To increase the hype for the hype, Troy Mascenon has written, directed, starred in, and released a short film on his Youtube account entitled The Hunter and The Haunted: A Short Film by Troy Mascenon to promote the new EP of the same name. It was unannounced and just spread through word of mouth and the internet community. After its premiere on Youtube earlier this morning it has garnered over 300,000 views and is currently a trending topic on Twitter. The short film spans for only about 15 minutes and features Troy Mascenon stuck in a forest being haunted by an unknown monster. One Youtuber named ReckonerFanNo2 commented on the video saying:

"Troy Mascenon did a surprisingly good job, no no, I mean great! I remember seeing him first in Reckoner's music videos and I cannot believe how great of an actor he actually is. I think he should make a full length film any time soon!"

Another Youtuber named BeMyManTroy commented on the said video:

"Wow! That was so hot! He is such a great actor, Never Say Never my ass, The Hunter and The Haunted is the shit! I love Troy even more! WAAAAAAAHHHH!"

Both comments received 1093 likes and 982 likes respectively.



Synopsis:

The short film starts with a documentary like style. Troy is being recorded fixing his video camera on a tripod while in a forest holding a gun and seen beside him is a tent and some used pans. He appears to be a hunter who is on a mission hunting for a rumored wild animal with a body of a rhino, the head of a gorilla and skin of the tiger. The movie shifts to real time(not being recorded by the camera) as he goes on the trail to find the mythical wild beast. Minutes later, he hears the sound of footsteps behind him as the chorus of the song Peripheral starts playing. The camera shifts into the point of view of an animal preparing to attack him, the animal growls angrily as it runs towards Troy. Troy shoots the animal dead and celebrates in his victory by recording himself on the video camera wearing the animal skin while eating dinner dancing to the song Raging of the Dawn, it is revealed that he has killed a tiger.

The next scene takes place the next day where Troy is shown waking up to the sound of a cellphone alarm outside his tent playing Baby by Justin Bieber, he is irritated at the alarm and exits the tent. He grabs an axe and slams it on the phone completely smashing it to bits with just one blow. He realizes that he has just smashed his own cellphone and that the sound was coming from another phone being held by a laughing chimp on a tree. A chase ensues and he is lead away from his camp since he was enraged by the chimp, the first verse of the song The Hunter and The Haunted is played at the background.

After catching up with the chimp and hitting it hard on the head, he smashes the phone and sits quietly. He grabs a revolver from his pocket and aims it at the unconscious chimp. Suddenly, he sees a raging gorilla coming after him a mile away and as the animal got in the shooting range of his gun, he started firing aimlessly killing the gorilla. He leaves in horror and runs far away from the scene.

The next scene shows Troy sitting down after running away from the dead gorilla. He sits under a tree and to his surprise, sees his video camera. He checks the files and sees that all his actions were recorded in the camera including the murder of the tiger and gorilla, the bridge from Raging of the Dawn is played at this moment. Troy screams in horror and drops the video camera. He is about to run away before seeing a rhino ready to kill him. He looks into the wild beast's eyes and sees the anger of the rhino. His axe magically appears on his hand and he hesitantly kills the rhino. The next scene shows is shot in the POV of the video cam as it records the fight between the rhino and Troy while the song Monkey in the Middle is being played.

After killing the rhino, Troy is mortally wounded (since it is shown that he is bleeding from his abdominal area). Troy sits quietly under the tree since he is now unable to walk. Suddenly, the mythical Rhino/Gorilla/Tiger beast appears in front of him (The only thing the audience could see was the legs of the beast which had the tiger's skin but the shape of a rhino's legs). Troy loses hope and just sarcastically smiles at the beast, the screen fades to black and Troy's screams could be heard as the credits roll.

Troy's interpretation:

After the rolling of the credits, Troy explains the concept of the film as behind-the-scenes footages are being shown.

Troy explains that the violent nature of the film is how he thinks of the entertainment industry nowadays where drugs sex and blood are what the masses crave for in every film they want to see

"Everybody wants to see violence, now I present it in a sarcastic yet artistic way, I guess a lot of mindless people would love those parts but the elite who still are sensitive to these issues would find it disgusting, it's reality though and there is nothing we could do about it, we could only avoid it for so long till we are part of it" says Troy.

The film is shown in a documentary style POV where the viewer is looking through what the video cam sees.

"I remember seeing the movie Cloverfield and because of Eric's suggestion, The Blair Witch Project, and I admired how the 'found footage' vibe worked. It gave those movies more horror and authenticity, it was like feeling what the actors were feeling in the movie. It could reach out to the people more if I used this and I hope it did work because I wanted to make them feel the remorse of the character in the final shot."

Stating his favorite part of the film, Troy recalls:

"I really liked the concept of the hunter hunting a mythical animal and being killed by the animal in the end, the ironic twist and so on, but I was trying to emphasize on how he was being haunted by the rhino, the gorilla, and the tiger in his conscience, since I was trying to make a direct reference to the EP's name. It was like slowly torturing the character since he was searching for a mysterious hybrid, ironically he saw the animals separately and had to fight them in different battles killing him slowly from the inside with frustration since he couldn't find the animal he was looking for. Ironically, after being mortally wounded by the last animal, he is forced to face the mysterious hybrid with almost no blood left, dying without a fight."

"It was all a metaphor of the conscience, the song, the EP, the video, the idea. Don't do anything you know isn't right, because you would be haunted forever by guilt." says Troy before the video finishes.