Editorials
The 10 Most Overlooked Horror Game Tropes!
Today’s a special day. A couple weeks ago, completely out of the blue, I was sent an excellent feature by a fellow games writer named Joe Donnelly, who currently resides at Beefjack. Tropes are all too prevalent in our favorite genre, but most of the following have flown under my radar until Mr. Donnelly sought them out and brought them into the light.
Read on for the 10 most overlooked horror game tropes!
Written by Joe Donnelly, @deaco2000
Aside from the obvious biological contradictions regarding the living dead, chemistry is grossly misrepresented in horror games. How could one possibly know the ph values of mixing unlabeled chemicals to create ‘acid’? Likewise, mixing strange green, red and blue herbs doesn’t necessarily equate to a potent healing antitoxin. I should know – I tried this at a music festival once and woke up three days later naked and confused in the middle of a field.
Main offender(s): Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Resident Evil series.
Zombie stricken towns appear to have a vast shortage of lift engineers, electricians, carpenters and plumbers as there always seems to be broken down lifts, malfunctioning garage shutters, jammed or completely broken doors, and blocked toilets/baths. Those who claim the labour market is faltering are job hunting in the wrong towns.
Main offender(s): Widespread.
Keys and key objects are always found in the strangest of places. Is it too much to ask that the keys remain in the corresponding locks, the cogs stay fitted to the correct contraptions, or the unusually lightweight stone statues are left on their matching activation tiles? Whoever keeps leaving keys in the toilet pan clogged with blood and gore can cut it out, now.
Main offender(s): Widespread.
Research facilities tend to be sensitive areas, however it isn’t unusual in horror games to find ammunition strewn throughout their grounds, alongside matching heavy-duty weaponry. Likewise, you wouldn’t necessarily expect to find a load of camcorder batteries stuffed in drawers and on shelves in such establishments. And even if you did – you certainly wouldn’t expect them all to be the size you’re looking for, would you? How many times have you found yourself turning your house upside down in search of double A’s and all you can find is AAA?
Main offender(s): Outlast, Resident Evil series.
Aside from the perpetual groans of the living dead, red handled gate valves seem to cause every corresponding mechanism to chime out the same melodic cackle: three similar creaks; two slow followed by one fast. Likewise, metal gates all seem to have locks which require oil as they laboriously hark out the same squeal. We’ve already established these towns lack reliable handymen, however, so perhaps all this is of little surprise.
Main offender(s): Widespread
The viruses and otherworldly afflictions suffered in these towns appear to affect people, animals and insects in a variety of inconsistent ways. Whereas humans and dogs largely become zombified or catatonic, some creatures seem to just get bigger. Spiders, scorpions, moths, alligators and sharks grow to approximately ten times their original size. Unfortunately, if your vocation is nursing you may notice a stretch in height, followed by extreme swelling of the hands and arms, thereafter resembling giant punchbags.
Main Offender(s): Resident Evil series, Silent Hill 4: The Room.
Although saving the world from pandemic infection appears to come second nature, inanimate objects such as IKEA flatpack cupboards, or stacked canteen dinner trolleys prove too much to overcome. Often, a complete and lengthy detour is required in order to find a way round such impassable road blocks.
Main Offenders(s): The Walking Dead, Silent Hill: Downpour, Clock Tower
Crouching in a ‘stealth’ position and tippy-toeing around like a cartoon robber apparently enables invisibility. What’s more, by acting out such caricature behaviour, enemies fail to hear the quite obvious sounds of their mates being strangled to death – even those nearby who completely rely on sound. If I were to tip-toe into my local grocer, nick a loaf of bread and tip-toe back out, I’d be in jail. Probably with a black eye courtesy of an unhappy shopkeeper.
Main offender(s): The Last of Us, Dead Space series.
If Sesame Street and Blue Peter taught me one thing, it’s that arts and crafts are bloody hard work. Yet when faced with a zombie apocalypse, artistic flair appears to come to the fore. Especially with rags. And sugar. For the record I’m fairly positive that it’s impossible to craft a manhole lifter from just a wax doll, a horseshoe and a lighter.
Main offender(s): Silent Hill 2, The Last of Us.
Who in their right mind designed these places? The Spencer Mansion, the Raccoon PD HQ, the Brennenburg Castle, the Mount Massive asylum? Aside from their perplexing layouts, the land alone must have cost a fortune! And why do they all have such absurdly spacious sewer areas? These ‘storage spaces’ must undoubtedly incur unnecessary expense as far as maintenance is concerned. Not to mention the fact these areas regularly attract infestations of giant spiders and crocodiles and moths. Opting out of maintenance results in malfunctioning elevators and clogged drains and broken doors and creaky gates and red handled gate valves in need of oil.
Main offender(s): All of the above.
Having grown up in a religious family, Christian movie night was something that happened a lot more often than I care to admit. However, back when I was a teenager, my parents showed up one night with an unusually cool-looking DVD of a movie that had been recommended to them by a church leader. Curious to see what new kind of evangelical propaganda my parents had rented this time, I proceeded to watch the film with them expecting a heavy-handed snoozefest.
To my surprise, I was a few minutes in when Denzel Washington proceeded to dismember a band of cannibal raiders when I realized that this was in fact a real movie. My mom was horrified by the flick’s extreme violence and dark subject matter, but I instantly became a fan of the Hughes Brothers’ faith-based 2010 thriller, The Book of Eli. And with the film’s atomic apocalypse having apparently taken place in 2024, I think this is the perfect time to dive into why this grim parable might also be entertaining for horror fans.
Originally penned by gaming journalist and The Walking Dead: The Game co-writer Gary Whitta, the spec script for The Book of Eli was already making waves back in 2007 when it appeared on the coveted Blacklist. It wasn’t long before Columbia and Warner Bros. snatched up the rights to the project, hiring From Hell directors Albert and Allen Hughes while also garnering attention from industry heavyweights like Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman.
After a series of revisions by Anthony Peckham meant to make the story more consumer-friendly, the picture was finally released in January of 2010, with the finished film following Denzel as a mysterious wanderer making his way across a post-apocalyptic America while protecting a sacred book. Along the way, he encounters a run-down settlement controlled by Bill Carnegie (Gary Oldman), a man desperate to get his hands on Eli’s book so he can motivate his underlings to expand his empire. Unwilling to let this power fall into the wrong hands, Eli embarks on a dangerous journey that will test the limits of his faith.
SO WHY IS IT WORTH WATCHING?
Judging by the film’s box-office success, mainstream audiences appear to have enjoyed the Hughes’ bleak vision of a future where everything went wrong, but critics were left divided by the flick’s trope-heavy narrative and unapologetic religious elements. And while I’ll be the first to admit that The Book of Eli isn’t particularly subtle or original, I appreciate the film’s earnest execution of familiar ideas.
For starters, I’d like to address the religious elephant in the room, as I understand the hesitation that some folks (myself included) might have about watching something that sounds like Christian propaganda. Faith does indeed play a huge part in the narrative here, but I’d argue that the film is more about the power of stories than a specific religion. The entire point of Oldman’s character is that he needs a unifying narrative that he can take advantage of in order to manipulate others, while Eli ultimately chooses to deliver his gift to a community of scholars. In fact, the movie even makes a point of placing the Bible in between equally culturally important books like the Torah and Quran, which I think is pretty poignant for a flick inspired by exploitation cinema.
Sure, the film has its fair share of logical inconsistencies (ranging from the extent of Eli’s Daredevil superpowers to his impossibly small Braille Bible), but I think the film more than makes up for these nitpicks with a genuine passion for classic post-apocalyptic cinema. Several critics accused the film of being a knockoff of superior productions, but I’d argue that both Whitta and the Hughes knowingly crafted a loving pastiche of genre influences like Mad Max and A Boy and His Dog.
Lastly, it’s no surprise that the cast here absolutely kicks ass. Denzel plays the title role of a stoic badass perfectly (going so far as to train with Bruce Lee’s protégée in order to perform his own stunts) while Oldman effortlessly assumes a surprisingly subdued yet incredibly intimidating persona. Even Mila Kunis is remarkably charming here, though I wish the script had taken the time to develop these secondary characters a little further. And hey, did I mention that Tom Waits is in this?
AND WHAT MAKES IT HORROR ADJACENT?
Denzel’s very first interaction with another human being in this movie results in a gory fight scene culminating in a face-off against a masked brute wielding a chainsaw (which he presumably uses to butcher travelers before eating them), so I think it’s safe to say that this dog-eat-dog vision of America will likely appeal to horror fans.
From diseased cannibals to hyper-violent motorcycle gangs roaming the wasteland, there’s plenty of disturbing R-rated material here – which is even more impressive when you remember that this story revolves around the bible. And while there are a few too many references to sexual assault for my taste, even if it does make sense in-universe, the flick does a great job of immersing you in this post-nuclear nightmare.
The excessively depressing color palette and obvious green screen effects may take some viewers out of the experience, but the beat-up and lived-in sets and costume design do their best to bring this dead world to life – which might just be the scariest part of the experience.
Ultimately, I believe your enjoyment of The Book of Eli will largely depend on how willing you are to overlook some ham-fisted biblical references in order to enjoy some brutal post-apocalyptic shenanigans. And while I can’t really blame folks who’d rather not deal with that, I think it would be a shame to miss out on a genuinely engaging thrill-ride because of one minor detail.
With that in mind, I’m incredibly curious to see what Whitta and the Hughes Brothers have planned for the upcoming prequel series starring John Boyega…
There’s no understating the importance of a balanced media diet, and since bloody and disgusting entertainment isn’t exclusive to the horror genre, we’ve come up with Horror Adjacent – a recurring column where we recommend non-horror movies that horror fans might enjoy.
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