Editorials
Ari Aster’s ‘Midsommar’ Could Help Open Up a Bright New Frontier For Video Game Horror
From the dimly lit, shadow draped corridors of Layers of Fear, to the unrelenting and oppressive darkness that so many other horror offerings seem content to ply their fearsome trade from, it’s way past time that the gaming horror genre realizes that ample terror and foreboding lay beyond such typical realms of gloom.
Rather than looking inwardly to their peers, developers should instead look to the silver screen where Hereditary director Ari Aster is making progressive moves in this regard. For his part, Aster has been violently wrenching the horror genre nakedly back into the blazing light of day, providing a highly underutilized direction for others to follow with his latest film, Midsommar, a Sweden-set daytime cult thriller with a psychological horror bent
At its root, both video game and cinematic horror efforts alike have embraced the gloom in the belief that such scenarios ran parallel with the tales we were told as children, that some unseen horror lay in the dark corners and under the beds of the world where their powers were perceived to be at the zenith.
Of course, horror games on the small screen have also long worked their trade from the shadowy peripheries, not just to elicit moody atmospherics, but also because it allows them to fall back on that most common, shopworn and most nervously reflexive trope – the classic jump scare.
In Aster’s Midsommar however, horror and terror find themselves not withered by the exposure to the blazing sun, but rather emboldened by it – a notion that is arguably more terrifying than that base fear of shadows that movies and games have sought to instill in us for so long.
Much of that newfound fear revolves around the long-held concept of safe places. The idea that if some unspeakable grotesque born from the shadows is hellbent on our destruction, that we can somehow banish it by escaping into the bright day – a physical manifestation of the notion that light overcomes darkness; another long-held belief that holds solace for many of us.
And that is arguably where the strongest horrors do their best work – in stripping away those safe places and layers of respite until we realize, ultimately, that nowhere is safe and that as much as good can be wrought in the darkness, so is the opposite true for evil as well.
As Aster’s Midsommar has done then, so too must games follow. Effectively etching out a new frontier of boundless possibilities for the genre, the creative latitude for engineering new scenarios of fear, horror, and terror is generously vast.
Unfortunately, though Aster’s caliber as an auteur and the quality of his output his hardly in question, it remains to be seen just how quickly the mainstream will adjust to the idea of moving horror out of the darkness. Being as slow and reticent to swift change as the mainstream machine is, it will likely be a good while until the great masses accept such new ideas about horror to be embedded in their collective consciousness.
As such, we can probably look to the likes of smaller studios, such as the Bloober Teams and the Red Candle Games of the world to make those first bold steps, rather than the likes of Capcom and EA for whom fresh ideas and concepts often find themselves hoisted upon the altar of mass market sacrifice.
Unlike the silver screen, the games industry has many more avenues with which to embark on this change too. In addition to the long established and fairly static PC and home console platforms, more immersive technology such as VR, AR, and mixed reality headsets all provide unique opportunities to engineer compelling takes on this new direction that the cinema simply cannot match.
Given its position as an influential medium then, gaming needs to do its part and follow in Aster’s footsteps in order to keep the horror genre fresh. As much as cinemagoers used to cling to the light as a respite from the dark, so too must creators now leave the ironically comfortable embrace of the dark behind and seek out the fresh opportunities for fear and horror in the blazing sun that lay beyond.
Editorials
Before ‘The Blair Witch Project’, ‘Alien Autopsy’ Showed How Real Found Footage Could Feel
The line separating artist from con man is a lot thinner than you might initially believe. While I think we can all agree that lying for the sake of profit is actively malicious behavior, isn’t it also true that the faux documentary aspect of The Blair Witch Project is half the reason why that film became such a cultural phenomenon? After all, if there’s one thing filmmakers have in common with stage magicians, it’s that misleading and misdirecting audiences is simply part of the job.
That’s why I’ve developed a habit of mostly ignoring the moral quandaries behind many of film and television’s biggest “hoaxes” in favor of appreciating the narrative elements that drive productions like Mermaids: The Body Found and even Animal Planet’s highly underrated The Cannibal in the Jungle. However, if there’s a definitive case of a highly publicized broadcast fooling the world into taking it seriously, it has to be Fox’s infamous 1995 TV special Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction.
It’s been over three decades since that eerie footage first haunted television screens right at the peak of the ’90s ufology craze, and in that time, the video has taken on a life of its own. From countless parodies and references in everything from The X-Files to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater (as well as John Dower’s recently released tell-all documentary The Alien Autopsy Scandal, which I’d highly recommend to genre fans everywhere), there’s no denying the legacy of the Alien Autopsy video. However, I rarely see the tape discussed as what it truly is: a highly convincing found footage film directed by a passionate stage magician and brought to life by masterful practical effects work.
That’s why I’d like to invite readers to join me on a deep dive into one of the most infamous broadcasts of all time in an attempt to reevaluate the footage as a fascinating narrative experience rather than a complete hoax.
The TV Special That Convinced Millions It Was Real
Ray Santilli next to Extraterrestrial replica in ‘The Alien Autopsy Scandal’
For starters, regardless of whether or not you believe that there was in fact an extraterrestrial crash in Roswell during the summer of 1947 and that some form of autopsy was performed on the victims, the producers behind the black & white recordings, Ray Santilli and Gary Shoefield, insist that their video was a “restoration.” Though I’d argue that the proper word is “remake”of genuine footage that was too damaged to air on television. That’s why the duo went on to recruit filmmaker and eccentric magician Spyros Melaris and sculptor/monster designer John Humphreys to bring their version of the autopsy to life and sell it to the highest bidder.
This is where the story of the Alien Autopsy as a narrative experience really begins. Melaris claims that his approach to the faux recording consisted of striving for extreme period accuracy in both shooting equipment and setting while also planting subtle details that would initially seem like mistakes but could later be revealed to actually fit the time period. That being said, the filmmaker was under the impression that the short would be released for free as a PR stunt, with the team later producing and selling an informative documentary chronicling exactly how the footage was faked and commenting on how easy it is to manipulate public perception with a good old-fashioned magic trick.
This obviously isn’t how things went down, and that’s likely the reason why Melaris has since distanced himself from everyone else involved with the project. Yet, no amount of behind-the-scenes drama can undermine the genuine effort that went into making the short as impressive as it is. From the sourcing of real animal organs from a local butcher to make the organic part of the creature more lifelike to the highly detailed sculpt that made use of a hollowed-out underlayer that could be filled with fake blood and assorted viscera, there’s a reason why so many Hollywood specialists are still impressed with the artistry on display here.
Of course, the believability is only half the story, as I think that the best part of the autopsy is how Melaris builds on the existing tension by obscuring certain details and often embracing the chaos of what a real examination of extraterrestrial life could feel like. The camera often goes out of focus at just the right time to make certain effects hit even harder, and we can only speculate as to what the hazmat-suited doctors are gesticulating about during the operation. There’s a real air of mystery to the whole thing that almost makes it feel like a cosmically terrifying, cursed film containing forbidden knowledge that civilians were never meant to see.
So when Fox’s Fact or Fiction brings in the specialists to comment on the film and its otherworldly subject, it’s no surprise that we end up with one of the most memorable mockumentaries of all time – albeit one where the participants are unaware that the footage they’re commenting on is basically a large-scale practical joke. A joke that the network was obviously in on, as many participants claim that the TV special cut out significant portions where guests point out that they believe the footage to be an elaborate hoax.
The Lasting Impact of the Hoax Turned Cultural Event
Regardless, I remember going to bed terrified after watching reruns of the special and thinking about the respected pathologist who claimed that the body was almost certainly inhuman, with even effects maestro Stan Winston commenting on how difficult it would be to recreate some of these visuals through practical puppetry. That’s not even mentioning Jonathan Frakes’ dramatic hyping up of the disturbing imagery as if he was talking about the tape from The Ring, with his spooky demeanor here likely being responsible for his later role as the host of Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction a few years later.
Personally, I’d argue that the Alien Autopsy phenomenon had just as much of an impact on me as a horror fan as The Blair Witch Project, a film that was almost certainly influenced by the success of this immensely popular hoax (to the point where they even produced their own TV special commenting on Heather’s found footage). Even if Fox didn’t intend to produce a narrative feature about the aftermath of the Roswell crash, the end product still holds up remarkably well as a highly entertaining mockumentary exploring the idea that we may not be alone in the universe.
While neither Santilli nor the rest of the production team has ever commented on this, I also think it’s very likely that the idea of a faux Alien Autopsy could have been influenced by Dean Alioto’s The McPherson Tape/UFO Abduction. I’ve already written about how this granddaddy of found footage was co-opted by rogue ufologists who began selling bootlegs of the tape at conventions as if it were real evidence of a close encounter, so it’s not that much of a stretch to imagine that Santilli and company could have heard about this phenomenon and been inspired to come up with their own highly profitable hoax.
At the end of the day, it’s unlikely that the Alien Autopsy film is recreating any real footage from Roswell, but I can still appreciate the short and the accompanying television event as a standalone horror story that still influences the way we see found footage to this very day.
After all, the possibility that something could be real is often much scarier than finding out for sure – and that’s why I think Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction is still worth revisiting three decades down the line.
You must be logged in to post a comment.