Chrono Compendium
Zenan Plains - Site Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Zipp Dementia on March 03, 2009, 06:39:55 am
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New article by me in resolution magazine:
http://www.resolution-magazine.co.uk/issue4/feature_gameoverforsurvivalhorror.htm
Discuss?
Just throwing out a link & asking people to discuss it does not a good thread make (plus, there's a thread already about w/e random links you can share & talk about (http://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php/topic,3151.0.html)).
~V_Translanka
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Q: "Is Horror dead?"
A: "No, but it is pretty fucking close".
Has there been a single good horror flick in recent years? I can't think of a single one. They all depend on shock value thrills that have no substance whatsover to them. The second time you watch it it isn't scary because the suspense is gone. And now there is that new trailer for some horror movie about a haunted house. "OH noes there's ghosts in our house!" "I hope they don't try to scare us in super cliche ways!". Laame.
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Resident Evil 4 did a great job IMO, at least with those spiky, weird-breathing black humanoid things. I was effing scared of those because I knew I had a good chance of dying whenever one popped up. The element of interaction in videogames makes them more capable of invoking fear than movies; only as a player affected by what's in the game do you reel personally threatened by what could possibly be around the next corner.
I don't know about anyone else, but I find videogame scenarios in which the player is being chased by dogs absolutely terrifying (in an exhilerating way). I got freaking chills up my spine in Castlevania 64 and it still got me in Resident Evil 4, years later.
Jeez, if they'd just make a 3rd person DOOM game already, with a strong storyline and lots of suspense. And great music. Maybe some demon-possessed dogs thrown into the dark corridors of the Martian settlement...I'd totally dig it.
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Horror shouldn't have opened the closet door.
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I siding with eric on this one, is horror dead? close. I can name some games and movies that are good examples of the genre but they are few and far between.
The Scariest Games and Movies of all time are:
Games
- Alone in the Dark(original)
- Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth.
- Silent Hill 2
Shows:
- Tideland
- Aliens
- Paranoia Agent
I like to make a special comment of Paranoia Agent, because out of all those it was the only one to actually scare me, not a small jump. It was blood pumping and worrying about "what if..." that was a hellishly good show. I think it being an series gave it a great advantage.
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Is horror dead?
Let me answer that by telling you something about myself:
I regard horror movies as a subcategory of comedy.
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Is horror dead?
Let me answer that by telling you something about myself:
I regard horror movies as a subcategory of comedy.
Yeah, I have to agree. I have a HARD time getting into horror movies or thrillers or what have you. To quote the great comedian Pablo Francisco, "Those kids just love to die." The original Omen with Gregory Peck was scary to me.
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Awake seemed kinda scary to me from the trailers.
Course I never saw it and I think it was only because (perfect timing, damn fate f*cking a)right around the same time those trailers started playing, I had to go into a very similar situation. I had calmed myself by telling myself repeatedly "You're gonna be asleep it's okay" then this goddamn trailer pops up, I research it cause I don't want to believe. "SUNNUVABITCH!"
I can't think of too much else that i find scary. I tend to avoid what is the "scary" stuff nowadays since they don't actually scare you anymore. They have it be dead silent, jump up and be extremely loud. I don't even jump anymore from it. I stand up and start cursing profusely (even in theaters) about how that's a cheap attempt at a scare and that all that's gonna do is make me mad.
More recently? Nothing comes to mind except Dead Space(played it around midnight by myself, not a good idea) and what KebreI brought up. That and one old thing I remember seeing on Adult Swim. Bunch of kids in some area being chased down and they were talking like it was just a game but they were all getting killed. Messed up version of Hide and Seek. I can't remember what it was though. And even then it was only kinda scary. I think it was a little more recent, I could be wrong. Still wonder what it was.
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It creates emphasis by having asymmetrical themes...I think in order to get fear, horror has to be (or try to be) real and real is just fundamentally funny, so...
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Looked it up, found it.
Kakurenbo: Hide and Seek. Aired around Halloween 2005 so yeah, it's more recent and counts. That was scary Not a lot but still, horror isn't 100% dead yet. I'd say more like 78-79%.
I believe though that horror still has some kick to it.
One thing i know would work is if they'd do what they said they'd do. Remake Stephen King's IT.
There was going to be a remake for 2008 but as we can see they either postponed or cancelled it.
What's scarier than the thing that can become whatever you fear the most?
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How about a far too accurate adaptation of IT with the child-on-child madness in the end that made me rethink Stephen King every time he wrote a kid into one of his books (which, if you keep track ends up being almost as many of his characters as writers!).
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Q: "Is Horror dead?"
A: "No, but it is pretty fucking close".
Has there been a single good horror flick in recent years? I can't think of a single one. They all depend on shock value thrills that have no substance whatsover to them. The second time you watch it it isn't scary because the suspense is gone. And now there is that new trailer for some horror movie about a haunted house. "OH noes there's ghosts in our house!" "I hope they don't try to scare us in super cliche ways!". Laame.
Cabin Fever was good.
New article by me in resolution magazine:
http://www.resolution-magazine.co.uk/issue4/feature_gameoverforsurvivalhorror.htm
Discuss?
Just throwing out a link & asking people to discuss it does not a good thread make (plus, there's a thread already about w/e random links you can share & talk about (http://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php/topic,3151.0.html)).
~V_Translanka
Dead Space was pretty fucking scary, so is the Fatal Frame series. Left 4 Dead will have a survival mode in the update.
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Most people I know hated Cabin Fever, but I liked it. Then again, Starship Troopers is one of my favourite movies. I don't think my opinion really holds much water here.
Horror isn't dead, the public masses have just been desensitized to it.
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Was Cabin Fever the one where the dead guy falls into their water source & then hijinks ensue? If so then lameness.
I think Starship Troopers got a pass from me because Denise Richards was hot...and didn't Neil Patrick Harris do something awesome for one of the Starship Trooper movies? Anyways, I hear the books are pretty good...>_>
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The Starship Troopers movies are all utter crap. The Book(singular) is one of the books that I think should be read in all English schools.
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The Starship Troopers movies are all utter crap. The Book(singular) is one of the books that I think should be read in all English schools.
What makes it utter crap? I didn't like the second as much as the first, and I haven't watched the third yet, but the first is still a great movie to me. Why does everyone else not like it?
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It just hits too close to home, as if given the right mix of events and people, an entire nation could turn into a bunch of fascist warhawks.
I guess it's just the last 8 years being too fresh in my mind. Even I couldn't wait in high school for the bombs to drop after 9/11, and it's sort of embarrassing.
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It just hits too close to home, as if given the right mix of events and people, an entire nation could turn into a bunch of fascist warhawks.
I guess it's just the last 8 years being too fresh in my mind. Even I couldn't wait in high school for the bombs to drop after 9/11, and it's sort of embarrassing.
The movie as I got it delivered two points -- our fascination with hyperviolence as a country(mostly, but also as humans per se), and power of nationalism -- repeatedly throughout history. I mean the 'bugs' were clearly a metaphor for how the subjects of nationalism treat those deemed "undesirable". So really, the fact that it hits close to home is a good thing. It's done its job, even if it's not ultimately 'funny'.
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Yeah. In that case, it's a success.
To quote GrayLensman, you just have to cringe when all your buddies think it's a great war movie...
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Cabin Fever was turrible. Oh man I laughed so hard during that movie. Cape Fear on the other hand...I still shudder when I think of DeNiro turning around as the maid...
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These things come in cycles, and it's very apparent in movies.
Things go from being serious and imaginative, to spoofing themselves, then trying to be serious again but the viewers are still stuck in spoof stage and it fails, then something cutting edge comes along and becomes a hit, then countless others try to emulate that, with few being actually good, then we're back into another shit era again.
If you look at movies, back in the late 70 and early 80s everything was imaginative and many films weren't afraid to try something ridiculous. You got your Star Wars, Child's Play, Labyrinth, Princess Bride, and so on from there. Then in the late 80s and early 90s it became all about the blockbusters. Big action flicks, grand special effects breakthroughs, heart pounding, edge of your seat, and so on. Towards the late 90s, the blockbusters started to get incredibly unoriginal, and seemed to parody themselves with nothing but lame sequels, and even lamer original concepts.
Here in the first decade of the 21st century, we're in an adaptation and remake phase. Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Transformers, Friday the 13th, King Kong, Twilight, Spiderman, The Dark Knight, and so on. Taking the books that are popular now, and the franchises that were popular in the 80s and expanding them to the big screen.
So yeah, things will always change, sometimes going in cycles. 10 years down the line horror films may make a breakthrough in style that someone who doesn't like today's horror might like.
As far as the games go... Fatal Frame 2 is one of the few horror games I've ever played through, and I thought it was fantastic. As long as they still try for things like that, it won't die out.
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New article by me in resolution magazine:
http://www.resolution-magazine.co.uk/issue4/feature_gameoverforsurvivalhorror.htm
Interesting article, but I think you got it wrong on a lot of accounts. Your various analysis would indeed make for a better-than-most horror game, but it wouldn't produce a Great-Horror experience.
This is because you largely overlooked the single most important element of creating a horror story that touches a reader/viewer/gamer and leaves a lasting mark; the story.
And story should mean “characters,” if it is a good story.
Horror has to be "real." Not in the sense that the Queen of England is real but as a grocery store clerk or a toilet is real. What drives the story (aka, the "monster") can be totally unreal, even ridiculous and hilarious, but good horror has to place the viewer inside the story and it must not let them totally escape at the end. The characters have to be one that we could imagine meeting (indeed, that we could imagine being). Creating a creepy environment and tense moments can add to the “horror” effect, but those are transitory experiences that come and go quite quickly. The tensest moment I can recall in a video game was fighting Phantom in Devil May Cry for the first time. There was no horror there, there wasn’t really even much of an attempt at horror. So I’d generally claim that tense situations do not equal horror (they can help, of course, but one should keep one’s eye on the thing itself, not the paraphernalia).
One of the great short comings of many horror projects is the utter lack of a viewer/protagonist connection. In horror films, we know we are supposed to "root" for the people attempting to survive, but we are almost never given a reason to give a flying rat's ass as to if they live or die. Indeed, often enough we are given reasons to hate or dislike them (the “revenge” motif that a lot of horror villains have going for them). If the viewer doesn't deeply care about the characters, then the viewer can't connect with them, and so we, the viewers, can't become them and feel the fear that they feel.
You mention the need of a good story and characters, but you glossed over that. All the tense moments, atmospheric effects, sounds, graphic, controls, and camera angles in the world cannot make up for a bad story and poor character development. While on the other hand, a good story and brilliant characters can make up for any other shortcoming.
Only when a game, movie, or book makes us feel as if we were the characters (or if the characters are people we truly known and care about), is real, good horror even possible. If you consider how rare stories and characters like that are, you might start to realize that horror isn’t dying; it is just that there never have been all that many instances of good horror.
Characters are first.
The second element is, of course, that the situation (aka, the story) has to have an element that would make us afraid. You are quite right in that the less we see the more afraid we are. But you didn’t go on to suppose why that was. We aren’t afraid of the unseen, we are afraid of the unknown. It is as H.P. Lovecraft said:
“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”
What might be around the corner is always more terrifying than what is around the corner. But on a larger scale, when facing the unknown, we also don’t know what will happen to us. The sort of horror that will make a person change their behavior because of the story (even knowing that the story wasn’t real) is a horror that pits us against the unknown to unknowable (and uncontrollable) results.
Good horror is humanity looking into the great unknown and realizing that everything we do will not be enough to control it (or even ourselves). People are afraid of being buried alive not because they are afraid of small spaces (though sometimes that is the case), or because they can’t get out. Rather, it is because, no matter what they do, it won’t have an effect, and especially the effect they desire; the unknown will happen, and there is nothing we can do about it. They are not in control.
That being said, there are two things that come to mind as examples of noteworthy horror (both, I would argue, have above average character development and splendidly horrific plots): The Empty Child and Blink (both are Doctor Who Episodes).
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The Empty Child I'd have to disagree with Thought. It was a let down to me, on the other hand, how on Earth could I forget Blink. I also must say Lovecraft was the only horror writer I ever liked, Shadow Over Innsmouth being a long time favorite.
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Jason/Friday the 13th: Come on, this guy doesn't have any superpowers except he keeps coming back to life and making more movies. Sure, he's pretty big, but it's not like he has laser eyes or something. If those damn kids went on a manhunt instead of huddling in a corner like bunnies all the time, it wouldn't be such a big deal! Speaking of coming back to life, I was thoroughly disappointed with the ending of the latest movie. They had an excellent opportunity to (and it even looks like they are going to) destroy the body, but they just choke him to death instead and dump his body in the lake, which proves its stupidity a few seconds later.
Saw: Okay, okay there might be some ridiculously grotesque solutions to his traps, but the real meat of these movies occurs when you get out of the traps and enter his maze. If it was me, I'd be like Link or something in the Old Zelda for NES. That's why this had no effect on me.
Blair Witch Project: See above, but bring the red candle.
Wizard of Oz Series: wait WTF W of Oz is horror? Well to be honest, Return to Oz was creepy as all hell, and my mom was always scared to death of the Wicked Witch of the West when she was little. Mostly though, I put this on here to say "I'd have just spit on her" or "I'd have brought a super soaker"
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I like Thought's thoughts on the subject. The most gut/emotion-wrenching aspects of horror seem to be those that we can relate to on some lizard-brain level, in particular the feeling of being trapped. The more real the sensation, the more horrific. The inner entrapped lizard can be awakened in all kinds of ways for us humans, and when a game or movie finds a way to uniquely tap that potential within us then it is a success. I think the blood/gore is what has been overplayed with a lot of horror, along with some other themes that just seem forced anymore. That's why a lot of it seems laughable these days.
I really like the movie Jacob's Ladder. It contains quite a bit of disturbing imagery like mutilated bodies and blood, but the real horror sensation comes from the fact that the protagonist is trapped in this horrific dimension of sorts, and he doesn't (you don't) know where this place is or if he (you) can get out. But, you really want (him) to figure it out, because if he doesn't you get the feeling you'll go insane. I felt that way the first time I watched it...
A game that I think uses the horror aspect brilliantly contrasted with the fantastic aspect is Yume Nikki, which happens to be where my avatar is from. It's an indie game that's built quite a dedicated cult following. You can find it by googling. I highly suggest using a walkthrough if you try to play it, though, unless you are a glutton for collection game punishment. There are a lot of playthrough videos of the game on youtube, but they don't really do the horror element justice because they don't really convey the feeling of being trapped that the game can generate.
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I think if you get your sites out of Hollywood, your available (good) horror options increase.
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I think if you get your sites out of Hollywood, your available (good) horror options increase.
Yeah foreign films are providing the best options for horror at the moment. I just watched "Let The Right One In" it was fucking creepy.
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Any other foreign recommendations?
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Any other foreign recommendations?
Shawn of the Dead.
Okay, not 100% horror...
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Any other foreign recommendations?
Shawn of the Dead.
Okay, not 100% horror...
Still worth a recommendation none the less. But speaking of things like that, Black Sheep? Very brutally bloody. Of course, not 100% scary.
For a pure scare trip... I dunno... I cannot think of anything at the moment, especially anything foreign since I already don't watch my own coutry's stuff, chances are outside stuff is a no(harder to find).
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Any other foreign recommendations?
Shawn of the Dead.
Okay, not 100% horror...
Horror enough! The scene where the zombies rip the guy apart outside the bar window is possibly the best zombie gore I've ever scene in a movie.
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Any other foreign recommendations?
Kind of old but I really liked Battle Royale.
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Any other foreign recommendations?
Kind of old but I really liked Battle Royale.
With Takeshi? Takishi? I dunno how to spell it...that jam is banned in the US I'm pretty sure....there are some other familiar faces in it...Zhang Ziyi, Gogo from Kill Bill. We're thinking of the same movie, right? It was AWESOME despite how horrific it is at times.
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Horror enough! The scene where the zombies rip the guy apart outside the bar window is possibly the best zombie gore I've ever scene in a movie.
28 Days Later is great in that regard as well.
Now 28 Weeks Later...that just sucked.
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Any other foreign recommendations?
Kind of old but I really liked Battle Royale.
With Takeshi? Takishi? I dunno how to spell it...that jam is banned in the US I'm pretty sure....there are some other familiar faces in it...Zhang Ziyi, Gogo from Kill Bill. We're thinking of the same movie, right? It was AWESOME despite how horrific it is at times.
That's the one. I don't think it was banned in the US, but the extreme plot of a bunch of high schoolers being forced to kill each other off is one that no production company in the US has the balls to import.
The manga made it though, and who knows, with movies like Saw and Feast pushing the R rating to its limits somebody may just grow a pair and give it a release stateside.
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Any other foreign recommendations?
Kind of old but I really liked Battle Royale.
With Takeshi? Takishi? I dunno how to spell it...that jam is banned in the US I'm pretty sure....there are some other familiar faces in it...Zhang Ziyi, Gogo from Kill Bill. We're thinking of the same movie, right? It was AWESOME despite how horrific it is at times.
That's the one. I don't think it was banned in the US, but the extreme plot of a bunch of high schoolers being forced to kill each other off is one that no production company in the US has the balls to import.
The manga made it though, and who knows, with movies like Saw and Feast pushing the R rating to its limits somebody may just grow a pair and give it a release stateside.
Yep that's it. I just downloaded it. There are several others that I am missing, but a lot of them just have gross scenes in it that I can't stomach at times.
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One of my favorite movies is a Korean thing of a few years back called Gwoemul (known most everywhere else as The Host)...It was a great monster movie that had some good comedic moments, but also the more dramatic stuff usually found in the genre...Plus, the monster shows up in like the first 15 minutes (take THAT King Kong!)...!