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Midnight Animal is the Pilot for Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number, acting as the game's tutorial introducing the player to basic mechanics. During the level, the player takes control of Martin Brown playing his part as the Pig Butcher as he plays through a media-warped recreation of the events of Hotline Miami (specifically, Decadence).

Scene[]

A credit sequence rolls for Midnight Animal, showing that the film is distributed by Galaxy Films and produced by Rouven Blankenfeld.

Screen One[]

The scene begins with the Pig Butcher, played by Martin Brown, standing outside the backdoor of a house. He is then instructed to use the door to knock down a cigarette smoking, tan teenager wearing a purple jacket and green hat. He then performs an execution on the teenager, stomping in his head by a full trash bag.

Pig Butcher walks into the main house over an already-off-its-hinges screen door, and passes both a smoke-filled kitchen containing a lit oven burner, a wine bottle tipped over in the sink, a bong and several pizza boxes, and a bathroom with green vomit in the toilet and bath tub, picking up a hammer as he does. The Pig Butcher passes a trashed study featuring an over turned desk and globe and filled with books and floppy disks. He continues past a beer pong table to encounter two teenagers in the trashed media living room talking near a fish tank with a liquor bottle in it. The first teenager attempts to charge Pig Butcher with a baseball bat, but is dispatched easily. The second attempts to escape through the front door, but inexplicably can't open it from the inside. The Pig Butcher kills him, causing a solid pink phone (the same shade as the 50 Blessings pamphlets) to ring. "She's upstairs! Go get her!" the phone shouts (indicating that society believes the phone messages Jacket alludes to in his trial are figments of his imagination).

Screen Two[]

The Pig Butcher then heads upstairs as lightning cracks. He grabs a displayed double barrel shotgun at the top of the stairs, proceeding down the hallway past yet another media living room; he unloads the shotgun into a glasses-wearing teenager casually leaning against the wall in the hallway. He passes a media-filled bedroom to enter the master bedroom, containing two attractive blonde teenagers in an embrace. The boyfriend tries to confront the Butcher, only to be quickly dealt with. Pig Butcher then turns his attention to the girlfriend.

He knocks her on the floor and begins to have his way with her. The Director appears and announces cut to cease filming of the scene. The house turns into a movie set and the clean-up crew arrives to mop up the fake blood. The Director says they will be doing re-shoots tomorrow and directs Martin Brown and the actress playing the girlfriend for tomorrow's re-shoots. He chastises them for not playing their roles archetypal enough, telling Martin Brown to be tougher and Rachael Ward to act more scared and "girly."

Credits[]

Starring:

  • Rachael Ward
  • David Bradshow
  • Roger Stephen
  • Vernon Wells
  • And Martin Brown as The Pig Butcher

Director of Photography:

  • David Connell

Music by:

  • Sean Evans

Screenplay by:

Executive Producer:

  • Uwe Kamitz

Foreshadowing Gags and Callbacks[]

Teenagers[]

Sprites[]

  • The patio is full of garbage bags that haven't been taken out, a common sight at Miami Mutilator crime scenes and Gang hideouts.
  • The green vomit in the tub foreshadows Into the Pit's acid baths.
  • The kitchen contains several red liquor bottles which Mark is seen holding in Down Under, Ambush, and Hank's bar. The red liquor bottle sprite was first used in Prank Call in the aftermath of Biker's house party.
  • The scene is "bookended" by two cartoonish and instant whole-head smushings, recalling the imagined outcomes of Neighbors and Prank Call.
  • The kitchen contains a bong and several pizza boxes, common in the Fans' hideout, Gang locations, and the Swans' apartment.
  • The downstairs study features a globe and several floppies, both references to Evan's similarly placed and decorated study. Another drug party in Moving Up also features the globe sprite.
  • The downstairs living / media room contains a large green corner couch similar to the Fans' green couch and the Son's and the Swans' large corner couches.
  • The downstairs living room contains several vinyls, similar to Biker's and the Swans' apartments.
  • All downstairs boxes contain green caps and footballs, and boxes of footballs are also present in Evan's storage room in his house.
  • A wall mounted double-barrel shotgun is wielded by the Pig Butcher on the second floor, and in the next scene's intro, Down Under, Ash can be seen inspecting a double-barrel shotgun.
  • The non-master bedroom upstairs contains an electric guitar, seen on the band stage in the Fans' hideout, and several pieces of media and tech with clothes strewn everywhere, similar to the Swans' apartment.
  • The master bedroom contains a make up table later scene in the Henchman and Mary's bedroom.
  • The upstairs bathroom has a pink bathrobe and wet foot prints, seen again in the intro to Dead Ahead as Alex takes a bath before Manny Pardo enters her apartment without her permission.
  • The master bedroom's tiled bathroom is strangely completely empty, lacking a toilet, similar to Jacket's apartment.
  • The level ends after defeating two blonde enemies separated from their friends on the top story of the house, similar to the Son fighting the Swans in Apocalypse. The Son has the exact hair and eye colors as Martin Brown in addition to this.

CUT![]

Music[]

  • "Detection" by Prey Growl plays throughout the scene.

Dialogue[]

[As the Butcher begins to have his way with the Girl, the scene turns into a movie set. The Director, Rouven Blankenfeld, is sitting behind a camera, and several crew members are cleaning up the set.]

Rouven: Cut! ... Alright, that's a wrap! Good job, people. We'll do a re-shoot tomorrow, so try to stay in character. And we're filming the scene where you carry her to your car on Thursday.

[Rouven walks onto the actual set and addresses performers Rachael Ward and Martin Brown]

Rouven: Now, for you two... Pig Man, well done... but don't be afraid to be rougher. You're supposed to be killing people! Make it look like you really hit them. And you there, Blondie. You need to work on your femininity... Act more helpless and scared... You know... More girly! Now go home and get some rest! I'll see you both tomorrow, OK?

Trivia[]

  • If you do exactly as the director says (or simply follow the tutorial exactly as intended), you'll earn the FOLLOW THE SCRIPT achievement/trophy. (see below)
  • The non-rape used in this scene to emphasize media tropes in ramping up violence ironically helped to get the game banned in Australia for lewd content.
    • After hearing about the ban, Jonatan Söderström encouraged people living in Australia who wished to play the game to pirate it, with Devolver Digital supporting his statement.
    • Ironically enough, Rachel Ward and Vernon Wells share their names with real-life Australian actors. Whilst David Bradshow shares is name one letter apart from another Australian actor, David Bradshaw.
    • As a result of the ban, players of PAYDAY 2 must provide proof of Australian Citizenship to Overkill to get the Jacket character pack. This happened until 2021, when Overkill stopped handing out the Jacket character pack in support.

Achievements[]

Gallery[]

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