The Goblin Man of Norway
One of the only things I liked about living in Ottawa was the strong film community. Every other week there seemed to be a film festival or independent screenings of some sort. Strangely, one of my favourite venues was the Ottawa Public Library. It was in that small basement theatre that I experienced some of my most rewarding cinematic experiences.
One of those occurances was a screening of The Goblin Man of Norway, with director Howard Byrackk in attendance, and shown as part of a tribute to The World Film Society, held in cooperation with The Norwegian Film Committee. I’m usually not one for documentaries, but an early experience with The Legend of Boggy Creek ingrained in me a love for all things cryptozoological and pseudo-cryptozoological.
The Goblin Man of Norway revolves around the discovery of technology dating before recorded history, and the attempt by some scholars to link this artifact to creatures of Myth. As the film progresses and the study of the creature turns from the theoretical to the practical, this initial excitement is tempered by, and eventually replaced in whole with barely suspressed fear and paranoia. As one participant extols, “It reinforces the notion that what has been dismissed as mere story may indeed be a record of the actual.” Taken at face value, this idea of cyclic history could be considered to be a positive step toward understanding our own nature through the uncovering of the distant past. However, upon further reflection such considerations may be seen as a double-edged sword. Some legends may be better off buried and half-remembered.
While I had heard good things about Byrackk’s previous outings, including his critically acclaimed film The Lost Are Now Found, I was unprepared for a documentary with this kind of cold beauty. The Goblin Man of Norway is an eerie example of the form, with its strange combination of Errol Morris-style reenactments, Norse mythology, and imagery that evokes John Carpenter’s The Thing. The creature itself is unnerving, not only in its appearance but in the implications suggested by its very existence.
The Q+A afterwards was one of the most intriguing, yet volatile, I’ve ever been witness to. Director Howard Byrackk was genial and engaging, even when taking exception to accusations that he was exploiting this scientific find in an attempt to create unnecessary controversy and further his own notoriety. Oddly, one of the people protesting Byrackk’s methods was Mark Hoyt, one of the geomorphologists who discovered the creature. Hoyt interrupted a question directed at Byrackk and proceeded to accuse the filmmaker of misrepresentation. Hoyt’s objections centred around a belief that Byrackk had distorted the scientific basis of the findings in favour of cheap scaremongering. For some, this intrusion dispelled the feelings of foreboding that the film conveys, but as the confusion died down and the lights came up I was left with a lingering sense of unease. Hic sunt dracones.
I was convinced that, considering it’s origins, I would never get another chance to view it. The only copy I could track down was a VHS release distributed exclusively through reference libraries and assorted education institutions in Norway. Thankfully, it appears that the documentary recently served as a springboard for the development of a video game, and the company creating the game has obtained the rights to use The Goblin Man of Norway in their promotions. You can find the first third of the documentary in question here, listed under Developer Diary (March 27, 2008). While this means that we probably shouldn’t expect a proper DVD release, at least this rare work is finally available in North America.
April 2nd, 2008 at 1:28 pm
I wonder if Howard Byrackk has any relation to Prof. Howard Birack in John Carpenter’s “Prince of Darkness.”
April 3rd, 2008 at 10:15 pm
I think Too Human is gonna be an awesome game. Seeing as though TH fans are gonna be flooding this in the next while I just had to say that :)
April 4th, 2008 at 12:42 am
i want parts 2 and 3 now. right now. please? any bootleggin happenin in norway?
April 4th, 2008 at 2:24 am
April Fools…… Duh
its not real guys its an ad campaign by SK to hype up Too Human
as if they need to. Everyone I know is looking forward to TH I wish they
would hurry up and relese it. Think about it guys if it was real dont you think you would have heard about it on the news or something come on…..
April 4th, 2008 at 3:42 am
sorry if this is a stupid question, but, who wrote this article?
April 4th, 2008 at 10:01 am
Hello, everyone. Thanks for commenting!
I wrote it, Purple Rabbit.
And Jeremiah, if you just click on that link you’ll find part of the documentary.
April 4th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
I loved The Thing and In the Mouth of Madness…Prince of Darkness here I come!!
April 5th, 2008 at 2:40 am
Well Steve Henifin I have to say that this is very interesting, nicely done.
April 7th, 2008 at 12:35 am
Hello, Nitro Guy. I have a stats counter that tells me where people are coming from, including the Too Human forums. The next time you try and draw someone out, you should consider waiting a bit before revealing your master plan. Just saying.
And no, I am not Steve Henifin. I doubt he, or anyone else at Silicon Knights, would have the time or inclination to run a stupid little blog like this.
Thanks for stopping by!
April 8th, 2008 at 3:17 am
Well… I suppose there is something that connects this and TH. Even if no1 admits it. Finding it somewhat wierd that there is so much mystery surrounding this and TH….
The Trouble is not knowing, It is always not knowing that either breaks us, or gives us hope. So this lingering thought in my head, does not bode well with the “not knowing” the answer or truth to any of this. And that in someway leads to being manipulated by the said party/parties. Causing us to think, react out of not knowing… wondering… So it ends how it begins, with the mystery that every1 is so intent on keeping a mystery. It is not knowing now, that will present the truth in so much more light.
That is if Light, would ever be shed on this subject.
If All of this does not make sense, dont worry…..
April 8th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
What date was that screening?
April 10th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
This game is gonna suck real bad.
April 14th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
shuccas!!!!!!
April 15th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
you can get diary 1.2.3 on xboxlive iv just watched them
April 15th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
OK, so I watched the movie, John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness. Great recommendation!!
Retropolitan, you asked if the Prof. Howard Birack from the movie could be related to Director Howard Byrackk. The answer is yes, he could be. I would suggest to you that the Director Byrackk already has an understanding (or state of mind) which Prof. Birack only arrives to by the end of the movie.
In other words the Director Byrackk is already up the learning curve which we witness Prof. Birack struggle to move up during the movie. Eventually the Professor makes it there, but it’s only through the study of the creature does he shift his mindset from the theoretical to the practical. The movie does a great job taking us on the same study (the study runs the length of the movie). So by the end of the movie we are there with him.
After watching the Prince of Darkness, I’m convinced that Director Byrackk is on the right track with his Goblin Man of Norway film. He’s trying to educate the public that what we might think to be myth can be rooted in a reality (which at times could be far more terrible than the myths ever portrayed).
I will be eagerly awaiting more of Byrackk’s films and would gladly welcome any additional movie suggestions/or thoughts you might have.
Once again, GREAT MOVIE!!! Thanks for the recommendation.
May 28th, 2008 at 11:17 am
I have come to the conclusion, based on incomplete evidence, that this is a COMPLETE HOAX!! I challenge whoever is in charge of this documentary to post the full story, not simply the first part…LAME…and until that time I continue to believe this is mumbo-jumbo!
May 30th, 2008 at 5:10 am
It’s seems pretty obvious that this is part of the Too Human marketing campaign. Very well done though.
May 30th, 2008 at 10:16 pm
Link to [b]Part 2:Examination[/b] of the “documentary” starts after a Dev interview of the game “Too Human”.
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/34594.html
Sometimes the enjoyable part is not the destination, but the windy road to get there! -)
Toodles,
Dolnor
June 17th, 2008 at 10:59 am
Wtf is the green goblin? Im seeing the doc’s right now and it looks really fake and screened . Was something really found or should I grab a hammer and smash SK for hyping us even more? Wtf is this whole deal?
June 28th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
I just have a couple of things to ask the guy who wrote this article. When did you view this “documentary”? Why are you just releasing this information if you had seen this so long ago? its a 1999 documentary but there is nothing ever said of it in any news or internet site that i can find, it also mentions that the artifacts are being held in a museum and that the writings are contained in a different museum, where? All information seems Very similar to what you have wrote here and in the norwegian film committee site the Dr. mentioned the exact disruption by Mr. Hoyt. We all deserve an explanation and i’d appreciate a response. Thank you
June 29th, 2008 at 10:43 am
It is people with the attitude of “if it was real don’t you think it would be in the news?” that make things like this so so hard for the general public to grasp. Think about it, if you discovered something that could potentially be the key to enormous power,or even a technological breakthrough, wouldn’t you want to keep it a secret?
July 2nd, 2008 at 11:16 pm
umm, its fake, cause if such technology was found, we would hear nothing of it, especially a video game company. DUH!!, not to mention, popular technology magazine does not exist, which is shown on part 2 to have an artical on the goblin man. And the stupid movie says it was at a museum. WTF, pretty sure that wouldn’t happen. This whole thing is crap and has been a huge waste of my time, and i doubt SK will get me to play too human now, because they had to make up some story.
July 16th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
It’s funny that people actually have to defend the fact that this is just an ad. This is 2008 and we still believe in the boogey man? This is what they wanted — people arguing about it creating hype etc… so it worked. The only thing I don’t apreciate is that they would take it too far and actually lie to people trying to convince them that their skepticism is ill founded. I would apreciate them to at least tell the truth when asked!
July 28th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
This isn’t real?! ;-)
July 30th, 2008 at 8:39 am
I agree with JackMhff7, why do we expect them to tell us about it, why has there not been mass media coverage?…because they would never do that if they found something this big…or small for that matter…and anyways i highly doubt that Silicon Knights would make this all up just to hype the game…that would be wasting money and time as well as creating an angry gaming community that wouldnt necessarily buy Too Human…
Just try to view the info without thinking that it has any connections with the game =)
Best of luck to all
August 8th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
I just want part 3 now… very well done all around.
August 17th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Ive done some checking up…. part 3 is not available on xboxlive, in fact, my copy of part 1 and 2 of the developer diary for Too Human were taken off my hard drive…. not by me…. in the mockumentary the “magazine” states a november 1997 date, and if you hit popularmechanics.com, there is no response to the inquiry.
I was sad to learn this was a fake, due to the unending love i have with mythology and technology alike, and the intrigue of the unknown.
Anyhow, i will be playing the hell out of the xbox game, and anyone lookin to mash on some goblin men with me, send a message to the above name this coming wednesday.
August 20th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
this is an ad campaign not hard to figure out. all the other sites that lead me to this said so. just got the game too human today, can’t wait to play it. silicon knights have made some great characters. I’m just waiting on a Legacy of Kain movie! how sweet would that be
August 21st, 2008 at 4:57 am
i hate to burst everyones bubble, but to a norwegian there are many things that not only points to but 100% determines this is a fake hehe
1 there is no “Norsk film komite” in norway, not registered as a company, not now, not in ‘99 or ‘97 or whenever it was claimed to be made.
2 there are no norwegians in the movie or among the ones that found it, and it was supposedly found in north norway PLUS we have people all year measuring up there so it’d be strange not to have at least one as a finder.
3 Norsk film komite is spelled wrong
4 the person who “owns” the company\site is a marketing guy in Oslo xD
5 G.W.O.B dont do isbergmelting…..because its an acronym for Geeks Without Borders….i’d love to see them try that
i mean, the list goes on, i can refer you to plenty of norwegian sites that debunk this hoax, but try googling goblin man of norway hoax and pic the top hit, its in english so you can understand it ;)
August 23rd, 2008 at 3:14 pm
Hey, if they were goin for the look of 99, they shouldn’t have left their toyota prius parked in the driveway……
August 24th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
haha
AC,
i lol’d
good game though, people expected too much from it, freaking out at the review score. just cause its 7ish/10 doesnt mean its bad, i mean GTA4 got a 10/10 and its still not one of the best games out there.
though TH basically stole completely from mythology (multiple branches…mainly norse viking), the story is amazing, and as a co-film director, presented and visualized in a unique stylistic way. the cutscenes are just gorgeous and wonderfully done (excluding some facial animations)
you still get the deep sense of overall feeling
i.e. the too often confrontations between Baldr and Freya. all you can really say is “oh shit. baldurs pissed”
one thing bothered me though
on many game sites
ive seen too many times that people claim and defend the fact that this game has no story, that its a pure dungeon crawler…
this is firmly one of the deepest most involving stories. accomplished quite well
people whom call themselves gamers yet cant appreciate games, even though they may hate a few, dont deserve to even be recognized as a “true” gamer,if gamer at all.
TH’s Elder Futhark runic Translations bothered me, if they wanted to play it off, they wouldve left most things in runic, so if the player truely wanted to get involved, they’d be forced to look into it…and thats not extreme at all. now if they put Old Norse into runic….well that’d be extreme, but it wouldve been a nice option to have
Authenticity?
(give or take, lol)
sorry for the rant
and opinion
the video is well done but at times gets very slopping (video 3 starts great fails at the end)
specially when they do that CG activation thing just f***s with the not so bright minded.
none the less–awesome
but if this were in fact real, this same arguement would still be going on, same points and everything, so whys it matter? its the same concept as pictures and film
you can no longer trust anything. what with photo and video editings
mayhap if the world wasnt so self concious or in need of an ego boost
so even if it looks fake, mayhap, mayhap its real
just dont think too deep…seeing as humans do not like to be wrong, so save yourself the trouble
i just hope if they make a movie of TH they use a rookie, not a well praised movie director…SK has all the storyboarding and screen shots done, they just need a unique way of filming it
no suggestions of whom though, just of what
im off to go play TH!!!
September 21st, 2008 at 12:26 pm
I can’t believe this a viral marketing campaign. great.
September 27th, 2008 at 5:05 am
This is some terrible journalism. Don’t act like Silicon Knights based their game on this documentary. The documentary was made as a viral video by them! Get your facts straight; the whole video was made to promote the story behind the game Too Human.
October 9th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
This could be very real for those skeptics you must remember this was filmed and made in the year 1999. Silicon Knights have edited the actual video as well so also keep that in mind. This is what inspired them the REAL goblin man of Norway.