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
‘Bloodstone: Subspecies II’ Revisited: A Bigger, Bolder Follow-Up to Full Moon’s Vampire Cult Classic
Horror sequels are a peculiar thing. In most cases, follow-ups to scary movies tend to retread the same formula with different victims and more over-the-top scares. This is because audiences tend to be more interested in the antagonists of these pictures than anything else, with even main characters becoming disposable when the time comes to produce a sequel.
That’s why some of the most memorable horror sequels are the ones that actually manage to hold onto interesting survivors from previous films while also pushing the story forward instead of having the same thing happen again to a different group of people. From Scream 2 to Dream Warriors (and arguably even The Exorcist III: Legion), there are quite a few of these innovative sequels to go around.
However, if there’s one franchise that deserves more attention when discussing bigger and better continuations that make the most of episodic filmmaking, it has to be Ted Nicolaou’s Subspecies.
The Full Moon classic spawned an indie horror icon, but bizarre sequel Bloodstone: Subspecies II is even more beloved than its predecessor.
Building a Bigger Vampire Saga
While the film itself takes place almost immediately after the events of the first movie, Bloodstone only entered production a couple of years after the release of the original as both Charles Band and Nicolaou weighed the pros and cons of returning to Romania to continue the series. In an effort to maximize efficiency, the team decided to invest in a trilogy where parts II and III, now fully written by Nicolaou, would be filmed simultaneously over the course of a single grueling shoot.
Much like the first Subspecies, Bloodstone’s low budget meant that the filmmakers once again had to cut corners and re-use as many of their resources as possible. Thankfully, the process was much easier this time around as Nicolaou, with the help of Romanian cinematographer Vlad Paunescu and his wife Oana, became more acquainted with local customs and made new friends. Shooting abroad still came with its own unique set of challenges due to a lack of translators and the occasional safety concerns, but the crew managed to make things work by filming things guerrilla-style and setting up shop in abandoned caves and real medieval ruins.
The director’s newfound contacts, coupled with the relative success of the first movie, meant that he was basically given free rein over an assortment of shooting locations usually considered off-limits for indie horror. That’s why Bloodstone features insanely ambitious lighting and effects work even during scenes shot in the middle of a bustling Bucharest. The filmmakers went so far as to project Radu’s Nosferatu-like shadows over local monuments as if he were a Romanian boogeyman, an idea that was actually encouraged by local cinephiles.
In fact, many of the more elaborate scenes here had originally been planned for the first movie before being discarded due to the lack of available resources. It was only with the support of Romanian fans and filmmakers that Bloodstone was able to give Radu a chance to be even more menacing the second time around.
Michelle’s Transformation Takes Center Stage
However, when it came to the American part of the crew, not everyone was able or willing to return for another round of Romanian adventuring. That’s why Radu’s human-loving half-brother Stefan (Michael Watson) is unceremoniously killed off at the beginning of the film while the role of Michelle had to be recast. Denice Duff took over for Laura Mae Tate, with the character now being joined by her sister, Rebecca, played by Melanie Shatner (yes, that Shatner).
In the finished film, we follow Michelle as she awakens to her new life as a vampire and discovers that Radu has murdered her lover. Struggling with grief and her newfound bloodlust, Michelle contacts her sister overseas, with Rebecca soon travelling to Romania on an ill-advised rescue mission. Meanwhile, Radu (Anders Hove) reaches out to his undead Mummy (Pamela Gordon, underneath heavy layers of impressive makeup effects) and promises to deliver her the coveted Bloodstone artifact while also making Michelle his eternal consort.
Revisiting the movie, I was impressed with how introspective this story is when compared to the original. The sequel assumes that you’re already familiar with the previously established characters, so the story wastes no time in exploring the immediate aftermath of the previous film’s events. From Michelle’s reluctant transformation into a creature of the night to Radu’s obvious mommy issues, Nicolaou is way more interested in pushing these characters into new and uncharted territory rather than recycling existing plot points.
Practical Effects and Gothic Atmosphere Still Impress
Yet, much like the first film, it’s Romania itself that makes the movie worth watching. The ruins of Castle Vladislav are even more majestic now, and visiting the moody streets of Bucharest with its surprisingly punk-rock nightlife made for a nice change of pace when compared to the original film’s quiet village setting. Once again, the abundance of interesting locations makes the movie feel much more expensive than it really is, with the filmmakers surrounding our characters with a living, breathing environment that would be impossible to recreate in a studio.
The increased freedom also allowed Nicolaou to flex his filmmaking muscles and tackle more ambitious blocking/composition in the sequel. The low budget and tropey script mean that the visuals don’t always work, but it’s consistently clear that this neo-expressionist style could only come from a passionate team attempting to pay homage to the shadowy horror classics of yesteryear. If the retro atmosphere isn’t enough for you, there’s enough practical gore here to satisfy even the most demanding of horror hounds!
Radu himself is also far more interesting now that Hove is more comfortable working alongside an international crew, with the actor having gone on record explaining that, while he spent more time drinking vodka than working while shooting the first movie, the sequel was a much more creatively satisfying experience for everyone involved. The character’s relationship with his abusive Mummy is also a highlight of the expanded mythology, especially since the practical effects that bring her to life are just as freaky now as they were back in ’93.
My only real gripe with the horror elements of the picture comes from the glaring absence of the diminutive stop-motion minions from the first film, though I guess the surprisingly entertaining addition of Professor Popescu (Michael Denish) and his archeological antics mostly make up for that.
Bloodstone: Subspecies II is obviously the middle chapter of a trilogy, with the ending feeling a lot less definitive than its predecessor as several plot threads are left to dangle in the wind, but I appreciate how the flick explores new ground while remaining faithful to nearly all the ideas that made the original such a good time. While I don’t think it’s as big of an improvement over the first movie as some fans make it out to be, Bloodstone is definitely worth revisiting if you’re a fan of old-fashioned vampire yarns.
Tune in next time for the thrilling conclusion to this initial trilogy, Bloodlust: Subspecies III!
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