Editorials
How ‘The Evil Within 2’s Open World Builds on the Structure of Early ‘Silent Hill’ Games
Ever since the first Silent Hill game, I’ve always loved opening up an in-game map. There’s something about having it on a separate screen that makes you look at it harder, trying to remember your directions. Was it two lefts, then right or the other way around? Can’t remember, better check again. It gave me a second way to get to know the world. Not only was I navigating the space, but I was ingraining it in my memory by studying the maps over and over.
I was not expecting The Evil Within 2 to have a map. Having only played the beginning few chapters of the first one, I was under the impression that the series was a lot more linear. It was a fine game, but never really sunk its teeth in more or elevated itself from other horror games, especially when compared to director Shinji Mikami’s other famous work, Resident Evil 4.
Within the first few chapters of Evil Within 2 I said to myself, “This is just a modern Silent Hill.” Not necessarily in story or creativity, but in structure. The game takes place in a city set up in a subconscious realm called Union. This acts as an open world area that you traverse through, finding your way into interior sections. These levels of the game never end up being quite as memorable as the ones in Silent Hill, but the open world sections evolve the feeling of exploring the town of Silent Hill into a modern era.
When you hear open world, you often think of the UbiSoft model of having a mini-map that is littered with icons, giving the player an overwhelming number of things to check off their to-do list as they move between objectives. Like Silent Hill, Evil Within 2 smartly doesn’t give you a mini-map, instead forcing you to go to the map screen. Even on this map screen, you aren’t bombarded with symbols. In order to place side quests on your map, you have to get close enough to an objective to be able to “pick up its signal.” These can range from corpses with items to memory echoes that give you story details.
You will definitely need to be exploring the open world, because Evil Within 2 definitely has a “count your bullets” old school survival horror feeling. This forces you to explore as much as possible to find these signals and hunt down all the extra ammo and upgrades you can. Often, the game will have you do some risk-reward analysis as to whether it’s even worth getting past enemies to grab an ammo cache. There were several occasions where I decided to hunt down some shotgun ammo, only to use an equivalent amount of a different ammo type in order to fight my way to the point on the map.
Enemies can soak up a lot of damage, and the game limits how much ammo you can hold, so you have to approach your encounters wisely or avoid them altogether. I found myself opening up that map and carefully planning the route of least resistance to attempt to avoid a firefight that would both waste my ammo and draw more enemies to my location. The maps do not show locations of enemies, so there’s only so much planning you can do. You’ll still have to do a lot of improvisation as you sneak out of the bushes to stealthily take out a monster, only to get surprised by the other creature crawling on the ground right behind it.
My favorite part of the open world sections were the wayside stories and optional content popped up throughout. Triggering certain events can throw off all your carefully planned sneaking, forcing you into a full-on panic.
For example, at one point I was sneaking around, successfully avoiding the monsters patrolling the town, only to trigger a side quest that summoned a giant beast. Having never seen anything like it, I decided to try to run and assess my options.
After ducking into a nearby cafe, I inadvertently triggered ANOTHER side quest. This time I was teleported into an entirely different setting where I had to avoid an unkillable ghost while sneaking through a facility. After completing that section, I was sent right back to that cafe, where I had to worry whether or not that giant creature was still roaming. Stories like this that play out organically can be so much more interesting than strictly scripted content, making the game world feel more alive.
Since horror relies so much more on using pacing to control tension and release, developers often have a tendency to build more of a linear funhouse in order to control the player’s experience more thoroughly. Given how death in horror games comes frequently, players may have to play the same section over and over again, taking away the tension, replacing it with tedium. The more open and you can make your horror, the more unpredictability you can inject into your game, providing the user different experiences each time they play.
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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