re: Darkon (2006 Documentary on LARPers)

Watched this over the weekend. It was just okay for me. Definitely interesting, no doubt. But overall I guess I expected a little more information as opposed to just showing them and how they LARP (however, I guess there was no bias from teh filmmakers in doing it like that, so I can respect that).

Some of the more interesting parts were that the main character dude (Bannor?) and how he had a fairly normal home life with his wife and kids, but then on the weekends he literally loads his vehicle down and goes off to LARP.

The scene with his kid play sword fighting for like two straight minutes while he sat there seemingly in a trance with a horned mask on was odd to say the least.

I love how the one chick used to be a stripper, and lived in her mom's basement with her son. And then she has a skinny, mangled-tooth LARPer boyfriend, but their characters aren't dating because "that would be weird."

The Keldar dude, I actually thought he was the best character. He LARPed it up, but at least in that one interview, he seemed to keep it all in perspective...he completely realizes that it's fake and that it's "play time" whereas some of the other people seemed to use it as an escape from the real lives that they desperately hated. He also made a good point about how in Darkon, he led people and basically learned a lot of the skills he uses everyday as a manager at his real job.

Tied for best character is the fat nerd kid who worked at Starbucks. He was awesome. Did feel bad for him though when he was talking about how he can't talk to chicks in real life, but in Darkon he has this one chick who he likes and he does everything for her (even leading to his "death" sometimes) and that was "good enough of a relationship" for him right now, and that hopefully one day he'd be ready for the real thing.