Presented here is a rehash of yesterday’s post, as well as a shot-by-shot analysis of the film, including our take on the mysterious and frightening creature that appears in the final seconds of the film.
*A few years ago, some mysterious footage surfaced and quickly made the internet rounds. For reasons unknown, it had been simply known as “The Gable Film.” Little else was known about it’s origins, other than the supposed fact that the 8mm film was discovered in an attic and later purchased at an estate sale.
You can watch the complete Gable Film here.
The three-and-a-half minutes of footage starts off with two (or maybe three) people snowmobiling through some snow-patched forests in an undetermined location. One of the snowmobilers appears to be a young, blond boy; another has short dark hair. It appears that the snow covering has partially melted, so maybe the time of year is late winter/early spring.
At about the minute-and-a-half mark, the footage jump cuts to an image of either a very burly woman, or possibly a man with a 70‘s hairdo (the face is obscured by the hair) chopping a small log with a single swing of an axe. The subject is wearing a unisex plaid shirt and jeans, further making gender determination difficult. There is no snow on the ground now, but the fact that the subject is chopping wood would still put the time of year in the colder months, and not summer.
The next two shots are, again, of a snowy wooded area, which at first glance appears to have no particular subject… or is that a human figure standing in the distance at 1:48?
Next jump cut appears to be a winding country road, with a rather friendly dog running around, sniffing the snow and at one point perking his ears up at a sound off in the woods, just as the camera pans over to find…nothing.
Next is an important clue. At about the 2:19 mark, we see a long shot of a light blue 1968 Ford F250 pickup truck with the hood up. It looks like the person checking under the hood is the same individual that appeared earlier in the wood chopping scene. Unfortunately, the distance from the camera again makes gender determination difficult; however, as the person looks up at the camera, ending the clip with a shrug of the shoulders, there does appear to be a left breast visible. This is the best indication we have throughout the rest of the evidence to determine this person’s gender. Therefore, from here on out we will simply refer to this individual in the feminine. (By the way, notice the same dog in the lower right hand corner?)
In the next shot, the woman’s apparently gotten the truck working, because it’s barreling down another country road. Now, there is no way to tell a few things for certain, like that the woman is indeed behind the wheel, or that the next few sequences even happen right after another. In fact, the only thing we know for certain is that at one point, the person filming the woodland scenery catches a fleeting glimpse of himself in the side mirror’s reflection… and he’s a young boy. Could it be one of the same boys snowmobiling at the beginning of the film?
We also get a clear glimpse of the type of camera he’s using, and we know now without a doubt it is in fact an 8mm film camera (which rules out the possibility that the footage was shot with a modern video camera and made to look like old film footage with the use of video filters).
Suddenly, the camera appears to catch something (an animal?) moving on the side of the road. The door of the truck can be seen swinging open at precisely 2:40, and the passenger (the same boy?) appears to jump out and run after the beast.
Here’s where things get interesting.
If you look at the frames between 2:39 and 2:41, the creature appears to have some simian characteristics to it’s movement. Here are the three best screen captures I could get.
Then, for a few moments, it appears that the camera person has lost his quarry. There’s just some eerie few seconds of nothing but barren woods.
What happens next is spine-chilling, to say the least.
At exactly 3:08 there is a jump cut. Several yards directly in front of the camera, crouching low, is this… thing. Then, it gets up off its haunches, AND CHARGES DIRECTLY AT THE CAMERAMAN!
Realizing they’re in trouble, the cameraman just starts running for his life! Within seconds, the creature is on him. The last image we see is a flash in extreme close-up of canine-like teeth, right before the camera drops to the ground as the film continues to run out…
*OK, if you’re not creeped out by now, just wait until we get to the shocking NEW footage that just surfaced over the weekend! A word of warning, it is not for the squeamish.
TO BE CONTINUED…
TOMORROW: PART 3 OF THE GABLE FILM MYSTERY!
