Indie Spotlight: ‘Tape’ Is The Strangest Christmas Story You’ll Ever See

We receive a ton of tips every day from independent creators, unaffiliated with any major motion picture studios, television networks, new media studios, or other well-funded online video entities. The Indie Spotlight is where we’ll write about and shout out to a select few of them and bring you up to speed on the great (and sometimes not-so-great) attention-grabbing series you probably haven’t heard about until now. Read previous installments here.

Check out Tape, and I guarantee you’ll experience the most unusual Christmas tale of the year. James Andrew Fraser and Neva Tamsen‘s comedy (or at least I think it’s a comedy) depicts the bizarre goings-on among seasonal gift wrappers who work in the basement of a mall.

The brightly-colored setting of Tape is Bobienski’s Wonderbox Workshop, a community of “worker elves” who get up to all sorts of romantic, violent, and downright weird shenanigans while still on the clock. Some fun visual effects and a little bit of music help set the holiday mood and bring in a little cheer, even if it is tinged with perversion.

Fraser and Tamsen describe David Lynch as one of their influences, and his impact on Tape can be clearly seen. Like the best Lynch works, Tape aims to satirize the coziness of its setting while flummoxing and challenging its viewers. You may struggle to fully pick up what Fraser and Tamsen are putting down, but trying to figure it out is part of the fun.

OTHER UNDER-THE-RADAR SERIES TO CHECK OUT

• Kwanzaa, Actually. The traditions of a misunderstood holiday are put into the spotlight.
• Waking Up With Maggie. From India, a hotbed for web series, this show explores one-night stands in a universal manner.
• Deep End. College students made a relationship drama as part of a web series production class.

Got a series you’d like to see featured in the Indie Spotlight? Be sure to contact us here. For best coverage, please include a full episode in your e-mail.