Emesis Blue

Emesis Blue
Directed by	Chad Payne
Written by	Chad Payne
Based on	Team Fortress 2 by Valve Software
Produced by	Anton Pelizzari
Production company	Fortress Films
Distributed by	Fortress Films (Through YouTube)
Release date	February 20, 2023 (2023-02-20)
Running time	108 minutes
Country	Australia
Language	English

Emesis Blue is a 2023 Australian animated independent psychological horror fan film based on the multiplayer first-person shooter game Team Fortress 2. The film was produced entirely in Source Filmmaker, by the fan group Fortress Films, and released for free on YouTube on February 20, 2023. Emesis Blue bases many of its assets directly on those of the original game, following the nine playable mercenary characters on a fictionalized depiction of the 2Fort multiplayer map, but maintains a mature, surreal tone with a largely original narrative. At a total of one hour and 48 minutes, it received critical acclaim for its high production value and length, both of which were said to be closer to those of a feature film than a typical Source Filmmaker production.

Drawing on the backstory originally presented in Team Fortress 2, the film is set on Halloween of 1968 during the fictional Gravel Wars between mercenaries of Builders League United (BLU) and Reliable Excavation and Demolition (RED). The film follows a largely original plotline to its inspiration, rewriting elements of the story to present a more serious and grounded tone, but includes diegetic references to game mechanics like rocket jumping, the capture the flag game mode, and respawning, with a large part of the films story focusing on a non-canonical "respawn machine" supposedly used in-universe to revive the mercenaries during fighting.

Plot

The film begins with footage of several tests involving the "Respawn Machine", a device that can bring back soldiers from the dead. The footage shows the disturbing effects the machine has on its test subjects. On Halloween night of 1968, a former BLU scout named Jeremy visits his former medic colleague Dr. Fritz Ludwig due to the side-effects of an accident involving the respawn machine. Jeremy complains of paranoia and nightmares in addition to the physical defects that got him fired from the company, and Ludwig confirms the machine has had disturbing failures before. Jeremy returns home to his single mother, watching a VHS of the movie M he stole from Ludwig's office. He receives a telephone call playing back his previous conversation with Ludwig, before turning to see his mother has been beheaded by an unseen assailant as a masked figure stands in the corner.

Ex-BLU Spy, Jacques Murnau working as a detective and his Soldier assistant, Jane Doe investigate the disappearance of BLU chairman and Governor of New Mexico, Jules Archibald. The duo tails a former BLU Heavy as he waits to hand off a briefcase. Jane kills Heavy in an altercation, but a mysterious figure escapes with the briefcase in a hearse.

Ludwig wakes from an out-of-body experience with blood on his hands, and receives an envelope of photographs of the scout being stalked as well as a phone call, playing Jeremy and Fritz's earlier conversation and Jeremy's muffled voice. Ludwig is directed by a bloody inscription to a RED base. At the base, he narrowly avoids a seemingly undead Heavy while escaping to the basement. He frees Jeremy, who apparently believes Ludwig to be one of his captors and runs off, only to be wounded, recaptured, and tortured to death by two Engineers, the Conagher brothers Zed & Maynard, guarding the briefcase in the flag room. Maynard manages to overpower and kill Ludwig after their fist fight, only for him to mysteriously resurrect and brutally kill him and Zed.

Murnau and Jane find Ludwig's bonesaw at the murder scene while posing as Federal Agents, tracing him to the base. They outwit and fatally wound the RED Sniper in the sewers, but the detective is captured after the two are separated by the Pyro. Jane experiences a temporal anomaly in the base's lobby before freeing a wounded RED Demoman, Cyclops, who claims the base is no longer under RED's control. The two try to reach the weapons locker in the resupply room as they are attacked by a mutated Jeremy and a group of RED zombies. The Medic, now suffering a psychotic break, defeats a zombified RED Medic and takes the briefcase upstairs, where Ludwig, Jane, and Cyclops are forced into an elevator further down to escape the Heavy. Murnau escapes and shoots the Pyro, but is burned in the resulting gasoline fire.

All four mercenaries begin to lose their grasp on reality as they move deeper into the base. Cyclops meets a third Engineer brother, Dell, who describes the Limbo-like eternity mercenaries experience between respawns. Jane and Ludwig find evidence of Archibald's initial experiments with respawning and the extreme toll it had on subjects. Jane then finds Cyclops frozen to death in a cloning lab before he and Medic defeat the resurrected Sniper and Pyro. The detective finds Archibald confessing to war profiteering with the respawn machines over the phone and shoots him, then forces Ludwig and the soldier to play Russian roulette, killing the Medic. Jane narrowly avoids being killed himself while pursued by the Heavy. He finally escapes the base as it burns down, and the Heavy is killed by falling debris.

At Archibald's funeral, attended by the rival CEOs Blutarch and Redmond Mann, the detective gives a cover story of Ludwig murdering Archibald and committing suicide, installing himself as Archibald's successor. A resurrected Ludwig suddenly rises from Archibald's supposed coffin and shoots Murnau, battling his way out. The soldier defects and hands Ludwig the briefcase, helping fight off the Mann brothers' bodyguards and killing Blutarch. Ludwig escapes the police in an ambulance, running over Redmond in the chaos, only to die in a car crash outside the city. He meets Archibald, Jeremy, and Maynard in purgatory. The film ends with a mysterious figure resembling Ludwig is seen emerging out of a flaming respawn machine.

Cast

• "JazzyJoeyJr" as the Soldier
• David Love as Jules Archibald and Blutarch Mann
• Cameron Nichols as the Scout
• John Whinfield as background voices
• Anton Pelizzari as Zed & Dell Conagher and background voices
• Chad Payne as Dr. Fritz Ludwig, the Detective, Cyclops, Maynard Conagher, Redmond Mann, the Hunter, Agent Stemmons, and Stalingrad

An honorable thanks was given to late voice actor Rick May, whose legacy voice acting in the original game was occasionally used for the Soldier's screams and laughs.

Production and style

Emesis Blue was developed over the course of four years in Source Filmmaker, led by Australian writer and director Chad Payne. The film combines 3D Source animation with strong, neo-noir lighting, focusing on authenticity to the original game's assets and acknowledging the technical limitations of the software. Sharp red-and-blue lights are used over otherwise desaturated sets to emulate in-game team differentiation, while policemen and other background characters not readily available in the original assets are shaded out as silhouettes to distinguish them from the canonical cast of Team Fortress 2 models.

A second Team Fortress film by the creators is "all but confirmed" under development as of 2024, currently titled Murder Inc.

Reception

Emesis Blue has been lauded as the first mainstream feature film to have been produced with Source Filmmaker, and the first Source project of its kind since Darkest Days, an earlier hour-long musical fan-film based on Left 4 Dead 2. Praise was directed towards the film's tone, visuals, voice cast, and technical ambition, while its narrative was described as reliant on mystery, nonlinear storytelling, and audience engagement through fan theories. Some background details of the film's universe were noted as overly reliant on familiarity with the original game's story, but the experience was otherwise described as appealing to general horror fans as well.

Film journalist Kayvon Bumpus noted some remaining budgetary constraints placed on the film, but nonetheless considered Emesis Blue a potential "crowning achievement" for both machinima and Source Filmmaker, writing that "countless projects with more budget, staff, and polish have failed to impress like this animated indie gem does". Gaming critic Yahtzee Croshaw praised the film as an engaging noir narrative and an example of what he coined as post-punk, arguing its production and tone subverted mainstream filmmaking standards by instead relying on the punk art practices of earlier satirical works like Heavy is Dead.

See also

• M (1931)
• The Jaunt
• Saxxy Awards

External links

• EMESIS BLUE official upload on YouTube
• Emesis Blue on IMDb