Editorials
Why ‘DOOM 3’ is Still Haunted House Perfection
In 1993 developer id Software changed the face of gaming forever with the release of DOOM. This polished, face-paced FPS put players in the blood-soaked boots of the Doomslayer and asked them to clear out waves of angry demons. The game was drenched in controversy thanks to its brutal violence and disturbing imagery. Yet, this title quickly amassed a dedicated fanbase that helped catapult DOOM as one of the most iconic franchises of all time.
But this isn’t about that game.
DOOM 3 launched on August 3, 2004, for PC and the original Xbox. Taking the series’ “run-and-gun” formula and melding it with horror proved to be an instant success. Both critics and fans praised DOOM 3 despite its radical departure into a genre that the franchise only previously flirted with. Gone was the thumping metal soundtrack and colorful sprites exploding into comical amounts of gore. Instead, id Software offered users a moody, unsettling experience and the series was better for it.
Like many survival horror games, DOOM 3 embraces a haunted house attraction style that’s filled with loud noises, jump scares, and monsters hiding in the dark. While this method can be viewed as a cheap way to induce fear, id Software masterfully balances these scares through clever level and sound design Only a few encounters are accompanied with dramatically loud music meant to jolt the player out of their seat. The rest is left to the player’s imagination, with various ambient sounds flooding the creaking, empty halls of the Mars space station.
Every tightly packed room is a claustrophobic nightmare that grabs hold of the player right as the game begins. Only when users are shuffled onto Mars’ surface do they get a second to catch their breath. A brief, serene moment as DOOM 3 exhales before taking in a big gulp of air and plunging back into the abyss. There are no huge arenas for players to run around in, which causes most encounters to be far more threatening. With such restricted space, fighting the demons becomes tricky as they, for once, have the advantage.
This is something that has been lost in later entries, with demons acting as nothing more than cannon fodder for the Doomslayer to tear through. They are no longer scary, but cartoonish and exceptionally over the top. Inversely, DOOM 3‘s demons are just otherworldly enough to be scary, while still embracing their classic appearances. All of these creatures are genuinely threatening and can easily take down a player if they aren’t careful. It elevates the stakes of every encounter, forcing users to make snap decisions about how to approach each encounter.
Even the lighting adds a terrific amount of tension. Despite being absent in later remasters of DOOM 3, players originally had to manually pull out their flashlight. Doing so would lower the weapon and make players temporarily vulnerable. This takes control out of the user’s hands, forcing them to quickly light up an area to check if it was safe. Understanding when to use your flashlight was vital and DOOM 3 was hardly forgiving if you picked the wrong time to shine some light in a location. It’s a small, but clever way to always keep people on the edge of their seats.
Power-ups, health, and ammo are also hidden away in secluded areas or closed storage lockers. DOOM 3 forces players to engage with its story via audio logs if they want to obtain the best gear. This isn’t an issue as the general plot and characters are shockingly superb. During your journey you’ll learn all about the Mars base and the people within, lending DOOM 3 a more intriguing story than any of the other franchise entries.
Story has always been secondary in the DOOM franchise. Yes, 2016’s DOOM has terrific visual storytelling, but the third installment took it a step further. There were so many secrets to uncover that added real emotional weight to the world. Stumbling upon a dead scientists PDA could help shed some light on not just the demons, but who these people were. DOOM 3 respects its world, allowing it to organically open up to those brave enough to explore. Id Software understood that this franchise can be more than stylishly killing monsters in some macabre spectacle.
Sure, cutting up demons is fun, but DOOM 3‘s decision to embrace the horror genre was a perfect evolution for the franchise. On paper, the setting for the upcoming DOOM Eternal should be terrifying. An Earth that has been ravaged by demonic beings sounds like a great horror premise, but Eternal appears to treat its world like something out of a twisted comic book. That’s not to say there isn’t a time or a place to cut loose and carve up some monsters, but DOOM is a series that’s perfect for the horror genre.
Going forward, I would love to see this franchise look to the third installment for inspiration. Make the monsters horrific again and not Saturday morning cartoon versions of Clive Barker demons. There’s so much potential for this franchise to grow and expand beyond its classic roots that it’s frustrating to see it slink back into the safety of the run-and-gun design. The Resident Evil franchise boasts a vast assortment of uniquely designed entries, each of which are capable of standing on their own. Id Software should follow this mentality and not be chained to the classic formula it originally crafted.
DOOM 3 is not just a great DOOM game, but a fantastic example of how to craft a survival horror experience.
Some movies are just so beloved that you can experience them through cultural osmosis without ever sitting down to actually watch them. From loving parodies to meticulous recreations of iconic scenes, memorable filmmaking lives on even after the curtains close on the silver screen. And when it comes to horror, few films can compete with the massive impact that Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining had on popular culture as a whole.
Whether or not you think the flick is a good adaptation of Stephen King’s seminal novel, 1980’s The Shining slowly but surely grew into one of the most influential genre movies ever made, inspiring everything from surprisingly heartfelt sequels to classic episodes of The Simpsons. However, not all The Shining references are created equal, and today I’d like to shine a light on six unexpected homages to Kubrick’s iconic film.
In this list, we’ll be focusing on references and Easter eggs that either came out of the blue or came from creators that you wouldn’t expect to be fans of this classic ghost story. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own favorite references to the Torrance family and the Overlook Hotel if you think we missed a particularly memorable one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
5. A Nightmare on FaceTime – South Park (2012)
Regardless of the brand’s iffy reputation among former employees, the death of Blockbuster Video was a serious blow to fans of physical media. Of course, some folks were more affected by this than others, and South Park’s Randy Marsh definitely took things a little too far in the twelfth episode of the show’s sixteenth season.
Titled A Nightmare on FaceTime, the main plot of this 2012 story is a surprisingly faithful recreation of The Shining where Randy purchases an empty Blockbuster store and begins to go mad once he realizes that his investment may not have been a very good idea due to the rise of streaming and the now-defunct RedBox storefronts.
4. The Overlook Hotel Level – Ready Player One (2018)
I was never really a fan of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, so I viewed Stephen Spielberg’s divisive adaptation of the novel as an improvement over the source material despite having its own narrative issues. In fact, I actually prefer how Spielberg changed the story by removing several references to his own work and replacing a lengthy Blade Runner detour with an over-the-top homage to The Shining.
A CGI-heavy recreation of the film’s most iconic moments that feels like a big-budget ghost train ride set within the Overlook Hotel, this intense sequence is more of a recreation of the freaky aesthetics of The Shining rather than its mind-bending narrative. However, it’s still fun to see Spielberg make a heartfelt tribute to a filmmaker that was once his close personal friend.
3. IKEA Singapore Halloween Ad (2014)
It makes sense that commercials don’t typically borrow from the horror genre, as it might be a bad idea to scare away potential customers, but some references are just too much fun to pass up.
That’s probably why the publicists behind this Ikea ad from Singapore were allowed to turn their commercial into a genuinely unsettling recreation of Danny’s tricycle scene from The Shining. After all, nobody cares if your store is haunted so long as it offers late-night shopping hours and a large selection of merchandise that you can become lost in forever and ever…
2. The End of ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’ – Community (2014)
Community is no stranger to recreating iconic movie moments within the show, and the series had previously tackled horror tropes in episodes like the fan-favorite Epidemiology. However, the most laugh-out-loud moment on this particular list comes from a brief gag towards the end of the season five episode ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’.
The majority of this episode has nothing to do with scary movies, but there’s a brief subplot involving supporting character Chang and a possible encounter with ghosts that leads him to question his own existence. This subplot culminates in the episode’s hilarious ending where the camera zooms in on a black-and-white photograph of Chang in period clothing at some kind of celebration, just like Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining.
However, the picture’s subtitle eventually reveals that it’s merely a conveniently placed keepsake from the ‘Old Timey Photo Club’.
1. The Overlook Hedge Maze Sequence – Zootopia 2 (2025)
Disney movies are pretty far removed from both the gruesome horror of Stephen King and the heady filmmaking of Stanley Kubrick, so I don’t think anyone was expecting the climax of last year’s Zootopia sequel to take place in an animated version of the snowy hedge maze from The Shining.
In this unexpectedly intense sequence, friend-turned-villain Pawbert Lynxley (an unhinged lynx cat played by Andy Samberg) chases our protagonists through a creepy labyrinth in a loving recreation of Jack Nicholson’s icy demise outside the Overlook Hotel. The actual ending here might be a little more child-friendly than what’s being referenced, but it’s amazing that the filmmakers were able to push the horror elements as far as they did – especially since the scene doesn’t really have anything to do with the rest of the movie.
You must be logged in to post a comment.