梗。

There's the before I saw Obsession, after I saw Obsession meme.

好吧。

Okay.

你觉得怎么样？

What'd you think?

这里有

There

观众里有人。

are people in the audience.

这可不是我喜欢的那种类型。

This isn't think something I love.

哦。

Oh.

但观众里真有人会一边看电影，一边拍下自己的反应。

But there are people in the audience who will film their own reactions while in the audience.

他们会说，天哪。

They'll be like, bro.

喂。

Yo.

喂。

Yo.

这真有点太吓人了，兄弟。

It definitely got too scary, bro.

我实在受不了了。

I can't.

不可能。

No.

这事儿居然真发生了，兄弟。

That did not just happen, bro.

你懂的。

You know?

你演得真棒，凯尔。

You do a good bro, Kyle.

我知道。

I know.

说实话，我对自己这么轻易就陷进去这件事有点害怕。

It honestly kind of scares me how easily I slipped into that.

是的。

Yeah.

但你知道，现在有种新压力，让人觉得必须跟上这种潮流。

But, you know, there's new ways of feeling like you have to be part of that sort of thing.

我觉得这就是《执迷》能持续打破票房规律的原因——没人想被排除在这场讨论之外。

And I think that's why Obsession is continuing to defy box office gravity because nobody wants to feel left out of this conversation.

这部电影特别值得反复观看，因为每次都能发现新的深层内容。

This is a movie that really rewards being seen multiple times because there's additional layers to dig into.

这让我想起一个词，叫‘玉米盘子效应’，你听说过吗？

It kind of reminds me of have you ever heard of the term corn plating?

没听过。

I have not.

你给我讲讲这个说法吧，凯尔。

Introduce me to that term, Kyle.

这个词其实是动画电影《魔法满屋》发明的，挺奇怪的。

So this is a term that was invented by the animated film Encanto, oddly enough.

它指的是当你深陷一部电影的讨论中，大家聊得没完没了，连最微小的细节都不放过，互联网上全在扒。

And it refers to that point where you're so far into the discourse of a movie that people can't stop talking about that basically no detail becomes too small for the Internet to dig into.

之所以叫‘玉米盘子’，是因为有个梗，有人贴出《魔法满屋》里一个配角的画面，说：我都没注意到她手里居然拿着一盘玉米。

And they call it corn plating because there was this meme of somebody posting the image of a secondary character from Encanto and saying, I never realized that she was holding a plate of corn in this scene.

明白了。

Okay.

当你开始纠结到‘一盘玉米’这种细节的时候，你就知道你真的已经陷入得太深了。

That's when you know you're really desperate for more details to dig into when you're getting down to that plate of corn.

你是说这部电影也出现了这种情况？

And you're saying this happened in this case with this movie?

人们是怎么说的？这是个动词吗？

How did people is it a verb?

把这部电影来个‘玉米盘’？

Corn plate this movie?

是的。

Oh, yeah.

现在电影上映都好几周了。

We're definitely now weeks into release.

已经进入‘玉米盘’阶段了。

We're at the corn plating stage.

明白了。

Okay.

Bear杀了他家的猫，就是想博取Nikki的同情，因为他是个隐蔽的自恋者。

Bear killed his cat in hopes to gain sympathy from Nikki because he is a covert narcissist.

让我解释一下。

Let me explain.

有人认为，我们主角的体内可能附着着他已故猫咪的灵魂。

There are people who are suggesting that maybe our lead character is possessed by the spirit of his dead cat.

所以我觉得，有什么东西并不会进入妮基的身体。

So I don't think something jumps into Nikki's body.

我觉得她是分裂成了两个人。

I think she's split into two.

就像这样。

Just like this

有些人正在分析我们女主角那些诡异的、像是被附体般的动作。

There are people that are analyzing the strange possessed movements of our female lead.

作为编剧，我一听到就立刻觉得，不可能，完全不是这么回事。

And immediately as a writer, I was like, no, absolutely not.

从技术上讲，这两者根本不是一回事。

Like, they are technically not the same thing.

它们不属于同一个类型，因为浪漫本身就是一个独立的类型。

They are not the same genre because romance as a genre.

类型。

Genre

他们真的在深入分析这部电影的主题和象征元素。

They're really going deep on the themes and motifs of the movie.

就像是创意写作课上了三个小时，学生们都开始亢奋起来了。

Like, it's hour three of a creative writing class and the students are getting punchy.

虽然有些说法听起来有点牵强，但我觉得这恰恰反映了人们在社交媒体上热衷讨论的模式。

And even though some of these might strike you as reaches, I think they're emblematic discussion that people love to have on social media.

他们就是想挖透一部电影的背景设定。

They want to dig into the lore of a movie.

只要能在YouTube视频里讲出一个足够有说服力的线索，他们自己也能蹭上这部电影的热度。

And if they can put forth a compelling enough through line in a YouTube video, they themselves might be able to draft off the success of the film.

所以你的意思是，这部电影的主题和观众的解读方式，引发了大量讨论，直接催生了一个典型的Z世代文化现象，进而带动了票房。

So basically, what you're saying is that the themes in this movie and the way that it was consumed created so much discourse around the film itself that it immediately generated this very particular Gen Z cultural moment and therefore drove ticket sales.

确实如此。

It did.

这是一次前所未有的、属于Z世代的票房文化现象。

And this is a Gen Z cultural moment at the box office, the likes of which we've never seen before.

你可能会觉得这种盛况不会再有了，毕竟太独特了。

And you could be forgiven for thinking we might not see it again because it's so unique.

可两周后，奇迹又发生了。

And yet, two weeks later, lightning struck again.

又一部Z世代电影打破了票房纪录。

Another Gen Z movie defied box office records.

我们马上回来。

We'll be right back.

我是丹·巴里，一名在《纽约时报》工作多年的记者。

I'm Dan Barry, and I'm a longtime reporter with The New York Times.

我在这里已经三十年了，见证了太多变化。

I've been here for thirty years, and I've seen a lot of things change.

我来的时候，连网站都还没有呢。

I was here before there was a website.

但有一件事从来都没变过，那就是《纽约时报》的使命——无论事实指向哪里，都要追到底。

But one thing hasn't changed at all, and that's the mission of The New York Times, to follow the facts wherever they lead.

就算这意味着要发布政府、领导人或名人不想公开的内容，那也不是我们该操心的事。

And if that means publishing something a government or a leader or a celebrity doesn't want aired, that's not our concern.

我从未被要求歪曲事实去迁就任何人。

I've never been told to go against the facts to accommodate anyone.

如果真有人这么要求，我恐怕早就辞职走人了。

And if I had, I would have, quite frankly, left the building.

当年我报道9·11事件的后续时是这样，现在我报道当今美国，依然是这样。

This is the way it was when I was covering the aftermath of nine eleven, and this is the way it is now as I cover The United States of today.

如果你相信事实驱动的报道很重要，那就通过订阅《纽约时报》来支持它。

If you believe in the importance of fact driven reporting, you can support it by becoming a New York Times subscriber.

如果你已经订阅了，那这位老记者想对你说声谢谢。

And if you already subscribe, this veteran reporter thanks you.

好的。

Okay.

凯尔，我们来聊聊第二个Z世代爆款——《回廊》。

Kyle, let's talk about the second Gen Z hit, Backrooms.

我也看了，确实吓了我一跳。

I also saw it, and it also scared me a lot.

关于这部电影，我们得知道些什么？

What do we need to know about it?

《 obsession》可能是在票房上慢慢爬升，但《回廊》简直是一飞冲天。

Obsession might have crept up on the box office, but Backrooms took off like a rocket.

首周末就赚了八千万美元。

It made $80,000,000 its first weekend.

而且，它在年轻人中特别火。

And again, it's huge with young people.

整个首周末的观众，几乎全是35岁以下的。

Like, virtually the entire opening weekend audience was under 35.

我找到个地方。

I found something.

这又是一部恐怖片，讲的是有人被困在一个似梦非梦的过渡空间里。

It's another horror movie and it's about people who get trapped in this sort of liminal space universe.

我找到个地方。

I found a place.

那些走廊无穷无尽，完全遵循一种说不清的梦境逻辑。

These hallways that go on forever and are governed by some sort of unknowable dream logic.

自从发现那个地方，我每晚都去，可到现在连皮毛都没摸到。

I've been there every night since I found the place, and I still barely scratched the surface.

好。

Alright.

别着急，慢慢来。

Just take it slow.

你会看到一些怪东西，有时是模糊的人影，但更多时候就是那种发黄发霉的墙纸，特别瘆人。

You'll see strange things, sometimes strange figures, but also just kind of like sickly yellow wallpaper vibes.

那种感觉，就像去糟糕工作里的休息室，怎么走都到不了。

It has this feeling of walking to the break room in a terrible job and never ever getting there.

拉我一把。

Pull up.

拉我一把。

Pull me up.

拉我一把。

Pull me up.

我准备好了，想看看。

I'm ready to see.

这电影能引起年轻人共鸣，其实挺合理的，因为导演就是年轻人。

And it makes sense that it's connecting with young people because it was made by one.

导演才二十岁。

It was made by a 20 year old director.

二十岁，真是让人想不到。

20 years old is just bananas.

太年轻了。

So young.

没错。

Yes.

到目前为止，他是最年轻的票房冠军导演。

The youngest director by far to ever top the box office.

最不可思议的是，他被A24签下拍这部电影的时候，才十七岁。

And the craziest part is he was actually only 17 when he was signed by A24 to make this movie.

真的很难相信。

It's just hard to actually believe.

你和他相处了挺长时间吧，凯尔。

You spent a lot of time with him, Kyle.

跟我们讲讲他的故事吧。

Just tell us his story.

我本来很想坐下来好好说，但这段背景音乐，我觉得会干扰录音。

Much as I'd actually like to sit down, this wee menu music, I think, going to interfere with the recording.

那我们换个地方坐，或者走走吧。

So Maybe we find a different perch or walk a little bit.

我喜欢散步。

I like walking.

好。

Okay.

太好了。

Great.

对。

Yeah.

他叫凯恩·帕森斯。在见到他之前，我也一直在想，这人到底是谁？

His name is Kane Parsons and of course before I met him, I wondered who could this guy possibly be?

你可能会想象，是个特别热衷电影的年轻人，满脑子都是想进 Criterion 的片单，跟你聊他的Top 4片单。

You know, you you might imagine some young cinephile who's eager to get into the criterion closet and give you his letterbox top four.

但实际认识之后，我发现他跟那种印象完全不一样。

And what I found is someone quite different from that.

我真的很想有朝一日能做游戏相关的工作。

I would love to work in games like at some point.

我不确定具体什么时候，可能现在还不是时候。

I don't know when, like it's probably not right.

这个人说实话，就像他自己说的，小时候没怎么看电影。

This is somebody who honestly, as as he'll tell you, didn't watch a lot of films growing up.

他的创作灵感更多来自《传送门》和《半条命》这样的电子游戏。

His approach is much more motivated by video games like Portal and Half Life.

关键是，帕森斯的履历跟典型的电影人完全不一样。

The point is Parsons does not have the resume of your typical filmmaker.

没错。

No.

确实完全不是。

He very much doesn't.

但我发现他特别低调，很有想法，给人感觉非常踏实。

But I found him to be incredibly unpretentious, very thoughtful, very solid feeling.

我完全能理解，为什么有人愿意追随这个年轻人去打拼。

And I could absolutely see why people would be willing to follow this young man into battle.

在很多方面，他都是自学成才的。

In a lot of ways, he's self taught.

但到了2020年，疫情来了，上网课的时候，我就能把屏幕分一半，随便捣鼓一下。

But then by 2020 hit, you know, during the pandemic, during my online classes, was able to sort of like have my screen split and be just playing around with

你知道的，他是在YouTube上冒出来的。

You know, he came up on YouTube.

他出生的时候，YouTube才刚成立四个月。

He was born four months after YouTube was invented.

我不是故意吓你啊。

I don't mean to scare you by saying that.

我听说这事的时候自己都吓了一跳。

It scared me when I learned it.

但他确实是自己把这一套全学会了。

But, you know, he taught himself how to do all of this.

他的电影学院其实就是YouTube上的教程。

His film school was essentially YouTube tutorials.

他从同学那里得到的反馈，更像是YouTube和Discord上的评论。你也许会质疑这能不能算真正的电影教育，但免费的学费可真没得比。

His feedback from fellow students was more like comments on YouTube and comments on Discord and you can quibble with whether that's an acceptable substitute for an actual film school, but can't beat the free tuition.

于是我开始琢磨怎么在After Effects里做三维效果，那时候Blender还没引起我的注意。

And so I, you know, started trying to figure out how to do three d in After Effects and Blender wasn't quite on my radar at

那时候。

the time.

他自学了如何使用Blender，这是一款免费的视觉特效软件。

So he taught himself how to use Blender which is a free visual effects software.

他制作了最初的短片《Backrooms》实拍风格视频，现在观看量已经达到了八千万次左右。

And he made his original short Backrooms found footage which ended up getting, I think it's now at 80,000,000 views.

听起来这家伙真是个完全靠自己驱动的人。

It sounds like this guy is just a total self starter.

我的意思是，他真的是在YouTube上自己学出来的。

I mean, he literally teaches himself on YouTube.

所以这才是他做的东西能爆火的原因吗？

Is that why the thing he makes goes so incredibly viral?

有一部分是这个原因。

That's part of it.

但他这个网剧其实是基于一个已经火起来的东西做的。

But also, he was basing this web series on something that had already gone viral.

这叫‘恐怖传说’。

It's called a creepypasta.

其实就是一种吓人的网络迷因，网友发现了之后会不断添砖加瓦，有点像集体创作故事，或者说是网上版的围着篝火讲鬼故事。

Basically, a scary meme that the Internet finds and builds upon sort of like a collective creative writing project or maybe like the online version of telling spooky stories around a campfire.

最初那张Backrooms的图是有人发在4chan上的，对。

There's an original Backrooms image that got posted on '4 chan Uh-huh.

一张破败的百货商场照片。

Of this decrepit department store.

里面是那种阴森森的黄色荧光灯。

It's got creepy yellow fluorescent lighting.

那种感觉，就像一个被遗弃的商场，破败又荒凉。

It feels run down in that kind of abandoned mall kind of way.

对。

Mhmm.

人们会根据这张图写一些短篇故事，想象走廊尽头是不是藏着更可怕的东西。

And people would write sort of short stories that were based on this image imagining what might be just down the hallway if there's something even more terrifying.

所以凯恩·帕森斯是受到已有设定的启发，但创作出了自己的分支版本。

So what Kane Parsons did is he was inspired by the lore that had already been created, but he made his own offshoot.

喂？

Hello?

有人在吗？

Is someone there?

这段视频拍的是一个人在后室里迷路的过程，但真正让人震惊的，不只是它制作得有多精良。

Found footage of a guy being lost in the Backrooms, but what's really startling when you watch this is not just how, you know, smartly made it is.

而是这一切居然都是一个人完成的，所有特效、场景，全是他用一款免费软件做的。

It's the fact that it was made by one person that he did all of these special effects, that he made this location in this free software.

这些特效是一个青少年做的，水准却超过了如今大银幕上的绝大多数作品。

These are special effects made by a teenager that outclass almost everything that we see on big screens these days.

所以帕森斯其实是在改编某种IP。

So Parsons is adapting IP in a sense.

我不是说传统意义上的改编，但这个‘后室’的故事，已经是Z世代在不断延伸和参与的内容了。

I mean, maybe not in the traditional sense, but this Backrooms story is something that Gen Z is already iterating on and engaging with.

没错。

Yeah.

在拍这部电影之前，他就一直在不断拓展这个设定。

And he continued to iterate on it long before he made this film.

他为YouTube制作了几十集‘后室’系列，有固定角色，还出现了一个诡异的公司。

He made a few dozen installments of his Backrooms series for YouTube that has recurring characters, an eerie corporation that gets involved.

真正让我惊讶的是，他对此完全乐在其中。

And what really impressed me and surprised me to be honest is that he was perfectly happy there.

你知道吗，他是在YouTube上成长起来的，那里是他表达自己的主要平台，也是他最常看的内容来源。

You know, this is somebody who came up on YouTube as his primary means of expression, but also the primary thing he would watch.

拍电影这个想法，说实话，他并不反对，但也不是非做不可的目标。

The idea of making a movie, you know, though he wasn't opposed to it, wasn't the be all end all goal.

你懂的。

You know?

他跟我说过，在YouTube上坚持做内容，他已经获得了足够多的创作满足感和经济回报。

As he told me, he got a perfectly adequate level of creative satisfaction and financial compensation from staying on YouTube.

那他为什么最终还是决定把这部作品拍成电影呢？

So why did he decide to make this a feature film then?

一开始，他根本不想拍。

Well, at first he didn't want to.

即使在发布第一个视频后几周内就收到了一堆超棒的邀约，他还是非常怀疑，因为他以前见过太多这样的情况了。

He was extremely skeptical even when he was getting all of these amazing offers within weeks of posting his first video because he'd seen it before.

是想推动这件事。

Came to drive this.

这对我来说是件特别重要的事，我特别在意，生怕它跑偏了。

This is something that I cared about, like, supremely with of, like, you know, making sure that it doesn't get away from,

你知道，它的起源和

you know, its origins and

别让它变成像《美国恐怖故事》那样，对吧。

it doesn't become like American Horror Stories did Right.

一个《后室》的剧集，然后它就

A Backrooms episode and it's

它就在那儿？

It's there?

是的。

Yeah.

它变成了所有本不该有的样子。

And it's everything that, like, it shouldn't be.

没错。

Right.

所以

So

它从根本上就失败了。

it it it fundamentally fails.

对。

Uh-huh.

他亲眼看到那些脱离现实的好莱坞制片人，把原本在网上爆红的东西搬上大银幕，结果把所有让他的同龄人着迷的元素都丢光了。

He had seen out of touch Hollywood producers take something that got big on the Internet and in the big screen translation lose everything about it that made it appealing to his generation.

必须尊重原有的素材，尊重那些因为喜欢这个内容而聚集在线上的观众，要明白这东西远不止是拍成一个杀手闹鬼屋那么简单，我懂的。

There needs to be a respect to the material that already exists and respect to the people online who are there for the material and the understanding that it's you know, there's an elevated aspect to it beyond just, turning it into a slasher haunted house, like I guess, I know.

一部俗套的电影，你知道的，就是

A flick, which, you know, is

所以他一直坚决抵制了很久。

So he really resisted for a long time.

直到合适的团队凑齐了，包括A24——这可能是最懂年轻人的制片公司。

It took the right arrangement of people including A24, which is probably the most youth focused studio there is.

而且，凯恩自己也有一套完整的想法，想怎么来处理这个项目。

But also, Kane had his own idea of how he wanted to approach this.

他不希望这是一部改编片或翻拍片。

He didn't want this to be an adaptation or a remake.

他认为这不过是把多年来一直存在的系列内容放大成一部更长的作品。

He considers this to be a supersized installment of the series that he already had going on for years.

而他确实做到了这一点。

And that's exactly what he's made.

因为这部电影的成功，我猜未来我们还会看到更多这个系列的内容。

And because of the success of it, I presume that we're gonna see a lot more from this series going forward.

你觉得这部电影如此吸引人的原因，是不是因为一群年轻人终于能在大银幕上看到他们长期在YouTube上看的东西？

And do you think that what has been so compelling about this movie is that a bunch of young people basically are excited to see something that they watched on YouTube for a really long time on the big screen?

就只是这个原因吗？

Is it just that?

我觉得这是其中很重要的一个因素。

I think that's a large part of it.

我觉得他用的是一种年轻人熟悉的视觉语言，尤其是那些玩第一人称射击游戏的人。

I think he speaks in a visual language that a lot of young people recognize from video games, especially first person shooters.

那种超长的镜头，让人一直紧张，担心拐角处随时会冒出什么。

These really prolonged takes that anxiety over what might be just around the corner of a very long hallway.

不过，如果你允许我多说几句，其实还有别的解读方式。

But also there's a lot of other ways that you can parse this if if you allow me to corn plate a little bit.

对。

Mhmm.

请说。

Please.

我觉得，人们心里隐隐有种恐惧，怕人工智能模拟人类的方式，根本不是真正的人类思维该有的样子。

I think that there is there's a creeping fear of, you know, AI simulating us in ways that that don't actually resemble what the human mind produces.

帕森斯在这次宣传期间，对人工智能的看法一直很明确。

Parsons been not shy about his perspective on AI during this press tour.

他说，如果能打个响指就让生成式人工智能消失，他一定会这么做。

He said that if he could stop generative AI with a snap of his fingers, he would do so.

你在《后室》里也能感受到，那个小宇宙在做些什么，但就是哪儿都不对劲。

And I you see that in the Backrooms where whatever this, you know, little pocket universe is doing, it just doesn't feel quite right.