Editorials
How Borderlands 3’s Sanctuary Reminds us Hub Areas are Safe Spaces From the Terror Beyond
It should come as no surprise that, in Borderlands 3, Sanctuary III will serve as a safe space.
That’s true for a few reasons. Most obviously, it’s true because the dictionary definition of “sanctuary” is “a place of refuge or safety.” Second most obviously, it’s true because, since its introduction in Borderlands 2, Sanctuary—in its earthbound and airborne incarnations—has served as a refuge from the dangers of Pandoran life; a place where Vault Hunters can drink up at Moxxi’s Bar, grab ammunition and health packs at various vending machines and take on quests.
For game developers crafting dangerous worlds, a safe place like this — a place where players can rest and recharge after getting their asses kicked — is a necessity.
Let me give you a well-loved example: After a few hand-holdy entries, Nintendo made major design shifts for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, upping the number and strength of enemies and dropping players into a hostile world where the heat and chill were as lethal as any boss from Twilight Princess. But, they were also careful to add stables—glowing, warm havens where weary players could cook up meals, craft potions and chat with the gentle denizens of Hyrule.
This year, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, likewise, gave players an enclave as they made war against a notoriously steep difficulty curve, offering the Dilapidated Temple, a safe area where players could stock up on paper dolls and whoop on a living punching bag. In the fiction of the game, the shinobi, Wolf, is taken here to recuperate after a near-fatal fight in the game’s opening moments. And, mechanically, the Temple serves a similarly convalescent purpose; it’s a refuge where players can chat, shop and practice their parries.
This rhythm of moving from danger to safety is most pronounced in the survival horror genre, where the beasties have the run of the place, except in a few select areas. As I played this year’s Resident Evil 2, I often felt like I was sprinting through a horrifying game of tag, plotting out my course from one safe area to the next, making mental notes of where the gooey red Lickers laid in wait. After Mr. X was introduced, these mad dashes were laced with a panicky mania. I was driven by a need, deep in my gut, like a child playing tag approaching a designated jungle gym, to get to “safe.”
In all of these games — Breath of the Wild, Sekiro, Resident Evil 2 —the safe spaces are clearly delineated from the rest of the game. But, remember the moment in Resident Evil 2 (the original) when the closed door that appeared on every loading screen suddenly opened to reveal a zombie shuffling at the player? Or, remember when Prosperity, the camp in Far Cry New Dawn, became the setting for one of that game’s most memorable battles as the Highwaymen staged an all-out assault on its survivors? Or, in Sekiro, how the Dragonrot infected the characters in the Dilapidated Temple despite the fact that they never left its grounds as a result of your failures? The best safe spaces aren’t completely safe. Sometimes, the danger of the outside world breaks in, and these spaces become more compelling as we realize how precarious the peace they provide actually is.
Borderlands 3’s Sanctuary III isn’t just this literal kind of safe space; it’s also a refuge from the ravages of time. During Gearbox Software’s gameplay reveal event, the developers showed off a hub area that functioned as a living museum to the series’ history. Remember Tannis? She’s here. Remember Marcus? He’s here! Remember Maya? She’s here!!! All the characters you know and love are together in one place (in a hub area reminiscent of the delightful Eva’s Hammer from Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus).
This emphasis on fan service in Sanctuary III fits in nicely with the general vibe of the marketing surrounding Borderlands 3. Onstage at the Tuesday dress rehearsal for the gameplay reveal, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford promised a game with “no microtransactions… no free-to-play, pay-to-win type of junk” (a claim which is roughly half true, but that’s not what this article is about). Gearbox is promising that the game won’t require an online connection. Generally, the studio is pitching Borderlands 3 not as the MMO-ish Destiny-like that many had suspected it would be, but instead, as more Borderlands.
That is, more Borderlands, but with the rough edges sanded off. Like any number of studios making a retro-inspired throwback, Gearbox is promising a game that captures the essence of the old games you remember, but without the frustrations inherent to revisiting an artifact from another time. In September, Borderlands will be back and better than ever, a gaming oasis in a culture that has largely moved on.
And I’m sure I will enjoy it. I like this series and I had a good time with the hour-and-a-half I played.
But, Borderlands 3 doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and the most interesting aspects of its story, design and very existence as a consumer product testify to that. Its villains, the Calypso Twins, are streamers—a word that was primarily associated with long strands of crepe paper when the first game launched— and Randy Varnell, Gearbox’s narrative lead, has said that he hopes to explore questions of how influencers *ahem* influence their followers. Additionally, Borderlands 3’s release will be one pawn in an ongoing battle between Valve’s established Steam storefront and the nascent Epic Games Store, where Borderlands 3 is a PC exclusive. This game is inseparable from our current moment, and that’s part of what makes it worth talking about.
There’s a moment in that live gameplay reveal where the player, ensconced in the fan-service-y safety of Sanctuary III, pulls the lever on the Cash Trap slot machine in Moxxi’s Bar. The reels spin for a moment, before landing on an icon of Claptrap in a captain’s hat and a pair of robot eyes — a combination that, on this one-armed bandit, apparently spells death. The machine dispenses a live grenade. The player quickly ducks out of the way and the grenade explodes.
I hope Borderlands 3 feels like that. Safe, but not too safe.
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
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