When the swallows homeward fly, when the summer days are gone…
The Oldest View is a web series created by Kane "Pixels" Parsons, most well known for his take on The Backrooms.
In an unspecified time period and location where the only color not greyed out is green, an unidentified man (implied to be French botanist Julien Reverchon) is writing down notes and studying the nature around him. The story cuts to another time and place where a strange giant mask is being crafted, complete with eyes of its own…
Flash forward to May of 2023. There is a mysterious underground staircase in the middle of an untouched field, miles away from any human activity. A YouTuber named Wyatt discovered this staircase one day, and bravely decides to go down and record what he can find for his audience. Needless to say, things don't go as planned...
A playlist of the series so far can be viewed on Kane's YouTube channel.
The Oldest View provides examples of:
- Absurdly Long Stairway: In the middle of nowhere, leading to, of all things, an underground shopping mall.
- Advice Backfire: In "The Oldest View - Beneath The Earth" Wyatt jokes about trespassing not being cool unless you found a really cool secret tunnel that you want to show to your internet buddies. In "The Rolling Giant", we see how horribly wrong this premise can go.
- Alien Geometries: Downplayed — while the fact there exists a replica of an entire mall deep underground and far away from the original's location is cause for concern, most of the geometry is at the very least coherent. A bizarre exception to this is the light situation — despite the exit doors of the mall leading into solid rock (as it should, considering it's underground), there ends up being a handful of sunroofs that are producing ambient "natural" light from an unexplained source.
- Ambiguous Situation: Several.
- Whether only the statue is alive… or the entire mall.
- Whether or not the demolition of the real life Valley View mall had any effect on the underground replica, such as the stairway collapsing.
- The exact nature of the events of "Dispersal" are unclear. Though Wyatt died at the end of part three, part four opens with a rewind to just before he fell, with him escaping the mall and making it back to his car in the real world. The section ends with a POV shot of what is (presumably) the Rolling Giant, having also escaped the mall and following Wyatt. Is this some kind of Dying Dream? Did the Giant/the Mall somehow reverse time, and if so, is Wyatt aware that he was saved from his original death? Is the outside world even the "outside" and Wyatt is still in the mall? Are Wyatt and the Rolling Giant now, somehow, the same being?
- Antagonist Title: Part three is titled "The Rolling Giant", referring to the statue that pursues Wyatt.
- Artistic License – Physics: Possibly Played for Horror. What we see of Wyatt's body looks more or less intact, despite the fact that he just fell several stories, head first. In reality, his head should be smashed into oblivion and his body should be a broken, twisted mess. It's not a pretty way to go. Of course, given Kane's limited resources and him having to worry about upsetting the Moral Guardians of YouTube, this is understandable, if not justified in-universe in order to further show just how unnatural the events Wyatt was subjected to were.
- Back from the Dead: A unique example. In "Dispersal", the Giant, the mall, or possibly both, somehow alters time so that Wyatt doesn't fall to his death in "The Rolling Giant". When the scene replays and Wyatt makes his jump, the ledge holds, and he escapes the mall alive.
- Bookends: Part three both starts and ends in the mysterious green and grey forest that was seen in the first video.
- Can't Move While Being Watched: The Giant remains inanimate when Wyatt is facing it. At first. Turns out It Can Think, and the Giant was doing this just to screw with Wyatt the whole time.
- Company Cross References:
- Played with. Although Wyatt doesn't directly reference Kane's Backrooms series, the intent is pretty clear when he compares the mall to "the Backrooms from TikTok".
- A straighter, but more subtle, example occurs in the office area: one of the pictures hanging on the wall is the same one Kane used as the thumbnail for one of his music tracks from his second channel. The song is not part of the series' OST, but its title, "You're Not Supposed To Be Here," is very (and probably intentionally) appropriate here.
- Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: Unlike the Bacteria entities of The Backrooms, which are implied to be Not Evil, Just Misunderstood, the Rolling Giant comes across as malicious and sadistic, taunting Wyatt as he tries to escape by breaking its own rules to ensure he can't get away and even conjuring disturbing imagery of human and animal corpses to torment him further.
- Downer Ending: Part three ends with Wyatt falling to his death. We even get to see his unblinking corpse just to confirm that he's dead.
- Early-Bird Cameo: We first see the Rolling Giant's face in part one, as an unpainted cardboard cutout.
- Eerily Out-of-Place Object: There is absolutely zero explanation given as to why there's an incredibly detailed replica of a dead mall in Dallas, Texas buried deep underground, accessible via an Absurdly Long Stairway down a hole in the ground in a remote field, in what is heavily implied to be Santa Venetia, California.
- Elaborate Underground Base: In part three, Wyatt speculates that the mall is some sort of survival bunker.
- Eldritch Location: A staircase in the middle of nowhere that leads to an inexplicable underground replica of the abandoned Valley View Center in Dallas, Texas... Nope, nothing weird here.
- In part three, it goes from looking like a pristine mall to rundown and overgrown in just a few minutes while Wyatt isn't looking.
- Found Footage: Part two takes the form of a phone recording as Wyatt explores the staircase, which obviously seems like a recipe for disaster, but it's subverted when part three reveals that he made it back without incident and posted the footage on his channel. Part three itself plays it tragically straight however — it's another phone recording, and this time Wyatt ultimately dies in the mall after failing to escape; his damaged phone is last seen lying next to his corpse.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: The Giant's head can be seen among the foliage, observing Wyatt's corpse.
- Happy Ending Override: Inverted in Dispersal. The incident where Wyatt falls to his death replays at when Wyatt just escaped the charging Giant as they collided with the catwalks and caused structural damage to the mall. This time, Wyatt makes it into the stairwell, just avoiding the collapsing beam, and flees for his life to the surface, looking back to see if he's being pursued. He gets back to his car and drives away, but it is implied that he is being followed by the Giant, somehow.
- Holding Your Shoulder Means Injury: Wyatt is shown doing this while making his way through the woods after escaping the shopping mall.
- Hope Spot: Wyatt evades the Rolling Giant on the upper level and reaches an apparently unblocked stairway that, according to the design documents, will take him back to the surface. Then the support struts give way underneath him, sending him falling to his death.
- Horror Hates a Rulebreaker: Subverted. The Rolling Giant establishes rules on how it works multiple times, only to then break them. Done in a way that does not make the thing less scary, but more; it's doing this just to mess with Wyatt.
- It Can Think: Time and time again, Wyatt's perceptions of the Rolling Giant are challenged when it proves to be much more agile then his assumptions may indicate.
- Jump Scare: A mundane one where Wyatt is opening a rolling shutter to access the mall and the shutter suddenly accelerates out of control and slams into the ceiling recess. Wyatt retreats back to the great stairwell, almost fleeing back to the surface in fear that someone heard the racket. Wyatt changes his mind and continues into the mall.
- Logical Weakness: Being confined to a roller, the Giant can't climb stairs or escalators, giving Wyatt an easy escape path. Until it does so anyway near the end of part three. And then it ditches the roller altogether.
- Mechanical Abomination: The Rolling Giant is a large, humanoid statue mounted on a rolling cart that stalks Wyatt throughout the mall.
- Mind Screw: "Dispersal" returns viewers to the Downer Ending of Part 3, which has somehow changed so that Wyatt survives and escapes the mall. It's heavily implied that the Giant influenced this turn of events so it could escape to the surface. How it managed this remains a mystery.
- No OSHA Compliance: Not only is the entrance to the mall located down an Absurdly Long Stairway with no handrails and only one 90 degree bend to break any falls (imagine falling down that thing!), but the "exit" is only accessible by crossing a series of precarious beams which prove to be unstable. Justified, in that this is not the real Valley View Center, but some sort of eldritch copy of it.
- Nothing Is Scarier: Part two is made of this trope. As Wyatt descends the staircase and explores the entrance to the mall, the atmosphere is very tense and foreboding, leaving the viewer to wonder if, or indeed when, some kind of Jump Scare or other overtly scary event is going to happen. Nothing does. The horror comes entirely from the sheer wrongness of the situation, and the expectation of horror.
- Perverse Puppet: The titular Rolling Giant, based on a real puppet depicting the botanist Julien Reverchon created by the artist Kevin Obregon.
- The Precarious Ledge: Appears at the end, when Wyatt discovers the only way out of the mall is across a series of narrow beams several storeys up.
- Retcon: At the end of Part 3, the ledge Wyatt is standing on crumbles, and he falls to his death. In Part 4, the scene repeats, but the ledge holds. This lets Wyatt escape the mall, followed by the Giant.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
- It isn't too long before the mall becomes too much for Wyatt, and he decides to get out. Unfortunately, things aren't gonna be that easy...
- In Dispersal, after the original fatal escape attempt replays at when the Giant crashes into the catwalk and damages some of the mall's structure, things playout as before except Wyatt avoids falling to his death this time. Wasting little time, Wyatt makes what seems to be an adrenaline-fueled sprint up the newly-found stairwell tunnels to reach the surface.
- Shout-Out:
- The grand stairwell that is inexplicably beneath a comparatively mundane but creepy tree is very similar to a key moment in Silent Hill 2 where the protagonist James Sunderland also comes across an ominously long stairwell that leads him to an inexplicably underground structure.
- Wyatt being trapped in an abandoned mall is very similar to the first act of Silent Hill 3 where the protagonist Heather finds the mall she's in inexplicably closed down, abandoned, and inescapable. Like a Silent Hill protagonist, Wyatt finds a memo clue that helps him solve the "puzzle" of how to exit the mall, while the exit stairwell's illogical location wouldn't be out of place in a town like Silent Hill.
- The Speechless: The Giant never speaks a word while hunting Wyatt. It's unclear if it can't, or if it simply doesn't care to.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: The cheery mall music activating is justified because of the mall setting, but in the context of the mall being underground, deserted and patrolled by The Rolling Giant, it can feel off-putting. Wyatt doesn't feel comfortable either and makes his way back to the great stairwell, only to find the way sealed.
- Spiritual Antithesis:
- Part 2 is one to Kane's "The Backrooms (Found Footage)", which really kicked off his viewership. Unlike the former, the camera operator actually identifies himself as Wyatt and is exploring an abandoned site willingly but with trepidation. Also, unlike the randomized Backrooms, the mall is a concrete design based upon a real location (now demolished) and is somehow existing in the real world. We learn more about the mall's history in Part 3.
- Part 3 can be seen as more of a Pastiche of the Found Footage episodes of the Backrooms series, but there are key differences that flip some things around. The basics are all there: Protagonist gets trapped in a nightmarish, otherworldly liminal space while filming a video, and they get stalked and chased around said space by a mysterious and seemingly hostile entity. However, unlike the biological Bacteria entity, the main antagonist is a haunted mechanical construct who exhibits malicious traits and can even outright teleport. The mall itself also seems to have a sentience as the place suddenly powers up and starts playing music and the entrance that Wyatt entered from is replaced with a wall of debris. The video also differs in that, while the protagonists of both Backrooms Found Footage videos meet with Uncertain Doom, Wyatt's death is actually confirmed on-screen until Dispersal shows that this was reversed through an effect like time travel, Wyatt got another chance to reach the escape, succeeded in reaching the surface and driving back the way he came.
- Splash of Color: The forest segments in parts 1 and 3 are monochrome apart from the green of plants and foliage.
- Stalker without a Crush: The Rolling Giant is very persistent in following Wyatt for reasons that are initially unknown. Dispersal reveals that The Giant seems to play a part in somehow reversing time so that Wyatt has another chance to escape the mall. Wyatt succeeds in hopping onto the dangerously placed stairwell, escapes to the surface and drives away, but The Rolling Giant is now pursuing Wyatt on the road as if they are a wheeled vehicle.
- Stealthy Colossus: The Rolling Giant manages to be surprisingly stealthy given its massive size.
- Time Crash: Of the "fast forward through time" variety. The mall's first possible time skip is when Wyatt tries leaving the mall only to find that the great stairwell he entered from has caved in. However, the most definite leap through time is when Wyatt ends up in a "future" with the mall overgrown in foliage.
- Too Dumb to Live: Multiple examples.
- Wyatt really doesn't catch on just how dangerous his situation is until it's too late. Not only does he keep going down a mysterious stairway to an incredibly surreal location for online content, he ends up being able to leave, only to return later on and without any other resources or accompaniment, twice. By his third visit, he ends up completely and utterly trapped.
- When the Giant repeatedly sneaks up on him, Wyatt's first inclination is to walk towards it, finding it creepy enough to comment on yet evidently not remarkable enough to avoid.
- After being chased by the Giant onto a precarious ledge at least two stories above the floor, Wyatt keeps filming, even though he would obviously be much better off putting the phone away or better yet bringing a body camera from the get go so he could stay hands free for hazards. Naturally, he falls to his death as the ledge crumbles underneath him right in front of the stairs, where he could conceivably have saved himself had he been able to make a grab for them. It's made all the more annoying that right as he walks up to the staircase he pauses to look around before continuing on and then falls to his death. Rather than just NOT STOPPING and quickly but carefully walking over the ledge to reach the bottom step of the staircase.
- Uncanny Valley: Wyatt's initial impression of the Giant is that it's "uncanny as fuck". Given its huge head and outstretched arms, it's an apt description.
- Wham Shot:
- After Wyatt gets creeped out by the mall's lights and music suddenly turning on, he decides he's had enough and heads back to the staircase he came down... and finds the whole thing blocked by a pile of rubble.
- A subtler example occurs when Wyatt returns to the art exhibit portion of the mall. With the area now fully illuminated, the spot where the statue was is conspicuously empty.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: At the end of part three, Wyatt sees a stairwell going up over some beams off the ground that could lead back to the outside world. As he reaches the hole with said stairs, the beam collapses out from under him, sending him plummeting to his death.
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Wyatt's reaction to seeing the Giant going up an escalator, taking away one of his only perceived defenses against it. Keep in mind the escalator is unpowered and the Giant isn't tilted like an object using the escalator would be, so this thing is literally floating up.
Do you accept this impermanence?
