Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Bootleg VHS

This is back when I was really struggling online, in terms of shopping for genuine bootleg theater rips of movies, it was kind of a passion of mine, it's always a gamble when looking for films on sites like eBay, sometimes I get something cool like previously unseen footage of Kangaroo Jack, other times I get pieces of garbage that don't even work, meaning I could potentially waste money, still if it means I could uncover lost media I'm all for it, however I don't think I could ever keep this hobby ever again... after what happened.
I was a really big fan of the movie Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, yea most people could agree that the film chose style over substance but in my opinion that's how it holds its identity, I was on a Discord group discussing the film with a few of my college friends, one of them mentioned a strange version of the film that leaked online, but has since then been wiped from the internet, I was skeptical, I never believe in anything until I could see it myself, I asked where he heard this from and he simply replied with "I just heard it", my friend mentioned that I would be the perfect person to seek out this lost cut of the movie, I already had a great impact within the lost media community already, but this case sounded much more like a misinformed hoax, and I really didn't want to risk buying something completely useless for the 100th time, but because my friend was jokingly being a dick, and threatened to block me over this. I kinda was stuck into at least attempting to search for it, after going through so many pages on eBay for a stupid DVD rip of Spider-Verse, I realized that it definitely wasn't gonna just pop up out of nowhere, I recalled how I found those altered versions of movies through "unconventional" means, so onto the deep web I went, I was slightly cautious of course, you never know what you might find on these sites, snuff films, pedophile rings, etc, I never want to accidentally stumble across those, I used as many keywords as possible and was very specific when typing this all out into Google, a few pages of mostly text later, and there it was, obviously since I'm not stupid, I'm not giving out the website name, all I could say was that it look pretty sketchy, it was a completely black background with plain white text, the page said "SPIDER-MAN INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE, UNRELEASED EDITION MOVED TO VHS, UNSTABLE" and of course there was an image of the VHS, I laughed assuming this was a joke, VHS has been a dead format since the late 90s, I couldn't imagine seeing a cutting edge modern animated movie being played on that thing, the weirdest parts were the details, it stated the film ran for 80 minutes, as opposed to almost 2 hours, and that it costed 200 dollars, I was very reluctant, but I knew my dumb friend group would of never put this past me, so I got out my debit card, and unwillingly pressed pay.
I went back to my friends, I even shown them the image of the site I got it from, they all were suspicious about it, claiming that I might of gotten scammed, I never bought a bootleg film over 50 dollars that didn't work, I knew for a fact that something unseen from the public had to be on that tape, even if my action was from the result of peer pressure, I was still becoming ever so curious, I looked up this so-called tampered version of Spider-Verse, and I found some obscure Taiwanese message board, with a thread titled "Spider-Man animation not for kids" (google translate sucks, I know) I couldn't exactly make out what they were talking about, but based on the little information that was given to me, it seems that there was a version of Spider-Verse in which scenes depicted all the main characters crying and screaming, little context was given, but the thing that really caught my attention was the image used, it was a bit blurry, but it looked like a screenshot of the main protagonist, Miles Morales, with a distraught face, it was clearly a screengrab from the movie, but the style seemed very off, I cannot explain it at all, it didn't even look like a scene from the movie, assuming it was just a fan edit, I copied and pasted the image into reverse image search, however it only had one result which led me back to the forum post.
It seemed obvious that I could of found a missing version of Spider-Verse, and I was very excited, this had the makings of becoming one of the biggest finds ever in the lost media community, I excitedly told my Discord group, though most of them replied that I shouldn't get my hopes up too much, I listened to them, but I still remained optimistic.
3 weeks later, my package came, it was wrapped very crudely and looked a bit disgusting, the tape looked even worse, and was clearly thrown on the ground a couple times, I already knew inevitable disappointed was going to happen and let out a big sigh, the VHS had one small sticker on the front that said "SPIDER" so I knew it was at least linked to the listing in some form, though my optimism was still dwindling a lot, it still didn't hurt to at least check it out, so I dusted off my old childhood VHS player, and just for a nostalgic touch I plugged it into my old rabbit ears television, once I popped the tape in my VHS player started making very strange noises, I haven't used it in years but I knew well that it never sounded like that, that was when I started to notice that the film was not showing at all, I kept hearing garbled sounds coming from the TV, I gave the player a couple of whacks until it finally decided to play, the intro started as normal, in fact the opening was basically exactly the same, the quality was a little rough, but things like that don't really bother me all too much, once we get to Miles' house however, I noticed a lot of things were off, for one the CGI was clearly unfinished, models were noticeably clipping into each other, the art style was also very appalling, it didn't resemble the screenshot I saw on that forum post, but it was still different from the comic book art style the finished film had, and lastly, the voice acting was much different, those clearly weren't the original voices for the characters, they sounded very amateurish, almost like they found people off the street to be voice actors.
My eagerness went back up, I now knew for sure that this was the lost version of Spider-Verse, the rest of the movie went smoothly, and it played out normally minus the unfinished animation and bad voice acting, this all changed when Miles went back to the underground subway where the radioactive spider bit him, it was almost uncanny during the scene where Spider-Man was fighting Green Goblin, instead of accidentally helping out, Miles was cowering in the corner from fear, Spider-Man never even noticed him, the animation was even worse then what was originally shown, half the time I couldn't even tell if it was the same film, the worst part was how Spider-Man was clearly getting defeated by Green Goblin, he kept giving these pained screams each time he was hurt, they actually sounded painful, and this may sound silly, but I kind of felt bad for Spidey, Kingpin saw Spider-Man, and just like in the movie, Miles watches Spider-Man get murdered by him, but it was even more shocking, as Kingpin kept repeatedly slamming Spider-Man to the ground, his screams of pain only gotten worse, and very soon I could hear graphic sounds of bone crushes, they definitely weren't stock sounds, they sounded genuine, luckily they never shown his body, but Miles saw it in horror, and I could tell it had to be absolutely terrifying, this of course prompted the chase between him and Prowler.
I was beginning to get very confused and a little scared, was Spider-Verse originally aimed at an older audience? I thought to myself, that Spider-Man death scene would of definitely bumped the film's PG rating up, no doubt, as worried as I was, I still knew I had to watch all of this film in order to properly discuss it to everyone in the lost media community, so I continued forward.
At this point, I noticed how the film was skipping crucial parts of the movie, and instead had more abridged versions of scenes or just cut them out entirely, the entire scene with the Spider-Man funeral was especially dreary, nobody else was there besides Miles, who was weeping softly to himself, it was completely dark outside, there wasn't even any jokes at all, Miles made one startling shriek before being cut off by complete darkness.
It immediately went to a scene with Peter B. Parker and Gwen Stacy, who weren't properly introduced into the story yet, Miles was there to, looking a little better, but still pale, it was however, still dark outside, May Parker was there, who shown a face of absolute horror seeing the alternate Peter Parker, after that, she sobbed, but the others expressions were that of not feeling anything, Gwen in particular looked very annoyed, "Just show us your fucking shed you stupid bitch!" she said, despite being a little frightened, hearing a character from a kids movie swear gave me a bit of a chuckle, as it came completely out of left field, as soon as May lead the way to the other spider people, things took a turn for the worst, all 3 of them looked awful, Spider-Ham, despite being a cartoony Spider-Man, was uncharacteristically crying, not even in a silly animated way, he was clearly in pain, his spider suit was torn and ripped, "W-We, we tried to save him, I-I don't know what happened to us, we were changed..... for the worse...." the pig said, Peni Parker looked even worse, she wasn't even making loud sobbing sounds, but tears were streaming out of her eyes similar to her towards the end of the film, in fact, her SP//dr mech was completely destroyed, both her arms had bleeding cut marks all over them, and she had a knife right beside her, implying that she cut herself, she even made a very silent apology as she leaned her head slightly down, finally, we're shown Spider-Man Noir, who wasn't even alive, he had hung himself by the neck from a wire connected to the ceiling, none of the characters acknowledged this at all.
Gwen's annoyed look turned into sadness upon seeing Peni's cut up arms, she gone up to her, and bandaged up her arms from the nearby first aid kit, "so now you know" May started speaking to the rest of the spider people, "we need to get the rest of them back to their universes, it's effecting their mental state, they can't stay here any longer" Miles and Peter both shook their heads in a slow fashion, Gwen came back with Peni, who was holding the young girl in her arms before setting her down, Spider-Ham slowly walked towards as well, they all became static and were just standing there, they were still blinking but that was it, a thing I noticed is how the scene was getting darker and darker, other then all of that, it was completely motionless, as the scene very (and I mean very) slowly faded to black.
It then went to the graveyard where the original Spider-Man was buried in, the spider gang slowly walked up to the gravestone, and began to cry softly, their cries soon went to whimpers, and then to sobbing, then finally to screaming, which was very uncontrolled, the screaming was absolutely loud, even turning the TV's volume down to 1% wasn't enough, the scene began to downgrade its animation quality, all the models became very warped and indistinguishable, I didn't even know what was going on, disturbing videos flashed onto the screen, this especially creeped me out, some of them were similar to nightmares I had when I was a child, others were things I was afraid of, executions of men getting beheaded, a person suffering having a heart surgery while awake, a women getting her fingers chopped off at once by a chainsaw, they all flashed on screen so fast, and i could make them all out almost perfectly, I still can hear those screams of suffering, and the scene of Miles all distraught, it completely matched the image of him on that forum post, the screen cut to black as the screams and cries only grew louder and louder, I couldn't take it anymore, as I ejected the tape.
I cried to myself in horror as to what I just witnessed, I didn't want to watch that version of the film ever again, I had to tell people about this, I went back to my friend group on Discord, I told them everything about what I just saw and how messed up it was, assuming it was just a joke, they forced me to use my camera and show them the video while screen sharing, I was extremely nervous about playing the tape again, but I needed to show proof, I put it in, but it wouldn't turn on at all, I pressed every button, I plugged it out and back in, turned the TV on and off, and even though it wouldn't help in the slightest, fidget around with the bunny ears on top of the TV, hoping to get some sort of signal through the VHS player in vain, they laughed and thought I was only doing this to make the scam VHS seem more interesting, they all left the call, leaving me alone.
I couldn't get the tape out of my mind, every night after viewing it I had the same nightmare of that movie playing on loop over and over again, I had to contact someone who knew more than I did, I tried to write the people who worked on Spider-Verse but not a single person ever replied back, feeling like I was stuck between a rock and a hard place, I contacted an admin for the lost media Discord server, I explained everything I saw in great detail and they replied with a very interesting explanation.
I am honestly shocked at this dude, I understand completely what this was, the animation completely off, the voices not being the same, the story completely neutered in favor of disturbing imagery, I remember collecting a bunch of bootleg movies just like you man, and sooner or later, you can stumble across these sorry excuses of entertainment, I remember buying a bootleg VHS of Zootopia, that's already a big warning sign when a movie gets printed on a tape even though it was released long after the format lost relevancy, all I remember from that version was the main characters Judy and Nick constantly arguing, screaming at the top of their lungs, before breaking down in tears and killing themselves by letting cars run them over, I didn't exactly find it scary, I've seen way worse, I found it more interesting than anything, I looked into this bootlegging ring and figured out they specialize in making disturbing versions of recent animated films, why do they do this? I have no idea, I was able to view versions of other films like Coco and The Boss Baby, among others, they all are animated quite poorly, and disturbing things happen to the main characters, it's all boring as hell, and if you are looking for back ups for these movies, well tough luck, the tapes become unusable after just one viewing, I guess those bootleggers use the cheapest material possible, I kind of quit buying bootleg tapes as well, it gotten quite boring, so any screencaps I saved of them are lost, I'm really sorry, though what I'm very confused about are the disturbing real life clips you mentioned at the end, that actually sounded traumatizing, I have never seen a single one of those tapes use those before at all, it could of been a recent addition, but that's the only logical thing I could think of, ah well, I hope I put some closure on any questions you might of had, and I'm very sorry for what happened to you, hope you recover properly, until then, peace out.
-Mike, a fellow lost media enthusiast
I felt a little better after this, but I was still worried about the consequences of me keeping the tape, I had no idea what kind of horrible thing could happen if I destroy it, and I definitely don't want to sell it to someone else, especially since it doesn't work anymore, I decided to walk to my local park, I brought my shovel with me, I dug a hole, and buried the tape.
A few days later I was feeling much better and I was even slowly forgetting about the film, I brought the mail back to my house, I had one letter that was completely blank, I opened it, and inside was something that made me jump with fear all over again, it was a crudely drawn picture of all the spider people, all of their faces were melted, and their suits were decaying, and written at the bottom......
"Never forget us, friend"
Category:Movies
Category:Lost Movies
Category:VHS tapes
Category:Bootleg Copy
Category:Spider Man
Category:Movies & TV