Editorials
Death Games: How Takashi Miike’s “As the Gods Will’ Was “Squid Game” Before “Squid Game”
The “death game” sub-genre sees ordinary people fight for survival through murderous games, puzzles, and exercises. These heightened stories have become so popular because of their tendency to turn torture and suffering into a twisted form of entertainment — a concept that feels increasingly authentic with each passing year. There are dozens of anime that fit the murderous death game mold between Deadman Wonderland, Danganronpa, and Gantz. However, there are also a handful of series that specifically follow Takashi Miike’s As the Gods Will and Hwang Dong-hyuk’s Squid Game’s example, where childish recreational games and activities become the competitive tools of these characters’ destruction. Kaiji, Liar Game, Death Parade, Alice in Borderland, and Btooom! all follow this model to some extent. As the Gods Will predates Squid Game by six years, but there’s fascinating crossover between these two death game stories. As the Gods Will is the more absurd and horrifying of these two narratives, only for it to be the title that’s flown under the radar for too long.
Both Squid Game and As the Gods Will are wild survival stories that feature children’s games as vicious death traps, right down to the first trial in both stories being horrific takes on “Red Light, Green Light.” Despite these heavy initial similarities, As the Gods Will forges its own path and builds its identity through some crucial differences. Squid Game, for instance, is set in the real world, with players who volunteer, in a commentary on the debt crisis and society’s inequality regarding how far people will go to become financially solvent. Alternatively, As The Gods Will involves forced high school students who are ultimately the pawns of Gods in a more heightened fantasy world, which seems to be a commentary on religion’s increasingly trendy and hollow nature. In this case, Gods and religious symbols, literally use humanity as their subjugated chess pieces to prove a point about power and human will. The fact that these test subjects want to rise up and kill the Gods at the end also reflects a greater frustration over “the system” and an ability to rise against it, whereas this freedom is absent in Squid Game.
Squid Game also creates a world that’s both bigger and smaller – it devotes time to VIP customers who are specifically putting bets on the game, as well as provides flashback backstories for its players, all of which a two-hour movie doesn’t necessarily have the luxury to explore. As the Gods Will is rich in world-building and teases a broad, fantastical universe that would surely reach even greater heights in a sequel. Cutting this story short instead turns every brief glimpse of As the Gods Will’s “outside world” into a tantalizing tease that doesn’t just allow the audience’s minds to run wild, but actively encourages it.
As the Gods Will’s opening scene is sublime moviemaking and there’s a strong case to be made that it’s actually one of the strongest openings to any of Miike’s films. This introduction hurls the audience into this chaotic, bizarre universe when all of a sudden high school students start exploding into blood marbles. The participants are as confused and overwhelmed as the audience, while Miike attacks both with this visceral assault on the senses. It’s such an effective way to kick off a death game movie that conveys an intense feeling of being trapped without any prologue. It’s closer to Cube or the original Saw where the audience just gets dropped in these traps and must parse out the details and plot.
As the Gods Will’s first ten minutes would be an Academy Award-quality short film if it were released on its own rather than just the prologue to this institutionalized mayhem. This introduction immediately sets the movie’s tone and simultaneously throws the viewer off-kilter. Miike doesn’t just eviscerate his cast, but he cycles through a myriad of creative ways in which these victims explode into marbles–whether they leak out of their eyes or cascade out of other orifices. It establishes that anything is possible in this universe and that the bodies are most certainly going to hit the floor.
As the Gods Will brilliantly teases the audience in regard to who will be the film’s leading protagonist, only to gloriously explode that paradigm in a bloody mess of marbles that teaches viewers to question every stereotype that they think they can rely on to gain some kind of advantage over the movie. Miike’s film spouts a lot of snappy generalisms on a life that’s ruled by games and entertainment. At one point in As the Gods Will, the movie’s renegade wild card, Takeru Amaya (Ryunosuke Kamiki), proclaims, “In the new world, power will be everything,” This isn’t a philosophy that’s shared by Shun Takahata (Sota Fukushi) or Ichika Akimoto (Hirona Yamazaki). However, it’s significant that this story features a bully who actually relishes this disorder and how it can help him rise above his station in life. He’s a loose cannon who works in opposition to the heroes and becomes an additional worry beyond the movie’s grander godly threats.
It’s easy to reduce As the Gods Will down to its radical games, much like with Squid Game, but it’s not without good reason. Five death games make up the movie’s major obstacles, which evolve from “Red Light, Green Light” with a Daruma doll, Belling the Cat, the blind-folded guessing game Kagome Kagome, Shirokuma, which is a truth-telling exercise with a giant polar bear, which all finally culminates in a high-stakes hybrid of kick the can and hide and go seek. Each of these juvenile exercises feature heightened CG supernatural dictators, diverse settings and costumes, and unique human challenges that boil down to intelligence, fitness, imagination, and luck.
Squid Game might put the greatest emphasis on luck when it comes to these four extremes, but As the Gods Will definitely prioritizes imagination. Most games include a clever twist wherein the participants find a way to outsmart the sadistic rulekeepers–albeit without technically cheating–and survive. Many of these games are so improperly balanced that they basically require the player to rise above the prescribed rules in order to crack the secret behind each of these exercises. All of these games are juvenile activities to have fun and kill boredom, but those who survive and understand go on to grasp the real values behind these seemingly-simplistic exercises. In doing so, these high school students already become gods through their ability to transcend convention and subvert reality to suit their narratives. Godhood is already realized, so to speak, before any of these participants are crowned the winner.
As the Gods Will is more interested in its gonzo bloody spectacles than the deeper substance beneath them. That being said, there’s still a deep, contemplative theme in this movie about the dangers of boredom, complacency, and being spoiled through the need for constant adventures and excitement. It reinforces the importance of being happy and grateful with a humble existence, even if that’s just a teenager’s monotonous routine. It’s a very regimented message that discourages rebellion and individuality in many respects. This is ultimately at odds with the movie’s final message, which does suggest that the disenfranchised should overthrow the system.
This speaks towards a more complex agenda that rewards normalcy and the ability to be grateful without having much, since this is still a level of freedom that’s an impossible luxury for others. As the Gods Will argues that if one is forced into a life-or-death survival game then it’s best to rage against the machine and turn against the moderators and administrators rather than the players. There’s community to be found in shared trauma and the fact that misery loves company. A sense of camaraderie and teamwork is much more prominent in As the Gods Will than it is in Squid Game, despite how the former revolves around a bunch of selfish teenagers.
As the Gods Will also pushes the premise that God is actually consumerism and the public’s addiction to this bloodshed that’s skewed into game show-esque entertainment. There’s no competition without an audience or someone who consumes these boredom-reducing spectacles. As the Gods Will doesn’t go as far with this theme as Squid Game, largely due to how the former only provides the briefest snapshots of life outside the “death game murder cube.” It’s still fascinating that both of these death game stories flirt with this premise in some capacity. This is the biggest ideal that young-adult death game cinema later embraces, such as the social hierarchy and one-percenter privilege that’s baked into movies like The Hunger Games, Escape Room, or even Hostel. Financial freedom and entitlement are the deciding factors behind the players and the gamekeepers. As the Gods Will instead reinforces a world that’s even more unstable and unpredictable where a cocky teenage deity has the potential to rewrite existence.
As the Gods Will is haunted by a lack of closure since Miike’s movie only adapts half of Muneyuki Kaneshiro and Akeji Fujimura’s source material manga. The cliffhanger conclusion is certainly felt and makes the movie come across as incomplete, despite everything that it accomplishes. It’s easy to picture As the Gods Will going through the young-adult franchise mold as a contemporary to The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, or Divergent. Miike is no stranger to sequels and would have been up to the opportunity, but the film amounts to an odder punk rock relic that rages against the machine, riles up the audience for rebellion, and then cuts to black. It’s frustrating, but also an ending that feels distinctly Miike. It’s akin to the note that Robert Rodriguez’s Alita: Battle Angel goes out on, which has left fans clamoring for a sequel for close to five years.
As the Gods Will is Takashi Miike at the top of his game with a darkly satirical horror-action story that’s wildly ahead of its time. The movie is more relevant than ever a decade after its release due to the sub-genre’s intense proliferation in a short amount of time. Surreal survival death game stories are now mainstream and the genre has reached such a fever pitch that there are literal game shows that are based on these sick social experiments. They’re an inch away from becoming reality. It’s exciting that As the Gods Will and Squid Game can resonate with audiences in such diverse, yet complementary ways. Anyone who’s hungry for more death game mayhem after Squid Game owes it to themselves to roll the dice with As the Gods Will.
Soon after the New Hollywood generation took over the entertainment industry, they started having children. And more than any filmmakers that came before—they were terrified. Rosemary’s Baby (1968), The Exorcist (1973), The Omen (1976), Eraserhead (1977), The Brood (1979), The Shining (1980), Possession (1981), and many others all deal, at least in part, with the fears of becoming or being a parent. What if my child turns out to be a monster? is corrupted by some evil force? or turns out to be the fucking Antichrist? What if I screw them up somehow, or can’t help them, or even go insane and try to kill them? Horror has always been at its best when exploring relatable fears through extreme circumstances. A prime example of this is Larry Cohen’s 1974 monster-baby movie It’s Alive, which explores the not only the rollercoaster of emotions that any parent experiences when confronted with the difficulties of raising a child, but long-standing questions of who or what is at fault when something goes horribly wrong.
Cohen begins making his underlying points early in the film as Frank Davis (John P. Ryan) discusses the state of the world with a group of expectant fathers in a hospital waiting room. They discuss the “overabundance of lead” in foods and the environment, smog, and pesticides that only serve to produce roaches that are “bigger, stronger, and harder to kill.” Frank comments that this is “quite a world to bring a kid into.” This has long been a discussion point among people when trying to decide whether to have kids or not. I’ve had many conversations with friends who have said they feel it’s irresponsible to bring children into such a violent, broken, and dangerous world, and I certainly don’t begrudge them this. My wife and I did decide to have children but that doesn’t mean that it’s been easy.
Immediately following this scene comes It’s Alive’s most famous sequence in which Frank’s wife Lenore (Sharon Farrell) is the only person left alive in her delivery room, the doctors clawed and bitten to death by her mutant baby, which has escaped. “What does my baby look like!? What’s wrong with my baby!?” she screams as nurses wheel her frantically into a recovery room. The evening that had begun with such joy and excitement at the birth of their second child turned into a nightmare. This is tough for me to write, but on some level, I can relate to this whiplash of emotion. When my second child was born, they came about five weeks early. I’ll use the pronouns “they/them” for privacy reasons when referring to my kids. Our oldest was still very young and went to stay with my parents and we sped off to the hospital where my wife was taken into an operating room for an emergency c-section. I was able to carry our newborn into the NICU (natal intensive care unit) where I was assured that this was routine for all premature births. The nurses assured me there was nothing to worry about and the baby looked big and healthy. I headed to where my wife was taken to recover to grab a few winks assuming that everything was fine. Well, when I awoke, I headed back over to the NICU to find that my child was not where I left them. The nurse found me and told me that the baby’s lungs were underdeveloped, and they had to put them in a special room connected to oxygen tubes and wires to monitor their vitals.
It’s difficult to express the fear that overwhelmed me in those moments. Everything turned out okay, but it took a while and I’m convinced to this day that their anxiety struggles spring from these first weeks of life. As our children grew, we learned that two of the three were on the spectrum and that anxiety, depression, ADHD, and OCD were also playing a part in their lives. Parents, at least speaking for myself, can’t help but blame themselves for the struggles their children face. The “if only” questions creep in and easily overcome the voices that assure us that it really has nothing to do with us. In the film, Lenore says, “maybe it’s all the pills I’ve been taking that brought this on.” Frank muses aloud about how he used to think that Frankenstein was the monster, but when he got older realized he was the one that made the monster. The aptly named Frank is wondering if his baby’s mutation is his fault, if he created the monster that is terrorizing Los Angeles. I have made plenty of “if only” statements about myself over the years. “If only I hadn’t had to work so much, if only I had been around more when they were little.” Mothers may ask themselves, “did I have a drink, too much coffee, or a cigarette before I knew I was pregnant? Was I too stressed out during the pregnancy?” In other words, most parents can’t help but wonder if it’s all their fault.
At one point in the film, Frank goes to the elementary school where his baby has been sighted and is escorted through the halls by police. He overhears someone comment about “screwed up genes,” which brings about age-old questions of nature vs. nurture. Despite the voices around him from doctors and detectives that say, “we know this isn’t your fault,” Frank can’t help but think it is, and that the people who try to tell him it isn’t really think it’s his fault too. There is no doubt that there is a hereditary element to the kinds of mental illness struggles that my children and I deal with. But, and it’s a bit but, good parenting goes a long way in helping children deal with these struggles. Kids need to know they’re not alone, a good parent can provide that, perhaps especially parents that can relate to the same kinds of struggles. The question of nature vs. nurture will likely never be entirely answered but I think there’s more than a good chance that “both/and” is the case. Around the midpoint of the film, Frank agrees to disown the child and sign it over for medical experimentation if caught or killed. Lenore and the older son Chris (Daniel Holzman) seek to nurture and teach the baby, feeling that it is not a monster, but a member of the family.
It’s Alive takes these ideas to an even greater degree in the fact that the Davis Baby really is a monster, a mutant with claws and fangs that murders and eats people. The late ’60s and early ’70s also saw the rise in mass murderers and serial killers which heightened the nature vs. nurture debate. Obviously, these people were not literal monsters but human beings that came from human parents, but something had gone horribly wrong. Often the upbringing of these killers clearly led in part to their antisocial behavior, but this isn’t always the case. It’s Alive asks “what if a ‘monster’ comes from a good home?” In this case is it society, environmental factors, or is it the lead, smog, and pesticides? It is almost impossible to know, but the ending of the film underscores an uncomfortable truth—even monsters have parents.
As the film enters its third act, Frank joins the hunt for his child through the Los Angeles sewers and into the L.A. River. He is armed with a rifle and ready to kill on sight, having divorced himself from any relationship to the child. Then Frank finds his baby crying in the sewers and his fatherly instincts take over. With tears in his eyes, he speaks words of comfort and wraps his son in his coat. He holds him close, pats and rocks him, and whispers that everything is going to be okay. People often wonder how the parents of those who perform heinous acts can sit in court, shed tears, and defend them. I think it’s a complex issue. I’m sure that these parents know that their child has done something evil, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are still their baby. Your child is a piece of yourself formed into a whole new human being. Disowning them would be like cutting off a limb, no matter what they may have done. It doesn’t erase an evil act, far from it, but I can understand the pain of a parent in that situation. I think It’s Alive does an exceptional job placing its audience in that situation.
Despite the serious issues and ideas being examined in the film, It’s Alive is far from a dour affair. At heart, it is still a monster movie and filled with a sense of fun and a great deal of pitch-black humor. In one of its more memorable moments, a milkman is sucked into the rear compartment of his truck as red blood mingles with the white milk from smashed bottles leaking out the back of the truck and streaming down the street. Just after Frank agrees to join the hunt for his baby, the film cuts to the back of an ice cream truck with the words “STOP CHILDREN” emblazoned on it. It’s a movie filled with great kills, a mutant baby—created by make-up effects master Rick Baker early in his career, and plenty of action—and all in a PG rated movie! I’m telling you, the ’70s were wild. It just also happens to have some thoughtful ideas behind it as well.
Which was Larry Cohen’s specialty. Cohen made all kinds of movies, but his most enduring have been his horror films and all of them tackle the social issues and fears of the time they were made. God Told Me To (1976), Q: The Winged Serpent (1982), and The Stuff (1985) are all great examples of his socially aware, low-budget, exploitation filmmaking with a brain and It’s Alive certainly fits right in with that group. Cohen would go on to write and direct two sequels, It Lives Again (aka It’s Alive 2) in 1978 and It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive in 1987 and is credited as a co-writer on the 2008 remake. All these films explore the ideas of parental responsibility in light of the various concerns of the times they were made including abortion rights and AIDS.
Fifty years after It’s Alive was initially released, it has only become more relevant in the ensuing years. Fears surrounding parenthood have been with us since the beginning of time but as the years pass the reasons for these fears only seem to become more and more profound. In today’s world the conversation of the fathers in the waiting room could be expanded to hormones and genetic modifications in food, terrorism, climate change, school and other mass shootings, and other threats that were unknown or at least less of a concern fifty years ago. Perhaps the fearmongering conspiracy theories about chemtrails and vaccines would be mentioned as well, though in a more satirical fashion, as fears some expectant parents encounter while endlessly doomscrolling Facebook or Twitter. Speaking for myself, despite the struggles, the fears, and the sadness that sometimes comes with having children, it’s been worth it. The joys ultimately outweigh all of that, but I understand the terror too. Becoming a parent is no easy choice, nor should it be. But as I look back, I can say that I’m glad we made the choice we did.
I wonder if Frank and Lenore can say the same thing.
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