My Chemical Romance (MCR) has decided to light my emo heart on fire once again by releasing “A summoning…” The short film is 13 minutes and 19 seconds long and cryptic in the same insane manner as Twenty One Pilots’ and BTS’ videos, creating a mystery for the fans to solve.
The video starts with a zoomed-in shot of black Converse being laced up. The person gulps and stands, walking past a white guitar. It’s Pansy, a clone of the guitar that was burned during the Life on the Murder Scene era. The camera pans over a desk covered with vinyl and a quill pen well. The camera pans to a corkboard with some of Gerard Way’s sketches, Mikey Way’s photographs, and some other paper scraps; the centerpiece being a spooky eye.
The young man* wearing the shoes walks into the kitchen, grabbing a coffee mug labeled “NJ Dept. Of Corrections.” (MCR is from New Jersey.) He brews the pot and then looks through some clothes. The first is the jacket Gerard wore during the band’s “Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys” album era, the next is a black jacket with golden buttons, looking like a shirt from the bands “The Black Parade” album era.
The man grabs a black hooded cape and tares duct tape with his teeth. He tapes off the windows with black trash bags. The camera pans over a gas mask which is a symbol with triple meaning for fans, as it is the same one used in all three of Gerard’s comics. The man puts on the vinyl of MCR’s debut album, “I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love.” He then proceeds to light candles around photographs of the band member’s families.
He walks with another candle and sits it on the floor. There is a pentagram in tape with an MCR album in each corner with an ouija board in front of him. The camera focuses on his obscured face as his hands move the placet, blocking the question from the camera’s view. The TV erupts with static, rapidly flashing five tarot symbols:
- The candle
- The sun
- The hand with a match
- The blood drop
- And a never before seen logo. Which I assume is this new album’s logo. Correction, members of the witchcraft community in the comments have said that it’s actually a sigle symbolizing MCR. I’m still trying to verify this.
The camera drops to the ouija board. Moving from around the O area over to spell out “R-U-N” as the front door is hit with loud knocking. The man looks through the peephole and sees three Draculoids from Danger Days.
The camera pans over a key ring labeled “Hotel Bella Muerte Room 512”. Which is a reference to the song “The Jetset Life Is Gonna Kill You” off their album, “Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge.” The 512, however, is new. The only thing I could think of is that 5-8-12 was the last day they performed live. Or maybe it’s the release date of this new album, May 12 2020?
The man sprints into a red door with the candle on it. He runs into a bar with green and purple lights, the helmet from “The Ghost of You” music video sits above the bar, it is clear that this bar is representing the album, “I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love”. First room, first album, and all the references are from this era. (The song lyrics in the graphey, the posters, etc.) The patrons are drunk and watching the “The Ghost of You” music video.
Suddenly, a woman is sucking the arm of another woman and the camera flashes a man’s vampire fangs.
The three Draculoids reappear, the man runs through another red door. This one with the blood drop. The music is a slowed-down version of “Helena,” and the church this man has entered looks identical to the one from the “Helena” music video. He picks up a flyer for Helena’s funeral. We see the blood-splattered couple for the album cover of “Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge” being married. They look back at the door, Helena stands, doing her dance.
The three Draculoids reappear, the man runs behind a curtain. He lights a match. (The matchbox is another song reference, labeled “Fire at Will.”) He steps out of a coffin, and into the hospital from “The Black Parade” where we see The Patient’s bed from the music video. Something is under the sheets. The man pulls them and the heart monitor stops. Showing 5-18-12. This is the events of TBP being shown from the other side. The three Draculoids burst through a red door with the hand and match. Our man hides and then sprints away as they follow.
A red door with the sun appears he runs through. Suddenly he falls out of the passenger side of the “Danger Days” Trans A.M. [I screamed.] It speeds off while blaring Dr. Death-Defying’s iconic radio transmission. The car circles back, almost running the man over. He walks past the mallets from the “I’m Not Okay” music video. The Draculoids march forward, the man runs into a red door with the moon symbol. A nuke explodes like the beginning of the Danger Days comics.
The man is lying in the middle of a circle of candles as five cloaked figures stand around him. It fades to black and the music becomes hopeful as he walks into the gymnasium from “Teenagers,” the door is black with the new logo. He follows a path of candles as he’s suddenly in a stadium. The pentagram and ouija board is back, it says “Yes”. The man looks up and smiles, the lights turn on to reveal, “FORUM” the symbol appears and city names fade in and out.
At the very end, we see the skeleton with the ex band member Bob’s TBP jacket and the dead Draculoids.
*I assume he, the nameless character, is a man. However Gerard Way is genderfluid and if this character is a representation of them, then it is reasonable to assume the character is he/them. In a 2014 Reddit thread when asked about gender Gerard had said, “I have always been extremely sensitive to those that have gender identity issues as I feel like I have gone through it as well, if even on a smaller scale. I have always identified a fair amount with the female gender, and began at a certain point in MCR to express this through my look and performance style. So it’s no surprise that all of my inspirations and style influences were pushing gender boundaries. Freddy [sic] Mercury, Bowie, Iggy, early glam, T-Rex. Masculinity to me has always made me feel like it wasn’t right for me.”
LeAnne McPherson
Multimedia Specialist & Reporter