Chapter Black

Have you ever heard of something called Chapter Black?
No? I'd thought so. 
It's a persistent name mentioned only among the most hardcore of VHS collectors and retro AV nerds. While only a rumor, it's been kind of an urban legend in the video world that's been known since the 1980s. 
The legend goes like this: Chapter Black is a VHS cassette tape said to have originated out of East Asia, presumably Japan or Taiwan. It's mysteriously always in pristine condition, with many different witnessed appearances to it. Some have said that the cassette is a simple yet strange no brand cassette, with a white label written on it in Chinese letters in black ink "Chapter Black". Another goes that the cassette is a slate blue S-VHS cassette, with a customized narrowed square label space, with the label being a sticker with a red seal crested with a pair of laurels, apparently for a very important professional organization. All of the tapes have their reels set at the max 240 minute mark. 
Whoops, got into the technical details again. Sorry about that. 
The main point is that Chapter Black is a very elusive video tape. Strangely, it always usually finds itself in a thrift store or secondhand store or another. Despite someone claiming to have it, it mysteriously disappears under some strange circumstance later in the week. The owners who were able to correspond back usually have found their places ransacked in someway, but it's always Chapter Black that goes missing. Other former owners haven't shown up back to the collection scene since.
If there's one thing I forgot to mention, when I mean "hardcore", I mean like, into what isn't really what you'd call legal. Not like porn you can't rent out because the star girl lied about her age when they shot the film, I mean like the kind of stuff the feds would slam you with an extended prison sentence just for owning because it's politically confidential contraband. Ever watch that episode of The Simpsons where Comic Book Guy hires out Bart and Milhouse to take over his shop for a night when he's out dating, and they come across his collection of extremely illegal video tapes that covers stuff from Mr. Rogers being drunk on set to sensitive Cold War military procedures, and they show it to the rest of the kids in the neighborhood? It's that kind of illegal.
Infact, if you're not the one for gut churning details, I'd best recommend you'd back out now. Not for the faint of heart at this point.
Chapter Black has gotten its infamy for being what is probably the world's longest running snuff film. Everything on it is horrifically detailed and uncut. Despite the tape being at the maximum 240 minute mark, former owners who watched the tape have said that the thing goes well past 240 minutes. This also makes it kind of really hard to rewind. Those who have said that it's almost like a timeline of reenactments of humanity's worst moments on film.
No one knows who made it. The seal on the slate blue version of the tape, no one has correlated it successfully with any existing organization, other than with some study on esoteric Buddhist knowledge that it's a word that relates to the judge of the damned. Because of this, it's believed to have come from a cult or secret society that has dabbled in black magic or something, or came out of hell itself. Because of it disappearing so often and so soon upon acquiring, it's hard to prove anything on its hardware specs.
What has been proven is that some have had the gall to record what was on Chapter Black and released it on the deepest bowels of the internet. 
As said before, everything on Chapter Black is graphic and uncut. Despite its age of supposed origin, its footage has always been strangely upscaled to HD on tape, even before the release of the tech into the consumer market. Because of it not being even NC-17 or even X rated material, many torrenting and media hosts have taken it off of their sites because of complaints by users, making footage rare to acquire. What has been acquired though, many have regretted ever downloading it since. 
Eyewitness accounts have told some grim things, horrible things they've seen out of Chapter Black. Their confessions correlate that there is a motif to the film: The worst moments of humanity documented down to each and every second. 
One got a section dedicated to Vlad the Impaler, or as he is popularly known, Count Dracula. Some have come across footage of the slavery trade, with different parts about different eras of time and parts of the world, from Africa, Europe, and Asia. Some have come across footage of modern day serial killers in action, from John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, and Henry Lee Otis. There's sections covering major world wars and the stories of the battles behind the stories and legends in history, the "real story" so to speak, some parts supposedly showing even the most celebrated heroes contradicting themselves with horrendous acts of cruelty. 
If you name any atrocity off the top of your head, chances are you will find it in Chapter Black, it's said. There is wanton killing and bloodshed. There is cannibalism, on all sorts of people. There is live footage of cause and effect of politicians and businessmen pulling strings behind the scenes for their bank accounts screwing over the little man, or thieves leaving the defenseless and poor to die. There is betrayal and abuse. Just about any genocide in history you can think of, you will probably find it. There's parts where you can see criminals go to their lowest and outright get away with it. 
Just about any witness of Chapter Black, even for a few minutes, was enough to change its viewers. A lot of them who had minute viewings were the ones that wished to never want to watch it again. Some were heard to have gone crazy, being evaluated for mental insanity at nearby psyche wards or mental hospitals, some even for domestic disturbances, some heard to be murder. Then there are the ones who have never returned. They were the ones who likely jumped off the cliff into the abyss, to watch Chapter Black as long as they could probably thought they could take it. No one knows where they went. God only knows what they are doing now. 
Even after what has been confirmed to be the footage of what is supposedly mankind's worst, uncut and in full, there are still questions left unanswered. Who keeps ransacking owners just to take this tape? What on Earth is this made for? Who made Chapter Black? And even then, the stories around this thing have only kept coming. Just last week at the time of this writing, it's been on the radar that a police station was somehow broken into for having the tape in jurisdiction. 
Be careful if you find it.
Category:Items/Objects