Editorials
‘The Last Guardian’ and the Fear of Having No Control
The Last Guardian is a wonderful game developed by Team Ico. Although not pegged as a horror game intentionally, the game succeeds in delivering sequences which would instill fear in even the bravest folk. How, you ask? Well, by putting you in combat situations without providing you with combat mechanics.
The player’s character, a young boy, can roll into an enemy, staggering them for a second or two. He can also remove the helmets of fallen suits of armor, who serve as the game’s spectral enemies. However, each of these actions locks the player into an animation during which they are incredibly vulnerable, and neither of the mechanics are of any use whatsoever when there is more than one enemy.
The way in which you progress through the game’s mandatory action sections is by waiting for Trico, referred to as the “Large Man-Eating Eagle” in the Japanese title for the game, to dispose of the enemies that are hunting the boy. That’s fine—he’s programmed to beat them, so surely that will be alright. Surely…
Trico is definitely going through puberty, or something because he only really does things when he wants to do them. Not when he should, or even when he has to—he does things when he wants to, and that’s it. So, when you’re being chased by ethereal suits of armor in a dark room, who are attempting to pull you through a blue door from which a spoopy blue mist spills, there’s a chance that Trico might decide to step in. He usually does step in almost immediately, but whether or not he actually attacks the enemies is a different story entirely. A lot of the time he just jumps around, growling at the suits of armor as they drag you towards the spoopy door. Hit them, Trico. They’re suits of armor. They don’t even have ears to hear you growling.
It genuinely is incredibly nerve-wracking when you’re in a relatively small area, weaving through a mob of enemies as Trico gradually incapacitates them. Due to the fact that you’re entirely dependent on him during these tense situations, they genuinely become scary. You’re utterly powerless, and the only force on your side powerful enough to keep you alive is entirely out of your control. Before you know it, you hit a dead end, and there are two suits of armor closing in on you, with a spoopy door between you and them. Unless Trico, who is anywhere but where he is supposed to be at pretty much any given time, miraculously decides to save you, your fate is sealed.
I remember being at a certain point in the game in which Trico really delivered, though. At one part of the game, the player needs to access a room through a tiny passage high above the ground in order to unlock the main door so that Trico can enter through it. Upon entering the room, the player can see that there are rotating helmets which will come to life as suits of armor if he passes within their line of sight. The aim is to maneuver around the helmets in such a way that you never come into contact with the light they protrude; however, this is easier said than done. More often than not, a misstep leads to the rude awakening of six suits of armor. Desperately, I yanked at the chain to open the gate for Trico. Sensing that you’re in trouble, Trico’s nose is the first part of him to appear from under the ascending gate.
Pulling the chain out of sheer desperation now, only a moment passes before I’m hoisted off my feet by a suit of armor. However, Trico’s head has come through, and he ferociously bursts through from underneath the gate in a monstrous rage. Hellbent on destroying every suit of armor as quickly as possible, he targets the one carrying me first. I am dropped, and with his right paw, Trico sends the suit of armor flying off the side of the platform. A barrage of spears is loosed towards him, but this only makes him even more vicious. Within a few more seconds, all of the suits have been sent plummeting to their deaths. Trico, still consumed by rage, writhes in pain as I climb up his leg in order to wrench the spears out. He shakes the entirety of his body violently, and I’m sent flying from the beast’s leg. He calms down, and with yet another round of horrifying chaos behind us, we press onward.
The most fear-inducing aspect of having no control in The Last Guardian, though, is the sequences in the Antenna Rooms, during which Trico becomes brainwashed. Due to having no combat mechanics of your own, these sequences require you to allow Trico the Large Man-Eating Eagle Dog to eat you in order to progress. However, when this happens to players for the first time, it is absolutely terrifying. Trico’s pink eyes, asymmetric posture, and erratic jumping combine to create a sight that is beyond fearsome.
Knowing full well how powerless you are, the fact that this is just a game doesn’t even begin to make the section less horrifying. I survived for several minutes, expecting him to calm down. I was so engrossed in the game, that when he unexpectedly ate me, the visceral animation alone immediately instilled a sense of horror in me. I know you’re going through puberty, Trico, but there’s really no need to eat me.
The Last Guardian may not be a horror game by genre, but by affording you zero combat mechanics, and only an NPC’s AI to rely on, it succeeds in placing you into a position in which you are utterly powerless in the face of great danger. This is perhaps one of the most basic yet uncomfortably realistic ways of forcing you to confront true horror, for what other sensation could you possibly feel when you have no control over the outcome which will determine your fate?
College kids, strippers and vampires—those were Donald P. Borchers’ only requirements when he approached Richard Wenk about writing and directing a movie for New World Pictures. As requested, Wenk cooked up Vamp (1986), a tailor-made blend of the decade’s teen movie craze as well as its horror boom.
Grim and earnest stories were still very much a part of the ’80s horror landscape, yet Vamp is something of a comedy. One difference between it and, say, Saturday the 14th, though, is the former avoids using schtick. Wenk’s movie proves that horror comedies also don’t have to subtract thrills from their recipes. Of course, it takes a minute before reaching that point; college antics and culture shocks preface this one macabre misadventure.
Vamp‘s initial setup is apt for a typical college-set, sex-driven comedy; to bribe their way into a fraternity house, two pledges (Chris Makepeace, Robert Rusler) go looking for some adult entertainment. Without wasting time on any further exposition, the characters embark on an all-in-one-night trip that quickly detours into terror.
To procure their elusive MacGuffin—a stripper willing to gyrate for some frat boys—Keith (Makepeace) and AJ (Rusler), plus a third wheel named Duncan (Gedee Watanabe), trade the safety of their remote college campus for the seediness of some unnamed city. The setting is recognizably L.A. by day, but as soon as night falls, downtown, along with the characters, slips into a kind of surreal universe. Director of photography Elliot Davis gave this early entry on his prolific résumé an unusual yet distinctive look; that Mario Bava-esque, magenta-green lighting is omnipresent, so much so that it’s almost its own character.
Chris Makepeace and Robert Rusler in Vamp
The faint comparisons to Martin Scorsese’s After Hours are merited, although not just because of Vamp’s distinguishing nighttime aesthetic. Save for the primary characters, the supporting roles in Wenk’s movie are also quite colorful and transactional in their behavior. The difference here, though, is the additional urge to ruin Keith and his friends at every turn. Some of that harm is humorous and tolerable enough, whereas the moment Vamp dishes out its first fatality, it’s abundantly clear how this movie qualifies as horror.
Vamp falls into that category of horror movie that reveals its genre with a scream rather than a series of whispers. The opening scene can function as a hint of what lies ahead—things are not at all what they appear to be—but otherwise, Wenk is more than happy to hold off on the horror. When that time does come, though, it catches the viewer off guard. In addition to the pure shock value is that sudden decision to upend the movie’s foremost feature. Or so it would seem.
If afraid of major spoilage, those new to Vamp would be wise to stop reading here. There’s just no skirting around the fact that the central fellowship in this buddy movie hits a serious snag when AJ is killed. That development causes the story to become more of a “long, bad night” journey for Keith and his romantic interest. So while Wenk scores points for subverting expectations, there is also a touch of sadness in his decision. Because if Vamp does anything well, it’s making the characters likable.
Something that comes easily to Vamp—and other teen horror movies from this same era—is its ability to invent young characters worth caring about, or at the very least, are interesting and not so immediately off-putting. More impressive is how Wenk did all this without actually fleshing out those characters. Still and all, Keith and his kind are a grade above cookie-cutter, and in some cases, aren’t completely devoid of growth.
Grace Jones in Vamp
Vamp appeals with an assorted cast of characters. No two are the same, nor are they operating on the same wavelength. The cinematically extroverted AJ, whose actor conveyed charm and vulnerability in near equal amounts, comes alive when he’s at his most undead. Makepeace then makes the chronically cautious Keith a sympathetic fellow, even as he’s more and more affected by the night’s bizarre events. Meanwhile, Duncan is indeed the designated loser of the whole bunch, but Watanabe still manages to humanize him. As a bonus, the role didn’t require him to pull a Long Duk Dong.
As for Dedee Pfeiffer, she is plain adorable as the mysterious After Dark server nicknamed “Amaretto”. She spends all night fixing her dress strap while at the same time trying to get Keith to remember how he knows her. As their offbeat romance grows, it becomes another highlight of this movie. Whether or not Pfeiffer’s character is really a vampire also creates some welcome tension in the story.
Like a lot of its contemporaries, Vamp went on to become a bit of a cult classic. That current status is determined by several factors, but without a doubt, the casting of Grace Jones is the most considerable. The image of her writhing on that unique-looking chair, a Keith Haring original, springs to mind whenever this movie is brought up.
Chris Makepeace, Billy Drago and Paunita Nichols in Vamp
Prior to that first display of unequivocal horror, local vampire queen Katrina (Jones) took to the stage and delivered a strip show like no other. One would expect nothing less from that renowned model and performance artist. By now reports of Jones’ tardiness on set are no secret, yet it’s also hard to deny her commitment to the part of Katrina. It was, in fact, Jones who took charge of her character’s appearance—on top of Haring painting her body and that now-iconic chair, she had Andy Warhol handle her costuming. And not too many actors could seize a room’s attention without saying a single line of dialogue.
In 2022, Vamp received a retrospective novelization from Encyclopocalypse. This literary union of preexisting source material—Wenk’s original screenplay—and new ideas from author Christian Francis amounts to a more comprehensive visit to the After Dark Club. The basic story there is no different than what’s shown on screen; however, Francis gets creative with the characters’ origins and designs, and he enhances a number of key scenes.
The novelization expands on the urban and social decay of the main setting, and supplies a background for the After Dark Club. Sandy Baron’s character, Katrina’s emcee and familiar, is given ample motivation for sticking around; up until the fiery end, he is loyal to his friend and former business partner “Squeak”, who looks like he was “fed through a combine harvester, and left as nothing more than a heap of mangled remains”. Then there is Billy Drago’s character Snow, the leader of a street gang called The Dragons. His reason for menacing Keith and AJ is more altruistic than in the movie; he and his peers act tough to scare off any potential food for the vampires.
Lisa Lyon in Vamp
If not for all the backstories, Francis’ Vamp would be a hell of a lot shorter. Instead, this tie-in read dives into how AJ met Keith—the orphaned Anthony Joseph hailed from a broken home back in Brooklyn—and how their friendship flourished over the years. Keith’s archership is no longer just an assumed part of his entire being; it’s a confidence-building extracurricular for a boy who got picked on before coming into the protection of the new kid in town. These supplemental, in-depth looks at the protagonists, plus their close connection, are maybe unnecessary. The movie already did a fair and concise job of addressing their platonic intimacy without the need for flashbacks and insights, specifically in that scene where AJ lays it all out as he sacrifices himself.
Where the novelization gets off course is its approach to the minor characters. Intermittently backstorying the likes of Katrina’s indentured servants, Seko (Leila Hee Olsen) and Vlad (Brad Logan), ends up disturbing the flow of the writing. Was it absolutely essential that readers know Vlad was the Grand Duke of the House of Romanov, or how Snow’s accomplice Maven (Paunita Nichols) became so dentally challenged? No, not really. However, one’s mileage with these random biographies may vary.
The novelization is a more substantial experience, but for a movie like Vamp, less is more. And as plentiful as they are, it never simply coasts on its campy charms, either. The character work sits comfortably in that realm between cursory and meticulous, the script is sharper than first realized, and Greg Cannom’s vampire makeup is straightforward yet effective. Most of all, the movie didn’t squander its out-of-the-box concept. Richard Wenk made his vision of a “comic nightmare in which just about anything that can go wrong does” come true, and it is very enjoyable.
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