I have a strange fascination for The Unbelievable. Whenever I go back to Hong Kong, it's mostly during Ghost Festival, so 怪談 will be on TV and I'll be drawn to watch it but at the same time get super creeped out because Hong Kong is pretty creepy any way. I'm feeling in the mood for some scary TV so I thought I'd do episode recaps for The Unbelievable! I'm really interested in the ghost stories from Asia, not because I'm super superstitious, but because ghost stories are linked to mythology so I think they give an interesting perspective on Chinese culture.
For those who want to watch this episode, I watched from this link: Part 1 & Part 2. I have a feeling these aren't the full episodes (I think the title says it's the highlights?) but it's the only links I could find and they give you the general gist so I'll be recapping from these i-cable videos. I'm disappointed that the end of the clip didn't show what actually happened but I'm still entertained and not too creeped out so I think that's a win for me!
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| I'm in the mood to be creeped out! |
The episode begins with a yellow tape warning that the following scenes may cause distress. Creepy... I am excited :D
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The description in the video said they tried calling the phone
numbers but there were no answers. |
They seem to have phone numbers written on the cliffs. The audio is really choppy at this point so I couldn't hear what Howard says but I think they suspect the phone numbers were written up by the "Corpse Fishers".
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| Hope they find this guy :( |
The presenter finds a missing person's poster and comments on how people that know the guy must be trying to find any news about this guy.
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| Looks like a bike shed. Alas, there be no bikes within. |
The crew found an old guy by the a large cabin by the Yellow River whom they suspect is a "Corpse Fisher" so they go over to investigate.
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| Badass Old Dude. |
The cabin turns out to be a place to store corpses and the old dude told them that there 20-30 corpses inside. The presenters comment on the strange scent they smell from where they stand, which is by the hill edge, above the cabin. The translator reiterates that the cabin has dead people inside.
Of course the air smells funny dude, you're breathing in decaying body particles D:
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| This cute BEAR DOG ^^ |
Awww cute fluffy dog! It looks like a bear! The program then zooms into a gross image of animal corpses that the dog is happily eating.
But what did you think this dog would eat? As long as its not eating human/corpse meat, this dog is still a cutie. I'm not going to upload the picture of the "dog food" because it's pretty gross.
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| I can't read his name so shall continue calling him Old Dude. |
They ask the old dude what his full name is and it turns out everyone's surname in the village is "Ngai" and this guy isn't the guy they're looking for but luckily, he's another "Corpse Fisher". They ask him if a corpse has been hit by a water ghost, the corpse's face will not change and the corpse will look like its sleeping. Once wind blows on the corpse's face after the corpse has been removed from the river, the face and body will turn black immediately. Also, the corpses will be warm when still in the river but once removed, the body will turn cold after half an hour on land.
Some of the strangest occurrences regarding corpses involve headless corpses and sacks of decapitated corpses. The "Corpse Fisher" says there are around 15 cases of decapitated bodies per year. Old Dude says that people who can't find their missing relatives will go to him with missing people posters to try to find their loved ones. Old Dude turns out to be an official "Corpse Fisher" hired by the government and that relatives of missing people will find him to try to identify whether any of the corpses are their missing person.
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| Location of a lot of creepy discoveries. |
The translator tells the host that last year, the most memorable case was of a woman who'd had an argument with her husband. In the end, she jumped the river with her 2 year old child tied to her belt and their bodies were found in the location behind the hosts.
Another case was of a 17-18 year old girl who'd been murdered. She'd been tied up with wire and her head was cut off. Her decapitated body was wrapped up and found by the river and her corpse was taken away by officers.
The hosts asked Old Dude if he's afraid and he says he's not scared, he even dares to sleep inside the cabin that holds the corpses!
Dude is a badass! Wouldn't decaying bodies smell horrid and be a biohazard? How can this guy nap with them? I would nope right out of there, no corpse snuggle buddies kthxbai.
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| Ongoing discussion |
The filming crew apparently wanted to take some more shocking footage by filming opening up one of the body bags from the "corpse shelter" but Howard disagreed with this decision because he thought it was disrespectful of the dead and that they've already achieved their standard for their footage and that as a corpse, you wouldn't want to be dragged around and filmed.
The phrase you're looking for there is you wouldn't want to be turned into a spectacle! Quite right it's disrespectful! RIP -.- The filming crew finally agreed to respect Howard's decision and did not record the opening the body bags.
How about respecting the dead too, whilst you're at it, film crew! ¬.¬
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| About to enter... |
The host (
I think we've established he's called Howard now... right? >.>) notes that it's getting a bit chilly now and he's nervous because he's never been into an morgue. The translator also says she's never been in one either. The video breaks off to and the episode continues to part 2.
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| Morgue Door sounds like Mordor. |
They repeat the some of the footage from the previous episode but picks up from when Howard puts on a surgical mask to enter the morgue.
My previous concerns about how sanitary it is to nap with corpses is answered because the cabin is actually separated into different sections, like a semi-detached house, so I assume the dude sleeps in one of the sections which don't house corpses. Old dude opens the door to the morgue and lets Howard enter. He comments about how it's not as horrifying as they were expecting because there's actually separate "fridges" (like a modern morgue) as opposed to just corpses out in the open
(Tbh I was also thinking along the same lines, even though it would be completely illogical, but I didn't really expect this rural part of mainland China to have such modern morgue tech...) Howard says you can see the temperature of the "fridges" are at 9 degrees to prevent decay of the bodies (not sure if 9 or -9, that room is super echoey but I'm thinking it should be -9 because they need some really low temperatures to prevent some of those pathogens right?)
Howard says he has a bit of a pressurised feeling inside the morgue. The translator outside says it smells really bad. Old Dude then just comes in like lalala let me just open all these morgue doors mang.
OK, I'm not going to screencap this bit because they actually filmed these corpses and even though they're wrapped in a body bag, it's pretty messed up that they actually filmed it... Now I realise and fully understand what they were actually arguing about when they were discussing unwrapping the corpse from the body bag. That would have been soooo messed up if they actually went through with it?!?
The doors that old dude opened apparently had their feet closest to the camera but the last one that Howard opens up had the head closest to the camera andhe is very uncomfortable seeing that and says it smells really bad and says he feels a sick. He bows to show his respect and closes the door. To the camera, he reiterates the smell and that he feels really sick and needs to leave the room.
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| Paying his respects. |
Once outside, Howard says this is the first time he's ever seen a corpse of a stranger. He says there's an uncomfortable feeling inside and there's no AC, only body fridges but the atmosphere is still very chilly. He asks the camera guy to feel his hand to reiterate that he's very chilly but the camera guy's hand is also cold.
Lol that's because poor camera dude has to keep his hands out in the cold holding the camera ><". He says it smells really awful inside and he didn't want to disturb the dead for so long so he couldn't stay inside for any longer.
The translator questions Howard about whether that feeling of pressure he mentioned earlier had gone and he replies that he still feels very uncomfortable and wants to leave.
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| Badass Old Dude is also awesome at posing. |
A voice over tells the viewer that legend says people that die in the river will become strongly bitter water ghosts. To test this, the film crew suggested to Old Dude to leave the morgue door open whilst leaving Howard alone to experience.
But why, can't ghosts walk through walls and doors?
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| Pretty gorgeous sunset! |
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| He looks like he's about to propose. #Romantic |
This place is pretty in the sunset though... even with it's creepy history... The voice over says that suddenly the translator lady becomes distressed because she realised the empty morgue emitted some strange noises.
Translator lady is kinda mumbling her words with aegyo so it's a bit difficult to hear what she's saying with my half-bucket-water mandarin but I kinda feel like she wants the D.
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| "Omg she's touching me!" |
No but seriously look *smirk face* And Howard is just grinning the whole time because he's probably thinking omg she touched me >< looooool. If you saw the screen cap without the context, you wouldn't think she'd just experienced something scary, I'm just saying. The tension is strong alright... The SEXUAL TENSION hehehehe.
She's adamant that she heard something from inside and someone tells her there's no one inside the morgue. She says you're lying there is! They say it's empty and then she replies no there's corpses inside.
This could be a script for the scariest pantomime ever.
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| Graceful... |
Translator lady tells Howard to sit back where she was sitting, next to the morgue window. She says he will definitely hear something. She says it sounds like a "pong pong" noise like something tapping/dropping (?) She says she can even hear it from where she's standing, away from the morgue wall.
Howard very clumsily climbs up to the door. I kinda lolled because he sort of rolled up to the window ^^".
Translator Lady continues to plead her case but then she says the noise has stopped.
I think the noise could just have been from the fridges, fridges are pretty noisy, and I'd assume they'd be noisier if they had to keep decaying bodies in...?
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| Still a better love story than Twilight. |
Translator Lady helps Howard down (
very noob-ly too) from the morgue ledge. Translator Lady demonstrates the sound again and Howard says it sounds a bit like metal (
I think? Speak in Canto again please T_T) then someone from the crew chimes in that he also heard it.
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| Automatic door |
Howard points and says one of the doors opened by itself but there's no wind. D: They then rig him up with 2 GoPros on a body harness (
to record what he says and also to film him) and he says this place was the place that made him most anxious out of all the other places in the series (
I haven't seen them yet, maybe I will recap them later...) because he's never actually seen real corpses.
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| Get the nope outta there mang! |
The crew leave Howard on his own and he says into the morgue: "We come in peace, we're only here for work."
Aww bless, I feel for the dude, he just wants to be back at the hotel for netflix and chill with Translator Lady T_T They have some creepy atmospheric music in the background. He kneels by the morgue door and talks to the camera. Howard then says it's really strange, every now and then the morgue room emits some tapping noises. Then the recording has some audible knocking noises.
Not sure if it's been added in post-editing. He closes his eyes and tries to get some "feeling". Howard says that his head is starting to get the numb and pressurised feeling again and then he wipes his snot.
Lol, I felt like adding that detail in because the snot was coming for a while lolol.
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| That obligatory creepy green lighting. |
Suddenly, there's a loud noise and the sound of a creaking door and Howard looks round but the clip cuts off??
I'm not sure if these are full clips of the episodes or not, hopefully the next episode will fill in what happened here... To be honest, he probably acted like there was something behind him for entertainment value and then noped out of there... I guess we shall find out next time!
