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.
Comics
‘Spider-Noir’ Comic Changes Explained: How the TV Series Reinvents Marvel’s Darkest Spider-Man
A little while back, I wrote an article chronicling the Hellraiser franchise’s affinity for Film Noir and touched on how that genre has, historically, always been connected to horror.
This connection can be observed in everything from the cannibalistic serial killers of Frank Miller’s Sin City to the disturbing criminal plots fueling neo-noir thrillers like Stuart Gordon’s underrated King of the Ants. That’s why it came as no surprise when I finally sat down to watch all eight episodes of Prime Video’s recently released Spider-Noir series and was confronted with plenty of classic horror tropes.
What did come as a surprise, however, was how showrunners Oren Uziel and Steve Lightfoot approached these horror elements when compared to the 2009 comic book that the show is based on. From the heavily altered rogue’s gallery to an equally terrifying yet completely different origin story for Nicolas Cage’s take on the webslinger, there are plenty of changes here that I feel might be of interest to genre fans.
With that in mind, I’d like to invite readers to take a closer look at all the adjustments that Spider-Noir made to the story in order to bring this incarnation of Spider-Man to life in all of its monochromatic glory (unless you watched the True-Hue color version of the show, in which case you’ll be treated to a surprisingly comic-booky palette that you don’t usually see on television).
The Dark Origins of Marvel’s Spider-Man Noir
Our first order of business should be to examine the origins of the Noir comics themselves. Originally published as part of the Marvel Noir alternate universe that reimagined several characters as hard-boiled crime-fighters, Spider-Man Noir became the most successful book in the entire run. This highly politicized story about Peter Parker coming to terms with the capitalist evils of the Great Depression seemed to have struck a nerve with audiences looking for a darker take on the wall-crawler, which is likely why we’d soon see several sequel stories as well as a video game adaptation of the character in 2010’s underrated Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions.
Of course, it wasn’t just Spider-Man’s darker disposition that made this version of the character a hit, as 1930s New York City was depicted as being much more hostile than what we generally see in the standard Marvel Universe. From Peter’s powers coming from an Eldritch Spider God that spawns man-eating arachnids to Vulture being an ex-Freak-Show Gimp with a taste for human flesh, you can definitely understand why this Web-Head isn’t pulling his punches.
Unfortunately, this alternate universe was a little too popular for its own good, with each subsequent sequel/adaptation further diluting the political anger and classic horror influences that fueled the original comic-book run in order to appeal to a wider audience. Spider-Man Noir was nearly unrecognizable once we got to the Spider-Verse crossover that turned the character into a household name, though this would at least lead to an interesting adaptation in 2018.
The Classic Horror Influences Hidden Throughout Spider-Noir
Jack Huston as Sandman in ‘Spider-Noir’
When Phil Lord and Chris Miller finally translated Spider-Man Noir to the big screen, with Nicolas Cage bringing the character to life in an unexpected case of pitch-perfect casting, he was still mostly relegated to comic relief as his nazi-punching antics and over-the-top edginess were played for laughs. However, while this version of the character had little to do with the comics that spawned him, Spider-Noir’s newfound popularity eventually resulted in the announcement of a darker live-action spin-off – a spin-off that I was cautiously optimistic about.
While the showrunners ultimately decided to go in a completely different direction than the 2009 comic, the new team of writers appeared to understand Noir as a genre in ways that even the folks at Marvel Noir couldn’t quite grasp. That’s likely why 2026’s Spider-Noir boasts plenty of horror elements, just not in ways we’ve seen them before.
The series is obviously borrowing tropes and aesthetics from period-accurate monster movies, with Universal’s 1930s output being a particularly big influence. From the re-imagining of Sandman and Tombstone as tragic figures to The Spider even being operated on by a mad scientist with hilariously antiquated techniques, this bizarre collection of super-powered freaks could have easily shown up in a classic creature feature.
The scares aren’t all retro, however, as the showrunners also injected plenty of body-horror into the mix during their attempt at unifying the origin stories for all these larger-than-life characters. Hell, the Spider himself is now revealed to have gained his powers after being bitten by a half-mutated Man-Spider during World War I, and the aforementioned mad scientist keeps a disturbing collection of failed experiments in her basement, proving that not all of her patients were lucky enough to simply gain superpowers after being experimented on.
Nicolas Cage Reinvents Spider-Man Noir for Television
Ben Reilly/Spiderman (Nicolas Cage) in SPIDER-NOIR
Photo: Aaron Epstein/Prime
© Amazon Content Services LLC
I also really appreciate how Cage insists on depicting Ben Reilly as an arachnid trapped inside of a human body, with his uncanny physical performance and classic Hollywood impressions keeping your eyes glued to the screen while also providing some of the show’s funniest moments.
I still think it’s a shame that the character is no longer politically motivated, and I miss the detail about Uncle Ben having been cannibalized by Vulture after his social activism ruffled too many feathers, but at least this time our protagonist actually feels like someone who could have been written by Raymond Chandler if he were a fan of Superheroes.
In fact, the writers nailed the snappy back-and-forth that Noir authors like Dashiel Hammett used to refer to as the “riposte”, and it’s fun to see supervillains being depicted as horrific movie monsters instead of specialized henchmen – with The Spider feeling like just as much of a Freak Show attraction as the rest of them. Purists might be put off by the lack of reverence for the source material, but I think that’s a small price to pay when even the show’s most clichéd moments intentionally harken back to the golden age of Hollywood.
That’s why I’d argue that Amazon’s Spider-Noir isn’t really an adaptation, but rather an equally valid take on the same premise that inspired Marvel back in 2009. And in a world filled with recycled storylines that only serve to advertise future releases, I’d rather have two completely different visions of the same character than a straight-up retelling of the same handful of ideas.
At the end of the day, there’s enough space inside this comic fan’s heart for both man-eating Vultures and a Cronenberg-inspired Man-Spider. And if you’re also a fan of nostalgic creature features with comic book flair, I’d highly recommend this street-level superhero story with a spooky twist.
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