Editorials
[Editorial] What’s Behind There? The Effective Use of Doors in Video Game Horror
I’ve always been a disaster for horror games. I get interested in the characters, the stories or even unique mechanics that some of them offer, but it’s hard for me to take the first step. Even with one or several friends alongside me, I could never shake off a particular feeling whenever I’m traversing new scenarios. And I think that a big part of my fear comes from the uncertainty that doors hide within.
In some games they are a mere illusion, serving a purpose of decoration or design with an unsurprising “blocked from the other side” message. But in the horror genre they take a starring role and depending on the studio’s vision over what they want to accomplish in the game towards the player’s feeling, they’ve made different use of them throughout history.
Back when Resident Evil was trapped under console limitations, doors were used as a mask for loading screens whenever you entered a room. But if like me, you were lucky enough to go through it without this in mind, they were a mystery. In a matter of seconds, you would start thinking what could be expecting you on the other side of the door, firmly holding your gamepad and trying to remember how many bullets you had left.
They served a purpose, technically speaking, but the developers were well aware of their potential almost to the point of worshipping each one of them. There are 167 door load screens in the first Resident Evil, including some ladder and gate screens as well.
Games like Amnesia and Outlast started to treat them differently. Instead of a slow, meticulous pace, these both modern takes on the horror genre had you constantly escaping from danger, including a key difference: you can’t fight back using weapons. In each, doors became both a way to defend yourself from your own sanity or terrifying, surprisingly fast patients. But they were also an obstacle in certain situations, and it didn’t take long for you to regret closing every door behind you when you’re forced to turn back in order to escape.
Under these two visions, Resident Evil 7 managed to find a balance. During my first minutes into the game, everything was going fine while I was roaming through Baker’s house perimeters. Yet an eerie, familiar sensation came to me once I opened the door on the back, finding myself against a pitch dark room. I immediately paused the game and started streaming it, so a friend could later join me on the distance to keep me company.
While the influence had a leading role in the first part of the game, it didn’t take long for Resident Evil 7 to remind me that I actually had an inventory with weapons on my disposal. But doors were no longer in a leading role with a loading screen, and I’ve had several tools to defend myself now.
And yet, while a new standard was starting to finally settle down, Paratopic showed up with three completely unique ways of using them within. This lo-fi surreal experience does a lot in under an hour, but doors carry some of the most memorable moments of the story.
Stranded in the forest, taking photos of birds and enjoying that is perhaps too calm, we find a cabin. There doesn’t seem to be anything inusual at first: a mattress and a pair of empty food cans showcase a mundane picture. But there’s a closed door beneath it, and the sole response we get are a few knocks from inside if we’re insistent enough. It remains a mystery that can be completely skipped if you choose to ignore it, but ever since I did nothing but wonder what’s behind that door. This moment became such a huge collective question that the developers decided to answer it in the Definitive Cut edition.
The second door in Paratopic has a completely different momentum, being opened abruptly by kicking it and immediately followed by a fleeting glimpse of violence, surrounded by the dark synth sounds of the marvelous soundtrack. The third, however, involves an elevator along with probably the slowest sequence in the game. The player is set to wait in a room, watching how it slowly descends to the floor. It might seem like a moment of respite, but you start feeling anxious, scared. If there’s something in that elevator, you have no way of escaping. And, when you least suspect it, the door opens…
Even after witnessing dozens of different mechanics and moments surrounding doors, there are still new ways to experiment with them. The importance of them to horror, even if it’s just a sound or a transition, shouldn’t be taken for granted. It’s in the attention to detail that doors proved to be much more intimidating than they actually should be, forcing you to think twice about investigating a room or making you jump once you hear one being slammed on your back. But every time, it’s about now knowing what’s on the other side, and it’s one of the most valuable elements that horror games can offer.
Despite what the higher-ups at Marvel would have you believe, Stan Lee’s original vision for Spider-Man was very different from the friendly neighborhood wall-crawler that fans ultimately got.
It was comics maestro Steve Ditko that turned him into the lovable web-head that we all know and love, though even that first draft of the character wasn’t exactly meant to be a child-friendly mascot. Ditko envisioned an uncanny arachnid-human hybrid whose freakish poses and dark costume would strike terror into the hearts of criminals, with the inclusion of web-shooters possibly having been a suggestion by Ditko’s roommate at the time, renowned fetish artist and bondage enthusiast Eric Stanton.
These more adult-oriented origins may have changed over the years, but one could argue that Spidey never completely lost his darker side. In fact, we’d eventually see several grim storylines that explored the horrific consequences of Spider-Man’s radioactive blood. While having his irradiated body fluids give Mary Jane cancer is likely the most terrifying of these yarns (track down Spider-Man: Reign if you’re up for a depressing read that was at one point set to be adapted to film by Michael Jackson), one of the most memorable horror-adjacent moments in these comics has to be the acceleration of Peter Parker’s mutation and the eventual introduction of Man-Spider – a storyline that appears to have been one of the main inspirations behind the upcoming Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
I sincerely doubt that Marvel Studios is really going to give their toy-selling juggernaut a Cronenbergian rebrand, but the most recent trailer for Brand New Day suggests that the creative team is pulling from some surprisingly spooky source material in this latest superhero sequel. Specifically, the trailer makes it seem like the film is set to be a loose adaptation of the Neogenic Nightmare arc from Spider-Man: The Animated Series, commonly known as the best exploration of Spidey’s radioactive dark side that also features the most iconic version of Man-Spider.
If you’re wondering what these influences could mean for the upcoming film, I’d like to invite you to join me as we look back on some of the animated series’ most horror-tinged episodes.
A fourteen-episode story arc that made up the show’s second season, Neogenic Nightmare began airing in September of 1995. At this point, the series had already earned a reputation as the definitive version of Spider-Man despite dealing with absurd levels of censorship and executive meddling. It’s widely known at this point that this incarnation of Spidey was prohibited from ever punching his villains, and the studio even insisted that realistic guns should be replaced with futuristic laser weapons in order to avoid enraging concerned parents.
And that’s not even mentioning bizarre demands like setting up Hobgoblin as the original Goblin villain simply because the folks responsible for the toy-line had already prepared the character’s merchandise before scripts were even written.
At the end of the day. the show’s success mostly came down to John Semper’s excellent writing, with the (mostly) faithful recreation of the Spider-Man’s core principals and a handful of iconic storylines (coupled with an excellent cast behind the scenes) elevating a what was intended to be a kid’s show promoting ToyBiz products.
Naturally, the rampant cartoon censorship of the 90s couldn’t keep Semper from wanting to explore darker themes from his own favorite Spider-Man comics, and that’s how his team came up with a season-long re-imagining of iconic arcs like the Six-Arm Saga, The Mutant Agenda and even the first appearance of the Sinister Six. These stories would be enhanced with additional “dark” characters like Blade, The Punisher and even Morbius (though the latter had to exchange his vampiric blood-drinking for bizarre plasma-absorbing powers in order to conform to network guidelines).
If you haven’t yet seen it, the complete Neogenic Nightmare arc follows Spider-Man as he discovers that his mutation is progressing beyond his initial superpowers and threatening to turn him into a more monstrous hybrid. After developing extra arms, Spidey goes so far as to request help from both the X-Men and several other super-heroes as he becomes embroiled in a criminal conspiracy involving a team-up between some of his most iconic villains. The arc eventually introduces us to the show’s version of Man-Spider, which is depicted here as the monstrous final stage of the process which began when Peter was first bitten by that radioactive spider.
Personally, I think this werewolf-like addition to Spidey’s genetic curse is the best incarnation of Man-Spider that we’ve ever seen. This is because the six-armed body horror of it all adds even more weight to Peter’s decision to keep helping others regardless of what his powers may cost him, with the creature’s final rampage even giving the supporting cast a chance to help Spider-Man for a change. While I don’t hate the Morbius movie as much as some other comic fans, it’s a shame that Sony relegated that story to a solo film instead of later incorporating it into the Man-Spider saga like Neogenic Nightmare did.
Season two of the animated series ended up being an even bigger hit than the first, with fans loving the show’s take on an expanded Marvel Universe (which even included the ’90s X-Men cast) as well as the darker take on a more monstrous Spider-Man. That’s why it makes sense that the MCU’s return to street-level comic adventures would harken back to this particular storyline – especially since it appears that the Disney wishes to use the upcoming film as an opportunity to shine a light on other Marvel characters just like Semper did back in the day.
From what we can see in the trailer, Tom Holland’s Spider-Man appears to be going through his own additional transformations, including creepy fully black eyes and organic web-shooter, as well as the cocoon-building behavior previously seen in Marvel’s The Other arc in the comics. As I mentioned before, I doubt that the MCU will allow this particular cash cow to fully transform into a nightmarish spider freak that can scare away children, but there’s always a chance that the studio could surprise us with more horror elements. I’d also love to see the story explore Spidey’s mutation and use that as an excuse to formally introduce X-Men’s mutants into the MCU, especially since Sadie Sink is rumored to be playing Jean Grey in the flick.
However, even if Brand New Day doesn’t adapt as much of the Neogenic Nightmare as the promotional material has suggested, I’d argue that this particular season of Spider-Man: The Animated Series is still worth revisiting simply because it’s a great example of artists being able to work past network limitations in order to tell complex stories that approach full-on body-horror.
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