Vivvy And Friends Redux

20260515

Written for Bradley Ramsey’s “Halls Of Pandemonium”, Day 15.

“Alright. Let’s see what all the fuss is about.” Archie slotted the DVD, plain with only “Vivvy & Friends Redux” scrawled on it to mark it out as the coveted indy flick. He’d been lucky to find a film event organiser who still had a copy. Luckier still that they’d been willing to just hand such an inexplicably hot item over.
Then again, they’d reported the usual issues with people trying to break into the office after hours, seemingly looking for the disc. And given other organisers had been attacked, maybe it wasn’t surprising they wanted the ditch the cause. Especially since “well, a police detective wanted it” was a good excuse if someone kicked off.
Archie leant back in the sofa, notebook and pencil at the ready, eyes narrowed and fixed on the TV.
What on earth was so interesting about this little stop-motion movie that anybody with a copy of it suffered incessant break-ins? His best guess was that there was something incriminating hidden in the movie, and someone was trying a cover-up. Especially since this “Vivian Wells” who allegedly submitted the work couldn’t be found by any means.
Fake phone number. Proxy email. They’d covered their trail well.
Who were they, and what were they trying to hide? Or expose.
Even the theme they’d chosen, an unofficial remake of a niche stop-motion children’s show which aired briefly a decade ago, seemed intended to obfuscate. You could barely find any information online. Mostly just the buzz around this film being announced, where a bunch of people reminisced about fond distant childhood memories. No matter how he tried, he couldn’t find the show itself archived anywhere. No telling it would be useful even if he could.
Alright, keep a close eye for gang signs or similar. The theme tune was catchy enough. The animation was… well, stop-motion was hard to do right, and perhaps they’d been imitating the old show, but the movements had that herky-jerky element which gave everything a surreal, almost dreamlike feel.
Maybe it was intended to evoke a child playing with their toys, since (like a million other kids’ shows) the premise seemed to be “Vivvy”, an indeterminately human puppet, playing with puppets based on old popular toys. What was this, retro merchandising slop? Or maybe that was a decision made for this “remake” to really cache in on the nostalgia angle.
More importantly, the backgrounds were sparse. Most of the film was conducted in front of a blank green backdrop, with occasional painted cardboard props. Nowhere to hide messages.
Archie paused frequently to zoom in and inspect the characters, the props, and especially the one detailed background, where the crew went to visit “granny” in her stereotypical witch’s hut. But he didn’t find anything meaningful amongst the jars full of colourful liquids.
That did give a sense of scale, in that they seemed to be real jars, meaning the various puppets were about the size of small children. Again, made sense, but didn’t shine any light on the mystery.
Why would anyone be so worried about people watching this that they’d stage break-ins at every single film festival which had received a copy? If there was a hidden message, it was so subtle Archie doubted the small audience which would have watched this thing before the drama started would catch whatever had been encoded.
He sighed. Closed his notebook. Scowled at the closing credits, which he’d rewatched eight times looking for a single hint.
“I’m chasing my tail over a damn publicity stunt, aren’t I?”
The one consolation - and it wasn’t much of one - was that the idiots responsible had broken the law several times, so couldn’t reveal themselves (and so benefit from the publicity) without getting into hot water.
“Wander if we can get them for wasting police time, on top of breaking and entering?”
Probably not. If anything, they’d probably consider that a win.
Fine.
He’d return the disc to storage, write up a proper report, and-
tap tap tap
Archie froze.
No way.
No way the punks would be so brass as to try and break into a police officer’s house!
But that was how the break-ins apparently always started. Someone tapping the main show riff on the window. Then-
His door handle rattled. Someone was trying his front door! He grabbed his phone and brought up the camera feed.
Nothing. Damn, they were at least slick enough to stay low, out of sight-
tap tap tap
Back at the window. Archie whipped around and with practised ease turned on the phone flashlight with one hand while yanking the curtain aside. This was a risk, if they were armed it could turn-
The gaggle of puppets froze as the light hit them. Suddenly looking as cloth-like as they had in the film. Not at all made of stitched-together skin. Friendly, and harmless, with no resemblance to horrific amateur taxidermy.
Right in the middle, pressed against the glass, was ‘Vivvy’. Had those bloodshot eyes been visible in the film? No, surely not. Archie felt certain he would’ve noticed a detail like that. Especially on a child character.
He frantically stilled his shaking hand. Couldn’t let the light drift.
Now what?
Call the station and try not to sound like he was losing his mind. It was the only option he could think of. And make sure not to tilt the phone while-
Vivvy whispered, in a voice very like the film, only tinged with a tired kind of crabbiness, “It’s not a game if you never turn around. And if it’s not a game, we’re not trying to have fun. And if we’re not having fun…”
Every puppet joined in, a dissonantly chipper chorus. “We’ll just take what we need!”
Behind Archie, the theme song blared out of the TV again. Without thinking he jerked around, grabbing for something to defend himself with.
The intro was playing, but without any dolls. A songless, empty stage.
Glass crashed behind him.
“Weeee’re it!”

Prompt was “Write a story or poem about a detective who is investigating a string of crimes related to an independent film. Your entry must begin with them watching the film themselves after acquiring a copy.”