Editorials
A Horrible Night to Have a Curse: ‘Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest’ Turns 30
It’s been 30 years since Konami first released the sequel to their massive hit game, Castlevania. And yes, Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest wasn’t the follow-up that many fans were hoping for in 1987, and rightfully so. What was a simple yet addictive formula had been tweaked to incorporate elements that bore similarities to another sequel that was totally different to its predecessor: Nintendo’s Zelda II: The Adventure Of Link. It also didn’t help that the game had some significant shortcomings. Serious flaws introduced with the changes ended up frustrating players, leaving them lost or uninterested. However, in spite of this, Simon’s Quest did introduce lay the groundwork for later games in the series.
First, some background: Shortly after the original Castlevania was released on the NES, Konami released Vampire Killer aka Akumajō Dracula for the MSX2 computer in Japan and Europe. The game was essentially an enhanced version of the original game, but was a more open-ended platformer, and required the player to seek out keys in order to progress through the areas. You could also buy items from merchants. Konami took these concepts and used them in Simon’s Quest, which was originally released on the Japanese-only Famicom Disk System or FDS, but eventually made its way to North America in cartridge form.
The story for the game has Simon being afflicted with a cure placed on him by Dracula in the previous game. Simon must now collect Dracula’s body parts that were scattered by his minions after his defeat, resurrect Dracula, and kill him to break the curse. This is where the linear gameplay from the first game is replaced with an open-ended exploration of areas that involve players visiting mansions that hold body parts, which also double as items for the player to use. Along the way, Simon must also purchase items from people in various towns in order to progress. Instead of collecting whip upgrades or subweapons from candles, players must buy them from shopkeepers using hearts that they collect from defeating enemies. Hearts are also used to power some subweapons, so players must “grind” to gain enough hearts from enemies. This grinding aspect of Simon’s Quest, while tedious, is offset by the other introduced RPG element: Leveling. The player will increase in health once they reach the required amount of hearts necessary to gain a level.
Also introduced is a day/night cycle, where after five minutes of game time, the time of day shifts to night (“What a horrible night to have a curse.”) or to daytime (“The morning sun has vanquished the horrible night.”). During the night, enemies are stronger (but drop more hearts), and the townsfolk are nowhere to be seen. Keep in mind that this cycle factors into game’s ending, which depending on how long you take, can result in one of three endings. Given the amount of time players would spend in the game, Konami introduced a save system in the FDS version, and a password feature in the cartridge version.
These concepts – the non-linear gameplay, the experience system, the purchasing of items to progress, the multiple endings, a password/save feature, and even the day/night cycle – were all revisited in subsequent games, and some became staples in the series. However, despite those innovations, Simon’s Quest is still regarded by many as an average game (or worse). Sure, the music is fantastic, and gave fans a series’ mainstay with “Bloody Tears”. But the things that made the original game so much fun, with its punishing difficulty that required players to hone strategy and skill to master, were gone. The danger of death was negated by the fact that you can continue right where you left off if you died. Even then, if you lost all your lives and continued, the punishment was losing your experience points gathered for the next level, and all of your hearts. The game’s bosses are a joke when compared to the previous game’s nightmare fights. Some pose little or no challenge in Simon’s Quest (you can literally walk right past Death and avoid fighting him). Dracula himself is a pushover if you stun-lock him with a certain item.
The biggest flaw, however, was its translation. Konami had done a poor job of localizing the game, resulting in townspeople spouting nonsense that was originally meant to be hints as to what to do (“Get a silk bag from the graveyard duck to live longer.”). Granted, some of the characters in the Japanese version also gave bad advice, but it also easy to determine. Not with the English version. This made the need for a strategy guide a necessity, and unless you subscribed to Nintendo Power, you weren’t going to get one.
So, three decades on, does Simon’s Quest deserve its “black sheep” status in the series? If you look at it from the original NES trilogy? Maybe. The gameplay took a step back, and was overall a more mundane affair compared to Castlevania. For Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse, Konami scrapped the RPG elements, and opted to return to the linear style of gameplay merged with a branching paths concept, and the ability to play as multiple characters. But, the concepts first introduced in Simon’s Quest later showed up in later classic entries like Rondo of Blood, Symphony of the Night and Castlevania 64 (okay, maybe not that one). For that, Simon’s Quest should be seen as “laying the groundwork” for these entries, as well as a curiosity in lieu of outright hatred. It’s not a perfect game, but it still does deserve a playthrough once in a while.
Plus, it did give us this awesome Nintendo Power cover.
This article was originally posted on Plenty Dreadful. Head there for more horror video game goodness!
Horror was thriving so well in the 1980s that movies like Pen Densham’s The Kiss (1988) would understandably get lost in the shuffle, only to then gain their fans later on in life. Even still, this one Canadian-American curio has had a more challenging time than others, as far as contemporary reevaluations go, which is very likely due to the movie’s limited availability—at least as of this write-up.
However, the scarceness of The Kiss, while a bit annoying, makes it like catnip for ‘80s horror completists everywhere. Hopefully, a lot of them will walk away satisfied after watching this hidden gem.
Even though The Kiss was intended as the first of several horror collaborations between Astral Pictures and TriStar, as well as the first feature produced by Densham, Richard B. Lewis and John Watson’s Trilogy Entertainment Group, it ended up being the only one produced from that former union. Once the movie was released, TriStar’s distribution jitters—they opted for a regional rollout—did the $6-million flick no favors. TriStar’s cold feet toward horror releases have been well noted, but The Kiss still did a tad better than Night of the Creeps (1986), another genre outing that flopped due to its regional opening.
Shot in Montreal, but set in Albany, New York, The Kiss—which was still called The Host just a few months before its October premiere—concerns an average middle-class family and their forthcoming situation. The uncanny problem in store for them was, in fact, set in motion some years earlier. As that hot and dusty flashback to the Belgian Congo shows, a familial curse was set upon the two Dunbar sisters well before Meredith Salenger’s teenage character was born.
Meredith Salenger, Nicholas Kilbertus and Mimi Kuzyk in The Kiss
The Kiss, which was based on a story by co-writer Stephen Volk (Ghostwatch) and penned by both Volk and Tom Ropelewski, has the outward appearance of The Stepfather (1987). This movie, though, is anything but a gender-flipped retread of that classic domestic disturber. For starters, The Kiss is far less grounded in reality—that much is clear from its unsettling opening scene. There, a trusting girl (Priscilla Mouzakiotis) is the victim of her own deceptive aunt (Céline Lomez); the movie’s titular act, and the story’s first shock, becomes the means of transferring an ancient evil from one host to another.
In the present day, Salenger’s role of Amy Halloran, a religious schoolgirl, is dealt a harsh blow in life once her mother, Hilary Halloran née Dunbar (Pamela Collyer), suddenly dies in a freak accident. But rather than a complete stranger sweeping the Halloran widower (Nicholas Kilbertus) off his feet some months later, Joanna Pacula’s character is that chosen temptress. Here, Pacula plays the grown-up version of the afflicted girl last seen in the movie’s opener. Since Amy’s mother is insistent about there being no reunion between estranged sisters, and she even contemplates buying a gun shortly before her tragic demise, it’s presumable that Aunt Felice poses a threat to her family.
The Kiss isn’t a movie ever too concerned about its own predictability. The audience is indeed often one step ahead of the story here, but also keep in mind how every one of those steps is loud. Take, for instance, the death of Amy’s mother; the Halloran matriarch goes out in garish, gruesome fashion, as a supernaturally commandeered truck sends Collyer’s character through a store window first, then leaves her one leg short. The directorial enthusiasm truly comes out in horrific moments such as these.
The Kiss is always sure to revel in its characters’ ills and misfortunes. So if the plot doesn’t impress, then its lurid parts should. Amy’s mother’s exit scene was proof of an eager, first-time horror director proving his worth. Then, bestie Heather (Sabrina Boudot) survives to tell the tale of a bizarre escalator mishap that, despite showing relatively less gore, spikes viewers’ empathy meter. The wilder bits of this movie, however, commence with that inevitable hookup between Felice and Amy’s bewitched father; their kitchen coitus is paralleled by Amy’s feverish classroom terror. The outcome there is a disquieting cross-cut of sex magic and a young woman’s menstrual onset plus hallucinations.
Sabrina Boudot in The Kiss
From foam appliances to bladders, that parade of special effects in The Kiss casts its own spell on the audience. Felice’s familiar, a visibly malevolent cat, was realized here with several models, some more articulate than others. Admittedly, the demon cat’s not as convincing as most of the effects here, but accepting that artifice, as opposed to fighting it, will make the whole experience way more enjoyable. As for the makeup used to manifest Felice’s inner villainy, it is more minimal and subtle than one might like; yet the work done to turn Pacula into an antithesis of herself is nonetheless compelling.
The otherworldly perils and dreadful goings-on wouldn’t work half as well as they do in The Kiss without the story’s contrast effect. Finding frights in picturesque, extremely ordinary settings was something that took off in the ‘80s, thanks to that sweeping shift to locales like the suburbs. And Amy’s home, a replica of a real Montreal suburban house, is the ideal battleground for any proper good-versus-evil story. It’s also prime real estate for this movie’s satanic panic-inspired horrors.
Because of their ostensibly similar plots, The Kiss has been compared to The Exorcist (1973). Except in Densham’s movie, the sinister, non-Christian entity targeting a teen girl lies within something less apparent and, perhaps, more devastating upon its exposure. To an outsider, Pacula’s Aunt Felice is too beautiful and unobjectionable to ever suspect of being a monster. More suspicious is how quickly she rips into the fabric of the Halloran home. Felice’s mere presence upsets the “texture of family life,” according to the director.
The demon cat in The Kiss
Taking out Amy’s mother and best friend, and distracting her father, would suggest The Kiss is playing by a different set of rules. It is initially leaving its adolescent target unsupported in a rather grim scenario. In contrast, though, this story offers up a surrogate parent who does her best to fill in the holes of Amy’s eroding home life. Mimi Kuzyk does good work as that family friend and doctor, Brenda, who guides the lost child without also steering her in any one direction; she is naturally skeptical of Amy’s accusations until it’s almost too late to do anything about them. So although The Kiss does an admirable job of undoing the main character’s support system, it never leaves her without a lifeline. This dark movie, in spite of everything that’s transpired, doesn’t deprive itself of light and hope.
The Kiss is a potent mélange of familiar ideas. If not for the director’s surprise flair for horror, though, the movie would have been less effective. What a shame that Pen Densham didn’t continue with the genre. As for Joanna Pacula, she is, too, owed credit as the wicked vixen opposite Meredith Salenger’s pitiable Amy; she never fails to be unsettling in her role. Pacula makes Aunt Felice a sexy yet intimidating character.
For horror that steadily doles out madness and menace, while also delivering a flashy and ghastly conclusion, The Kiss is certain to please. Yes, it’s cheesy all the way, but most favorably, everyone involved plays everything straight. That kind of commitment goes a long way with this movie.
The Kiss
You must be logged in to post a comment.