Editorials
As ‘The Amnesia Collection’ Heads to Nintendo Switch, We Look Back at One of the Most Important Horror Games of the Decade
The Amnesia Collection casually landed on Nintendo Switch today, bring Amnesia: The Dark Descent, its expansion Justine, and the divisive sequel A Machine For Pigs to a Nintendo console for the first time.
As we head towards the end of this decade, I’ve found myself thinking of the great horror games of the past ten years, and one, in particular, feels so important in shaping the horror game landscape as we know it.
Amnesia: The Dark Descent wasn’t the first of its kind, but it popularized first-person psychological horror titles where the protagonist has little to no defense against the evil that stalks them. That popularity was in part, due to YouTube personalities making videos of themselves playing it and getting scared shitless, but it was just as crucial that it felt so fresh, and tapped into the good part of classic horror writing.
Released 9 years ago, Frictional Games’ Amnesia: The Dark Descent is set in 1839, and sees amnesiac protagonist Daniel wandering a poorly-lit castle that holds some disturbing secrets in its walls. Monsters roam the halls, and the very sight of them can drive Daniel mad. As he descends into the castle’s depths, he uncovers his own personal mystery, and encounters unspeakable monstrosities.
Daniel has no weapons to defend himself, so he must flee and hide when he encounters monsters. He does have the ability to block doorways, albeit temporarily as monsters can destroy your makeshift barricades, so finding a good hiding spot becomes priority one in any given encounter. Not only can you be psychically attacked, but a mental turmoil is also a factor the longer you stare at creatures or reside in darkness. So you’re constantly having to weigh up when to leave safety, that may drive you mad because it’s too dark, and creeping past monsters, who will either tip your sanity over the edge or straight up kill you. Your trusty lamp is as good as any weapon in this environment
The feeling of helplessness is a constant one in Amnesia, and it played
a big part in the game’s success. Frictional had visited this before with its Penumbra games, and would revisit again with the more modern SOMA, but it’s The Dark Descent that best captures it. The essence of classic Survival Horror is found in this, closer to what Alone in the Dark was than Resident Evil. The central mystery, as Daniel slowly discovers his missing memories, is engrossing, and suitably dark. It clearly owes a lot to writers such as H.P. Lovecraft, and in turn, it has led to a lot of horror games since embracing that form of cosmic horror in one way or another.
It’s fair to say that without something like Amnesia, we perhaps wouldn’t have had Outlast, Layers of Fear, or even P.T. in the manner they are now. Games like Amnesia, from independent developers, also helped to fuel the horror game resurgence in general when big companies were cooling on the genre.
So if you’ve yet to play it, now is as good a time as any to do so. The Justine expansion is a great addition to the story of the original game, and A Machine For Pigs, which Frictional handed to fellow indie developer The Chinese Room, keeps the essence of what made the first game tick, but has an entirely new voice to it.
The Amnesia Collection is out now on PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch.
It’s been 75 years since The Thing From Another World first warned us to “watch the skies”, and filmgoers have done just that by showing up to multiple instances of extraterrestrial contact on the big screen. This makes sense, as a recent CBS news poll estimated that 63% of Americans believe in intelligent life on other planets, and the ongoing disclosure movement aims to raise that number with each passing day.
With Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day leaving many genre fans hungry for more alien footage (preferably of the spooky variety), today I’d like to share a list recommending six underrated alien invasion thrillers for your viewing pleasure. After all, regardless of whether or not you believe that we’re alone in the universe, it can be fun to dream about the worst-case scenario if our cosmic neighbors ever decide to visit.
For the purposes of this list, we’ll be focusing on lesser-known invasion stories rather than the popular extraterrestrials of franchises like Alien and Close Encounters of the Third (or even Fourth) Kind. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own alien favorites if you think we missed a particularly thrilling movie.
While it won’t be featured in this article, I’d highly recommend checking out Dean Alioto’s UFO Abduction/The McPherson Tape if you’re up for some ufology-inspired found footage thrills.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
6. The Arrival (1996)
Not to be confused with Denis Villeneuve’s Academy Award-winning Amy Adams vehicle about learning to communicate peacefully with extraterrestrial life, David Twohy’s The Arrival is a much more straightforward (but no less entertaining) genre romp where Charlie Sheen faces a global conspiracy involving hostile alien invaders.
It’s not exactly up there with Close Encounters or even Independence Day, but Twohy’s conspiratorial thriller plays out like an exceptionally fun episode of The X-Files that I’d recommend to sci-fi/horror fans who don’t mind a little bit of wonky CGI and 90s excess alongside their alien thrills.
5. Extraterrestrial (2014)
The Vicious Brothers made a name for themselves with the success of 2011’s Grave Encounters, but that was far from the Canadian duo’s only collaboration. And while it’s not exactly a fan favorite, I always point out 2014’s Extraterrestrial as one of their most underrated projects simply because I agree with the filmmakers’ opinion that there aren’t enough ‘cool alien abduction movies’ out there.
Admittedly, the majority of the picture functions like a run-of-the-mill creature feature with paper-thin characters and familiar horror tropes, but I’d argue that the cosmically-terrifying final act elevates the experience to new and memorable heights. The movie also boasts great performances by both Michael Ironside and Emily Perkins – a combination that more than makes up for the occasionally janky CGI.
4. Alien Raiders (2008)
Director Ben Rock has gone on record lamenting how his John-Carpenter-inspired creature feature was forcefully renamed from Supermarket to the painfully obvious Alien Raiders (a change which likely resulted in many potential viewers skipping out on the experience), but the new title doesn’t change the fact that this single-location thriller is something of a hidden gem.
Taking place entirely within a supermarket, Alien Raiders tells the story of an ensemble of customers and employees who are taken hostage by a group of armed men looking for something far more dangerous than an easy payout. I won’t get into details in order to avoid spoiling the experience, but I’d highly recommend this criminally underseen flick to fans of John Carpenter and the Resident Evil games.
3. Phoenix Forgotten (2017)
You’d think that a Ridley-Scott-produced retelling of one of the most infamous real-life UFO sightings of all time would have a bigger following, but I rarely see Justin Barber’s Found Footage period piece brought up during discussions about extraterrestrial-focused horror movies.
This is a huge shame, as Phoenix Forgotten is just as spooky as it is convincing, with this well-researched dive into the Phoenix Lights incident benefiting from surprisingly believable special effects as well as an appropriately horrific finale.
2. Communion (1989)
I wouldn’t blame you for disregarding Whitley Strieber’s controversial book about his alleged close encounter as sensationalist slop, but I’d argue that Phillipe Mora’s 1989 adaptation of these events is much better than the source material. After all, the movie works as a standalone piece of speculative fiction while also benefiting from an incredible performance by the one and only Christopher Walken!
Mora’s take on Communion may not be particularly scary, but the film is still an unforgettable character study regardless of whether or not the abduction really happened. Not only that, but the flick also paved the way for plenty of future sci-fi stories where the extraterrestrial invaders aren’t as evil as they initially appear.
1. Altered (2006)
Originally envisioned as a Sam Raimi-style horror-comedy titled Probed, Eduardo Sánchez (of The Blair Witch Project fame) eventually realized that it would be much more interesting to turn the film into a serious exploration of the emotional aftermath of a traumatic abduction incident.
That’s how we got Altered, a clever inversion of the standard abduction narrative that follows a group of troubled friends as they capture and experiment on an alien in order to enact revenge for their own abduction years prior.
You must be logged in to post a comment.