Freakylinks - Online Meets On Screen
Creators Take New Approach with a Website based TV Series
Without even airing the thirteen produced episodes, Freakylinks was pulled off the air and not seen for years until it recently reappeared on the Chiller channel. Even before the show premiered, however, the creators had an ongoing dialogue with would-be fans.
The Plot of Freakylinks - Tailor-made For The Digital Age
In Freakylinks webmaster Derek Barnes travels the country looking for strange, bizarre, and unusual stories to report on, shooting them with his camcorder before uploading the footage to his website, Freakylinks.com. Unlike other paranormal shows, Derek's mission is not to stop monsters or save people, but instead to find proof of the paranormal in the hopes that he might better understand his brother's bizarre and ritualistic-looking suicide.
What made this show so perfect for the current generation was its ability to communicate with viewers. Producing Freakylinks.com was the plot of the show, and unlike other programs, fans could actually visit the site. They may not be able to hold the actual X-Files written by Scully and Mulder, but after every episode of Freakylinks, they would be able to view Derek's latest entry into his online diary (this was 2000, before the term "blog" caught on) and view footage from his camcorder that may not have been in the show.
Where The Idea Came From
Haxan Films, the folks behind The Blair Witch Project, had seen incredible success with their film due to online marketing. At the time, it wasn't customary for films to make websites that gave anything besides a small synopsis and release dates. The Blair Witch website, however, added all sorts of new levels to the film's story, posting videos, fake newspaper stories, and other documents that attempted to validate the events captured on the film and spreading the idea that the film was in fact chronicling a real occurrence. After film studios saw the amazing success by Haxan's cheap and effective advertising, detailed websites became mandatory, and Hollywood was brought into the digital age.
Fans of the HBO show True Blood might recognize the idea, as it was used by one of Haxan's members in creating the ad campaign for the show. Posters supporting vampires and a blog, complete with videos and claiming no connection to the show, chronicled the "coming out" of vampires that would lead up to the events of the television program.
The Last Word on the Freakylinks Approach by Haxan Films
By taking something that was catching on across the country - the internet - and realizing that it wasn't a passing fad and was relatively cheap, Haxan Films created a program that would combine television and the interactive online community into a double-sided experience that would take viewers well past the one-hour mark in front of their televisions.
It would take hours to pour over all of the material that had been sewn into Freakylinks.com, making the television show a mere glimpse into the world of Derek Barnes and his team. And, because the site allowed for viewers to play along and give feedback or tell their own stories, the creators would never have run out of ideas, and the show could constantly maintain a level of popularity so long as it adhered to what was going on online.
Sadly, though, the thought of a show with footage as shaky as that in The Blair Witch Project turned prospective viewers away, but Haxan keeps the site viewable in their portfolio, and Chiller continues to run the original thirteen episodes, with fans still pleading for a DVD release.
Please Note: Freakylinks.com is no longer owned by Fox. To view the old Freakylinks website, click here.
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