Editorials
Shotguns, Sleaze, and Secret Passages: 25 Years of ‘Duke Nukem 3D’
What was the first time you really clicked with a First Person Shooter? Some will say DOOM, others Call of Duty or Counterstrike. Maybe something a bit different like Left 4 Dead or Half-Life? For me, it really began with trying 3D Realms’ Duke Nukem 3D on my uncle’s PC.
I’d grown up embracing sci-fi and horror, as well as over the top 80s action films, so after going through an opening level, set in a war-torn Downtown Los Angeles, that was full of just that, a teenage me was naturally left in awe of Duke Nukem 3D for a variety of reasons.
Duke Nukem 3D sees the titular musclebound action hero saving the world from an alien invasion the only way he knows how, by reeling off one-liners and blowing shit up. Duke’s appearance and attitude was a blender full of 1980s action heroes. A frothy mixture of Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Kurt Russell, Bruce Campbell, and Roddy Piper, with a crude sense of humor targeted directly at teenage boys. It veers into absurd parody of the action movie genre and pokes fun at its then rivals (the eviscerated DOOM guy Easter Egg was mindblowing to me at the time).
This was, of course, an incredibly violent game for the time, albeit with tongue lodged firmly in cheek (Duke threatens to rip a boss’ head off and shit down his neck, and in a cutscene after the fight, keeps that promise) and the pixelated titillation that accompanied it (A strip club is an early setting, and undressed ladies are a common sight throughout) made sure it wasn’t destined to be sitting in many kids’ Christmas stockings.
Graphic, violent games were almost taboo to me at this stage of life (and still a relative rarity in the medium). I could freely read horror books, and my parents were fairly good about letting me watch violent action and horror films (they were less into me and my brothers watching wrestling because siblings and choreographed violence ends in foosball tables being shattered by one kid throwing another off a bunk bed), but video game violence? Not something that was so readily accepted, especially given how high profile they’d been made by newspaper hysteria.
So getting that whiff of Duke Nukem at my uncle’s house was rarefied air. Just as it had been when I got to play slivers of Mortal Kombat, DOOM, and Resident Evil at a friends house (I saw right up until the first zombie showed up in Resident Evil before that friend refused to have the game on again).
We were lucky enough to be getting a PC for the first time soon after that experience, and my Dad managed to get my uncle to sneak a copy of Duke Nukem 3D in amongst some more ‘family-friendly’ fare. You bet your behind I got to playing that game as soon as I could.
The opening level of Duke Nukem 3D was already taking up residence in my impressionable young mind after that brief taste, but after that first week actually getting to play it properly at home, it was permanently burned into my brain.
Beneath the perviness, gore, and quotes ripped from films (I thought the ‘All Outta Gum’ line from They Live was from this game only for a few years before finally watching the movie) was this game full of cool secrets. Hidden switches and doorways, fun Easter Eggs, and grubby jokes were the reward for exploring what are, by modern standards, relatively small spaces. Yes, Duke was, and is, a shallow game when it comes to its characters and story, but as a 3D space to be explored? It was incredibly deep.
Level, after level, Duke 3D offered up a slew of secrets to uncover alongside its satisfying selection of alien-slaying arsenal (shrinking enemies and crushing them under your boot didn’t get old for a long time). A slew of expansions and mods kept me coming back again and again, and I naturally hoped for more from the Duke.
But maybe Duke Nukem was always set up to fall from grace.
After all, the cigar-chomping parody of 80s action heroes built a reputation on violence, sleaze, and misogyny, and while it once worked on a satirical level, the point only had to be missed once or twice for it to turn sour. Which it inevitably did.
Action movies were already moving away from that style, and first-person shooters were beginning to evolve at an alarming rate (the Nine Inch Nails-scored Quake would debut later the same year Duke Nukem 3D came out, and Half-Life was just a couple of years away).
A long-gestating ‘true sequel’ became a meme, as Duke Nukem Forever took an absurd amount of time to finally release, and Duke, unfortunately, didn’t get the same late-career revival as his action movie star inspirations. Duke Nukem Forever ended up being a nostalgia-baiting flop, a game way out of its time, and one that clearly misunderstood most of the reasons behind Duke Nukem 3D’s success.
For me though, Duke Nukem will always be defined by Duke Nukem 3D. A game of thrilling discovery with more depth to it than the abundance of strippers and alien guts would imply. One that stands alone in getting the balance of smarts and sleaze just about right.
From child-eating witches to village-burning dragons, fairy tales have always had a foot in the horror genre. That’s why it makes sense that, for every The Hobbit and The Chronicles of Narnia, there are also darker and more adult-oriented stories about magical worlds inhabited by ravenous monsters and cruel villains.
Funnily enough, these sinister tales were precisely the ones that I gravitated towards back when I was a kid, and I was reminded of this while watching Netflix’s recently released I Am Frankelda, Mexico’s first ever feature-length stop-motion animation and one hell of an entertaining parable about the intersection between fiction and reality.
In honor of this special kind of horror-adjacent fairy tale, today I’d like to share this list recommending six Dark Fantasy films that horror fans might enjoy.
For the purposes of this list, we’ll be defining Dark Fantasy as fantastical stories that don’t shy away from the more macabre elements that fuel classic fairy tales. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own grim favorites if you think we missed a particularly thrilling one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
6. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
I’m fascinated by bizarre attempts at blockbuster filmmaking – especially when the resulting movies are somehow still fun despite their corporate-mandated origins. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is precisely one of these strangely compelling studio projects, as this surprisingly successful action-thriller boasts a lot of heart (and tongue-in-cheek humor) for a CGI-heavy creature feature.
Directed by Dead Snow’s Tommy Wirkola, Witch Hunters re-frames the classic fairy tale as an origin story for a duo of badass monster-slayers. Of course, it’s the flick’s anachronistic aesthetic and overall visual flair that make it stand out from other action-horror endeavors from around the same time.
5. The Wolf House (2018)
Made in the tradition of faux cursed films in the same vein as Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made, the eerie backstory to 2018’s Chilean animated flick The Wolf House (La Casa Lobo in the original Spanish) already makes it a nightmarish experience before the flick even really begins.
After all, the movie is presented to us as a faux propaganda film produced by the leader of a death cult (heavily inspired by the real life Colonia Dignidad), with this hybrid animated feature using complex movie magic to simulate a single uninterrupted shot as it tells the story of a lazy young girl who runs away from an isolated colony and encounters a creepy old house in the woods.
4. The Brothers Grimm (2005)
Out of all the Monty Python alumni, Terry Gilliam has had the most interesting career outside of the original comedy group. From fascinating canceled projects (such as his scrapped adaptation of Watchmen) to dystopian parodies that feel more relevant by the minute (1985’s Brazil), even his “lesser” films are still intriguing in their own way.
2005’s The Brothers Grimm is one such project, with this peculiar movie attempting to combine the comedian-turned-filmmaker’s unique visual style with a more blockbuster-oriented plot reimagining the titular brothers as con-artists rather than mere writers. The end result isn’t exactly a masterpiece, but it’s still a legitimately fun ride with plenty of memorable monsters and wonderful performances by both the late, great Heath Ledger and Matt Damon.
3. Dante’s Inferno: An Animated Epic (2010)
2010’s Dante’s Inferno game may have a reputation as something of an unapologetic God of War clone, but I’d argue that the now-obscure game was aesthetically unique enough to deserve a bigger fanbase. However, while the title remains trapped on the seventh console generation, its highly underrated anime adaptation is a lot easier to get a hold of!
Animated by 6 different studios in order to make the 9 circles of hell feel unique from each other, this may not be a completely faithful adaptation of Dante Alighieri’s poem, but it’s still one heck of a great (not to mention gory) time that I’d highly recommend to fans of Netflix’s take on Castlevania.
2. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009)
My personal favorite entry in the Underworld franchise, Rise of the Lycans, is a highly ambitious prequel that actually works better if you haven’t had the story spoiled to you by the previous Underworld films.
While the rest of the series features plenty of urban fantasy elements as the movies combine machine guns and modern environments with gothic storytelling, Patrick Tatopoulos’ prequel fully embraces its fantastical origins and tells a classic tale about a doomed romance between a werewolf and a vampire amid a medieval uprising.
And the best part is that we get a lot more Michael Sheen as the fan-favorite Lucian.
1. Solomon Kane (2011)
One of my personal favorite movies on this list, MJ Basset’s criminally underseen adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s other iconic warrior is thoroughly steeped in horror ambience and features plenty of memorable monsters. However, it’s also a classic origin story for a swashbuckling hero that wouldn’t feel out of place in a tabletop RPG.
While I’ve already written about how the film deftly combines both horror and fantasy elements without breaking the bank, I’ll never pass up an opportunity to recommend the bizarre movie where James Purefoy expertly plays a puritan John Wick.
It’s just too bad that we never got the other films in this intended trilogy.
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