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Our Most Anticipated Zombie Games

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Zombies. Everybody loved them until games developers started dropping their rotten asses onto all the video games in an attempt to cash in on their enormous popularity. As their numbers swelled, so did their haters. The slow, wobbly march of the undead hordes has slowed down somewhat since then, leaving us with an acceptable number of new games to look forward to over the next two years.

I’ve been working to break down the fairly intimidating slate of upcoming horror games that are the most deserving of your anticipation into themed listicles, so this is more of that. Alright, let’s go!

OUR MOST ANTICIPATED HORROR GAMES:
Crowdfunded | Science Fiction | Lovecraftian | Virtual Reality

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Season 3 of Telltale’s acclaimed episode series based on The Walking Dead promises to be more of the same — but in a good way — when it arrives later this year. After the mostly solid appetizer course that was Michonne mini-series, we’re more than ready to reunite with Clem and Co. for another round of post-apocalyptic people watching.

Why We’re Excited: The first and second seasons were frighteningly consistent in their ability to make us laugh, cry, or quickly switch to something less emotionally draining, so we’re confident Telltale will deliver another dose of drama with the third season.

Release Date: Fall 2016 (PC, PS3, PS4, 360, XBO, Mobile)

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E3 2016 was really good to fans of the zombie genre. Like, it revealed enough new titles starring walking corpses that I had to update my list to include games like Dead Rising 4 and a handful of others we’ll be going over below. And this time, we’re returning to where it all began — a Christmasy Willamette, Colorado — because Frank West demanded it. Yeah, he’s back, too.

Why We’re Excited: Because Dead Rising is one of a select few zombie-themed video game franchises that’s not afraid to get silly, for better or for worse.

Release Date: A December 6, 2016 release was leaked, but it’s unconfirmed. (PC, XBO)

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The PlayStation 4-exclusive open-world horror game Days Gone is another gift from E3 2016, where it had an enormously impressive showing that included a live demonstration in which a lone biker takes on a swarm of infected like a badass, right up until the point where he gets overwhelmed by the seemingly endless horde.

Why We’re Excited: Because it’s a blockbuster action horror game that blends The Last of Us, “Sons of Anarchy”, and the World War Z movie

Release Date: Fall 2016 (PS4)

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As far as sequels go, Killing Floor 2 is one of the few that goes above and beyond in its sequel duties in just about every area. It’s a stellar shooter that looks fantastic and takes its gore seriously. It also sports some satisfyingly visceral gunplay, a solid character customization system and access to an endless stream of user-created content, courtesy of Steam Workshop. This game is an easy one to recommend despite being unfinished, and that’s something I’m not quite ready to say about the other Early Access zombie games, including Moving Hazard, DayZ and H1Z1.

Why We’re Excited: I’ve actually played this one, so my excitement for it is based on 33+ hours of experience, rather than, say, the hundreds of hours I’ve spent dreamily wondering what a Resident Evil 2 remake might look like.

Release Date: It’s out now on Steam Early Access, but a console release is expected this year.

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That’s right. Capcom finally announced Resident Evil 7 at E3 2016, and it’s heavily inspired by Kojima’s brilliant P.T. demo for his cancelled Silent Hills game, so it looks nothing like any other game in the series. You can learn more about it over here.

Why We’re Excited: It won’t have a single QTE — not even one. Hallelujah.

Release Date: January 24, 2017 (PC, PS4, XBO)

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I think I’ve adequately covered Overkill’s The Walking Dead game, as well as my anticipation for it, in these lists. We have yet to actually see the game in action, and that’s not likely to change until we’re a little closer to its late 2017 release date. We know it’s a standalone story set in the Walking Dead universe, and that it’ll feature a cooperative multiplayer mode similar to Payday 2. We also shouldn’t confuse it for Overkill’s The Walking Dead VR, which is it’s own thing.

Why We’re Excited: Series creator Robert Kirkman seems super pumped about the game, which he once referred to as the “Walking Dead co-op action game fans have been waiting for.” Surely he wouldn’t lead us astray?

Release Date: Fall 2017 (PC, PS4, XBO)

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Jeff Strain, co-founder of State of Decay 2 developer Undead Labs, says the highly anticipated sequel will be “a bigger, badder, bolder, smoother State of Decay that you could play with your friends.” The incredible success of the original game has made the series a high priority for its publisher Microsoft, so I imagine it’ll deliver on all fronts. Fingers crossed.

Why We’re Excited: Undead Labs hit it out of the park with the first State of Decay, and its sequel looks like a worthy follow-up.

Release Date: TBA 2017 (PC, XBO)

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This footage may no longer represent the actual game.

When I stare longingly into the Dead Island 2 screenshots I keep in a very special place on my MacBook — i.e. next to the por- actually, forget it, no one downloads porn in 2016 — I see a game that wants to bring us the best of California (the lovely weather, ocean views), sans the less-appealing bits, like kale chips or the state’s propensity for seemingly sentient wildfires. Now that I think about it, knowing the longer I stay within state lines increases my chances of getting caught inside a blazing inferno might actually benefit this game.

Why We’re Excited: This kind of depends on what’s been changed since Deep Silver replaced its original developer, Yager, with Crackdown 3 maker Sumo Digital — but you can bet it’ll have satisfying combat, addictive co-op and a shitload of zombies.

Release Date: TBA 2017 (PC, PS4, XBO)

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Capcom delighted everyone when they announced their plans to remake the beloved survival horror classic that is Resident Evil 2, so we can all move on to the next items on our list, starting with more Dino Crisis, another Outbreak, and something, anything, that stars the Merchant from Resident Evil 4.

Why We’re Exci-For real? It’s a remake of Resident Evil 2. That’s Resident Evil, followed by a 2. Nothing more needs to be said.

Release Date: A long fucking time from now (PC, PS4, XBO)

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Dying Light 2, and Left 4 Dead 3. We want ’em something fierce, but it’ll likely be a while before we get them. Neither has been officially announced, and that’s okay. They’re still worth mentioning in a list about our most anticipated zombie games. Hell, I’ll even throw the non-conforming zombie game Dead Space 4 in there too. I could probably come up with a few more if I wanted to make myself sad. I don’t though, so let’s wrap this up.

Why We’re Excited:

Release Date: Don’t bother. (That they’ll each make the current console generation is about the best we can hope for until their respective publishers throw us a bone.)

OUR MOST ANTICIPATED HORROR GAMES:
Crowdfunded | Science Fiction | Lovecraftian | Virtual Reality

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Editorials

‘The Fog’ 19 Years Later: There’s a Reason You Don’t Remember This John Carpenter Remake

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The Fog remake
Pictured: 'The Fog' (2005)

John Carpenter’s illustrious catalog of horror and non-horror classics has already seen three remakes (Halloween, Assault on Precinct 13, and this column’s focus), with at least one more kinda-sorta confirmed on the way (Escape from New York). If you consider 2011’s The Thing enough of a remake, notch another on the bedpost. It makes sense; Carpenter turned his no-bullshit attitude into a masterful filmmaking style, and those listed titles harbor nostalgic admiration. We’re probably closer than we think to seeing Bryan Fuller’s Christine remake for Blumhouse or a contemporary They Live, while Dwayne Johnson’s Big Trouble in Little China sequel project fades away. Imagine Julia Ducournau’s Christine should Fuller exit, or what about if James Gunn booked a brief horror vacation away from the DCEU for his take on They Live?

Carpenter’s brand of down-and-dirty storytelling mixed with societal commentaries make his works perfect for generational updates, but they can’t all be winners.

Take 2005’s woefully tragic The Fog, for example.

Rupert Wainwright’s disastrously shallow remake lacks the finesse of even a crusty barnacle attached to the underbelly of Carpenter’s original. During a period of horror cinema inundated by remakes, The Fog asserts itself as one of the worst. The 2000s had a very “show, don’t tell” approach to horror filmmaking and leaned on grisly violence popularized by Saw, all exploited in their lowest forms throughout The Fog. Bless both Carpenter and the late Debra Hill for serving as producers, but Wainwright and writer Cooper Layne do their salty source shanty zero justice.


The Approach

‘The Fog’ (1980)

Carpenter’s The Fog is successful because of the auteur’s influence. Between his stronger emphasis on churchly greed, eerie musical score, and abilities as a simplistic yet impactful visionary, viewers get plenty of “bang for their buck” in 90 minutes. Wainwright doesn’t possess those qualities and relies on archaic horror templates without any investment. In an era where computer graphics were still advancing, and some producers only valued horror as gory inserts within a lax narrative, Wainwright’s direction equates to background noise. There’s nothing spectacular or signature about the filmmaker’s approach, as recyclable as the plethora of 2000s horror films plagued by the same churned-out doldrums.

Smallville heartthrob Tom Welling follows in the footsteps of fellow WB/CW stars like Supernatural’s Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki to shepherd his own horror remake, playing Tom Atkins’ role of fisherman Nick Castle. He’s a descendant of Norman Castle, one of the founding fathers of Antonio Island, which is located off the Oregon coast. It’s been over 100 years since the island’s bustling Antonio Bay community was established, and to celebrate an upcoming anniversary, a statue is commissioned that displays its founders as a dedication to their contributions. Mayor Tom Malone (Kenneth Welsh) wants everything to be perfect, but little does he know Antonio Bay is about to have an undead problem to confront when a mysterious fog rolls in thick as sauna steam.

The bones of The Fog are all there, but both needlessly overcomplicated and disparagingly unkempt. Carpenter introduces his film with an eerie ghost story told around a campfire that becomes a grave truth for Antonio Bay — Layne’s remake screenplay does backflips to try and explain the unexplainable. Nick’s charter fishing vessel unleashes the curse when second-mate Spooner (DeRay Davis) rips open a burlap bag concealing curse items with the boat’s anchor because the film doesn’t trust audience comprehension past any viewer’s eyesight. One of the biggest scourges upon 2000s horror cinema was creators believing their audiences were as dumb as algae-covered rocks, causing them to spell the obvious out in even more blatant and less captivating methods.


Does It Work?

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‘The Fog’ (2005)

The adjustments Wainwright oversees in 2005’s remix are a bungle of what out-of-touch producers presumed horror fans wanted to see at the time. Carpenter’s quaint coastal atmosphere is eradicated by Spooner’s Girls Gone Wild behavior or the need to belabor flashbacks that lay out every grim detail about Captain Blake (Rade Šerbedžija) and his lepers. Antonio Island’s tainted history is still prevalent as a driving force behind the weather-based haunting, but where Carpenter leaves us to imagine the atrocities founding fathers committed, Wainwright and Layne lean on time jumps that detract from overall moods for cheap betrayal thrills. The remake retains less reflection, whereas Carpenter’s original better depicts a town reckoning with its horrifying heritage — an example of hollow vengeance versus frightening introspection.

Maggie Grace co-stars in Jamie Lee Curtis’ hitchhiker role, except she’s no longer affable nomad Elizabeth Solley; she’s Kathy Williams’ (Sara Botsford) daughter, Elizabeth Williams. Her ties to Antonio Bay are supposed to represent how we can’t escape our fates, fair enough. What’s unfortunate is Layne’s need to shoehorn relationship drama because she’s (apparently) the love of Nick’s life despite his handful of hookups with KAB radio DJ Stevie Wayne (Selma Blair) while Elizabeth fled her hometown for six months — a love triangle situation that adds no special sauce and is practically forgotten. Carpenter is fantastic when letting his characters exist without bogging their arcs with fifty reasons why they’re exactly where they are in any given scene. Wainwright is no mimic, nor does his film’s desire to tangle characters together as friends, lovers, or family members add further intrigue. If anything, it adversely tanks character development because there’s no resident we intimately care about.

Which brings us to the “fog” of it all. Carpenter’s maggot-ridden swashbucklers from the deep are memorable and creepy, while Wainwright pulls his haunted visuals from a grab-bag. Sometimes, they’re atrocious see-through animations made of mist — other times, indiscriminately human entities. One victim contracts leprosy as his punishment, another fried to ash upon touch, and yet another is dragged underwater by invisible hands — there’s zero continuity to Wainwright’s justifiably antagonistic forces. They become a Mad Libs gaggle of props fitting whatever scare-of-the-hour The Fog decides is necessary at that moment, none of which ever collaborate in unison. That includes Captain Blake’s parting climax, in which he abandons his group’s attack on Antonio Bay because he claims Elizabeth as his ghost wife after it’s clear she’s the spitting image of Blake’s 1870s lover [insert seventy thousand question marks].


The Result

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‘The Fog’ (2005)

The Fog remake is everything I despise about thoughtless horror outputs rolled into a briny clump of seaweed and misbegotten reinventions. It’s hardly scary, unable to let audiences invest in atmospheric spookiness, and so wildly incompetent. Each scene gets progressively worse, starting with the reveal of evil personal belongings stamped with identifiable “Hallmarks” that become pieces of a puzzle that never gets finished. Carpenter makes you feel the offshore breeze rolling in with his fog, sending chills up your spine as these scurvy-soaked scoundrels start stabbing and hooking Antonio Bay residents. Wainwright doesn’t ever grasp what his iteration of Blake’s demons should look like or how they should cause havoc, so he starts throwing basic horror visuals at the screen out of desperation.

Revolution Studios’ The Fog downgrade sinks thanks to primarily messy effects, hampered by the early millennium’s digital capabilities. That’s not exclusive to awful ghost illustrations that look like someone just decreased the “Transparency” slider in Photoshop. The fog, the TITULAR FOG, doesn’t even hold up to Demon Wind standards (in which the wind is essentially fog, roll with it). Wainwright and his team brainstorm ideas that sound rad on paper — an older woman gets barbecued, a ghost outline appears in fog like Imhotep’s sandstorm face, a younger woman is attacked by seaweed — but execution almost exclusively whiffs. The remake’s drunkard generalization of Father Malone (which is such a slap in the face to Hal Holbrook’s fantastic original performance) should meet an epic death when Captain Blake levitates glass shards as a containment circle, but three pieces fly through Malone’s body, and it’s over. That’s the level of SFX disappointment that festers throughout 2005’s The Fog, all buildup with no reward.

The film’s finale feels like a prank; the rest of the conflict’s resolution is lost at sea. Carpenter’s much heavier scolds against organized religion’s dirty dealings help give his film an identity down to the glimmering golden cross, while Wainwright goes as generic as they come and abandons ship when the well runs dry. Nothing justifies the kind of conceptual excitement that comes along with worthwhile remakes, whether that’s copycat role replications (I love Selma Blair, but her Stevie doesn’t match Adrienne Barbeau’s presence) or storytelling reductions that choose numbing violence over folkloric sensations of dread. We love a horror movie that’s critical of early America’s disgusting colonization tactics, but The Fog doesn’t know how to turn those frustrations into a compelling genre production. Whatever’s kept from the original holds no candle to Carpenter’s version, and whatever’s added — like Nick and Elizabeth’s awkward shower sex scene set to softcore porno music — brings nothing of value.


The Lesson

‘The Fog’ (2005)

Just because your remake starts with a banger like Fall Out Boy’s “Sugar, We’re Going Down Swinging” doesn’t mean the film itself is a banger. There’s no world where I’d recommend Wainwright’s The Fog over Carpenter’s titanically superior original, and I say that as a leading Aughts horror remake champion. It’s another Nu-Horror approach that strips away commentary crucial to the plot’s intrigue since all Layne musters is a non-creepy and waterlogged story that feels like an unwieldy CW episode — not meant as a compliment. Not even the chiseled beauty of an early 2000s Tom Welling in a wool turtleneck can save this travesty from becoming another forgotten wreck.

So what did we learn?

● Not all CW figureheads have a hit horror remake in their blood.

● Less is so often more when it comes to horror movies, as long as you’re selling scares and confidently telling a story within your means.

● Some movies from the 2000s horror era will always suffer thanks to dodgy digital effects because while it was the shiny new toy everyone wanted to play with, golly, the technology was rough to start.

● Horror fans can be easy to please, but they’re also first to call out your bullshit — get out of here with these ghosts and their inability to pick a lane.

Wainwright’s film never knows what kind of horror movie it wants to be, and that’s the kill shot. Is it a slasher flick? Zombie movie? A large-scale haunted house blueprint? There’s never any indication that Wainwright or his screenwriter conceptualize a path forward, so they barrel on, praying there’s enough horror familiarity to appease the masses. There isn’t, it’s a boneheaded slog, and that’s that. Horror fans deserve better than to be fed the equivalent of table scraps for 100 minutes. To each their own and all, but now that I’ve finally seen 2005’s The Fog, the only times I’ll think about this movie again will be if someone interacts with my Letterboxd post.

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