Editorials
‘The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’ Sequel Has a Horror Vibe and We’re Here For it
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is getting a sequel that looks scarier every time I watch the trailer.
The brief tease that Nintendo unveiled at the end of their E3 2019 Direct video presentation on Tuesday, revealed a Hyrule that is largely unchanged, and yet, completely different.
The Zelda games have often used art style as a shorthand to indicate continuity — Majora’s Mask reused assets from Ocarina of Time (allowing for a breathtakingly quick year-and-a-half turnaround time); Phantom Hourglass, the DS sequel to The Wind Waker, adopted its predecessor’s cel-shaded style; and A Link Between Worlds recreated the map of its classic precursor, A Link to the Past. “Breath of the Wild 2” looks to be no different; its graphics, as seen in the trailer, are virtually indistinguishable from those used in the first game. Additionally, a quick glimpse of Hyrule shows the same prominent castle and rolling green hills that defined BOTW’s landscape. Link and Zelda even sport the same blue clothing they wore last time around.
So, on the one hand, this is clearly a sequel.
But, as a mood piece, this first look suggests a very different kind of game. The trailer finds Link and Princess Zelda (who now sports shoulder-length hair, the symbolism of which this article does a good job of unpacking) with torches in hand, inspecting the runes along the dark rock walls in a cavern seemingly located below Hyrule Castle. The oozy black malice that flowed from Calamity Ganon in the previous game seems to have vanished entirely on the surface, but remains active (if in diminished capacity) underground. A dried out body, which fans speculate is the corpse of Ganondorf (though it resembles one of the ancient monks, who once would have congratulated Link upon the completion of a shrine), is shown surrounded by tendrils of malice. A neon bright severed arm juts from his chest. His neck snaps toward the camera; his eyes lighting up with an orange glow. Above ground, the earth around Hyrule Castle shakes, sending birds flying noisily away.
In short, to quote Ikumi Nakamura, it’s spooky.
Throughout its 33-year history, The Legend of Zelda series has been many things to many people. Majora’s Mask is horror with an impressively bold central conceit. Wind Waker is an almost ageless, surprisingly open (and waterlogged) world. Link’s Awakening is indelibly strange. And Breath of the Wild is as fervently beloved as it is for pulling off the lightning-in-a-bottle feat of making exploration feel truly adventurous; like anything could be waiting for, just out of sight.
In Breath of the Wild, it felt like anything was possible, in large part because so much truly was. If you were confronted with a chasm, you could chop down a tree to bridge the gap and walk across. If you needed to scale an unclimbable barrier, you could blow yourself up. If you wanted to kill a giant sand monster with a swarm of chickens, you could. Many small decisions added up to the Hyrule of BOTW feeling uniquely ripe with potential.
But, I’ve played Breath of the Wild. I’ve poured hundreds of hours into exploring its nooks and crannies; hunting its expansive map in dogged pursuit of Korok seeds and shrines and dragon lairs across multiple playthroughs on both consoles it released on. The sense of adventure still remains — last week, I used Link’s stasis ability to push a minecart to a shrine I had never seen before, and was rewarded with an uncommonly meaty series of puzzles — but I can never experience its world for the first time again.
That’s why “Breath of the Wild 2”’s teaser is so exciting. This sequel may be set in the same world as its predecessor, but the vibe this time around is vastly different. Breath of the Wild’s colorful world invited players to explore its delightful world, but the horror of the trailer suggests a Hyrule that will push back against its players; where progress will be hard-earned. Nintendo’s last Zelda game drew comparisons to Dark Souls for the steep challenge of early game combat encounters; the ease with which even low-level enemies could send you to a “Game Over” screen. I won’t be surprised if “Breath of the Wild 2” leans further in the Dark Souls direction, embracing the terrifying monsters and oppressive world design that define From Software’s RPGs. That’s another way to make exploration exhilarating; by making progress hard-won.
I suspect that, given the success of BOTW and the kind of games the dev team is playing, “Breath of the Wild 2” will still be an open world game. But, that mood piece suggests a world of terror, not of wonder.
Having grown up in a religious family, Christian movie night was something that happened a lot more often than I care to admit. However, back when I was a teenager, my parents showed up one night with an unusually cool-looking DVD of a movie that had been recommended to them by a church leader. Curious to see what new kind of evangelical propaganda my parents had rented this time, I proceeded to watch the film with them expecting a heavy-handed snoozefest.
To my surprise, I was a few minutes in when Denzel Washington proceeded to dismember a band of cannibal raiders when I realized that this was in fact a real movie. My mom was horrified by the flick’s extreme violence and dark subject matter, but I instantly became a fan of the Hughes Brothers’ faith-based 2010 thriller, The Book of Eli. And with the film’s atomic apocalypse having apparently taken place in 2024, I think this is the perfect time to dive into why this grim parable might also be entertaining for horror fans.
Originally penned by gaming journalist and The Walking Dead: The Game co-writer Gary Whitta, the spec script for The Book of Eli was already making waves back in 2007 when it appeared on the coveted Blacklist. It wasn’t long before Columbia and Warner Bros. snatched up the rights to the project, hiring From Hell directors Albert and Allen Hughes while also garnering attention from industry heavyweights like Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman.
After a series of revisions by Anthony Peckham meant to make the story more consumer-friendly, the picture was finally released in January of 2010, with the finished film following Denzel as a mysterious wanderer making his way across a post-apocalyptic America while protecting a sacred book. Along the way, he encounters a run-down settlement controlled by Bill Carnegie (Gary Oldman), a man desperate to get his hands on Eli’s book so he can motivate his underlings to expand his empire. Unwilling to let this power fall into the wrong hands, Eli embarks on a dangerous journey that will test the limits of his faith.
SO WHY IS IT WORTH WATCHING?
Judging by the film’s box-office success, mainstream audiences appear to have enjoyed the Hughes’ bleak vision of a future where everything went wrong, but critics were left divided by the flick’s trope-heavy narrative and unapologetic religious elements. And while I’ll be the first to admit that The Book of Eli isn’t particularly subtle or original, I appreciate the film’s earnest execution of familiar ideas.
For starters, I’d like to address the religious elephant in the room, as I understand the hesitation that some folks (myself included) might have about watching something that sounds like Christian propaganda. Faith does indeed play a huge part in the narrative here, but I’d argue that the film is more about the power of stories than a specific religion. The entire point of Oldman’s character is that he needs a unifying narrative that he can take advantage of in order to manipulate others, while Eli ultimately chooses to deliver his gift to a community of scholars. In fact, the movie even makes a point of placing the Bible in between equally culturally important books like the Torah and Quran, which I think is pretty poignant for a flick inspired by exploitation cinema.
Sure, the film has its fair share of logical inconsistencies (ranging from the extent of Eli’s Daredevil superpowers to his impossibly small Braille Bible), but I think the film more than makes up for these nitpicks with a genuine passion for classic post-apocalyptic cinema. Several critics accused the film of being a knockoff of superior productions, but I’d argue that both Whitta and the Hughes knowingly crafted a loving pastiche of genre influences like Mad Max and A Boy and His Dog.
Lastly, it’s no surprise that the cast here absolutely kicks ass. Denzel plays the title role of a stoic badass perfectly (going so far as to train with Bruce Lee’s protégée in order to perform his own stunts) while Oldman effortlessly assumes a surprisingly subdued yet incredibly intimidating persona. Even Mila Kunis is remarkably charming here, though I wish the script had taken the time to develop these secondary characters a little further. And hey, did I mention that Tom Waits is in this?
AND WHAT MAKES IT HORROR ADJACENT?
Denzel’s very first interaction with another human being in this movie results in a gory fight scene culminating in a face-off against a masked brute wielding a chainsaw (which he presumably uses to butcher travelers before eating them), so I think it’s safe to say that this dog-eat-dog vision of America will likely appeal to horror fans.
From diseased cannibals to hyper-violent motorcycle gangs roaming the wasteland, there’s plenty of disturbing R-rated material here – which is even more impressive when you remember that this story revolves around the bible. And while there are a few too many references to sexual assault for my taste, even if it does make sense in-universe, the flick does a great job of immersing you in this post-nuclear nightmare.
The excessively depressing color palette and obvious green screen effects may take some viewers out of the experience, but the beat-up and lived-in sets and costume design do their best to bring this dead world to life – which might just be the scariest part of the experience.
Ultimately, I believe your enjoyment of The Book of Eli will largely depend on how willing you are to overlook some ham-fisted biblical references in order to enjoy some brutal post-apocalyptic shenanigans. And while I can’t really blame folks who’d rather not deal with that, I think it would be a shame to miss out on a genuinely engaging thrill-ride because of one minor detail.
With that in mind, I’m incredibly curious to see what Whitta and the Hughes Brothers have planned for the upcoming prequel series starring John Boyega…
There’s no understating the importance of a balanced media diet, and since bloody and disgusting entertainment isn’t exclusive to the horror genre, we’ve come up with Horror Adjacent – a recurring column where we recommend non-horror movies that horror fans might enjoy.
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