Movies
BLACK FRIDAY CHOPPING LIST: VIDEO GAMES
While many of us might feel nostalgic for the early days of Pong and Pac-Man, you have to admit that in the 21st century gaming has become a much richer, more dynamic experience than ever before. Screw productivity — video games are here to stay, and to tell the truth all those long-term aspirations you used to harbor were kind of stupid anyway. Which brings us to Bloody-Disgusting’s list of some of the best horror-themed video games the techno-gods have on offer for the holidays this year. This season’s list also includes a new section highlighting some of the best ghoulish iPhone apps now (or soon) available for purchase. Further proof that human contact is totally overrated — after all, your XBox360 will never leave you.
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VIDEO GAMES
The highly-anticipated sequel to the incredibly popular co-op first-person shooter/survival horror video game Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2 gives gamers a tour through the cities, swamps and cemeteries of the South, including Savannah, GA and New Orleans. Unlike the first game, this one will feature narrative-style story arcs for its four characters. Also, in an advanced version of the artificial intelligence system (A.I. Director) featured in the first game, the Director will have the capability of changing the placement of buildings and obstacles, as well as weather patterns, to make each session of play unique. It will also reward players that take more difficult/risky paths through the game by dispensing more useful equipment and weaponry. There’s been some controversy amongst L4D fans that the sequel has been rushed out by EA too quickly, but hopefully that negative buzz will subside (if it’s actually an improvement on the first game, of course) once the game is released.
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A re-imagining of the first game in the series, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories features several cool new features, including the development of a “psyche profile” that will change elements of play according to each specific player’s choices in the context of the game. The monsters, as well as the attitudes of the other characters the player encounters during the game, will vary according to the path he/she chooses. The Wii version is the most anticipated, as that system’s Remote will be used to solve puzzles and to operate the flashlight and cell phone of the main character. The prospects for this one, thankfully, seem good so far: the demo version was bestowed with three IGN awards during E3 2009 (in the Wii category), for best overall game, best adventure game, and best graphics technology.
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Based on a treatment by Zombie Studios and original franchise creators Leigh Wannell and James Wan, the storyline of the long-delayed Saw video game takes place between the first two movies (although it features traps from the first five films). Players will control the actions of Detective David Tapp, who at the beginning of the game awakes in an abandoned insane asylum rigged with Jigsaw-planted traps. Tapp soon learns that the other people trapped inside the asylum with him are actually hunting him for the key to their own games, which has been implanted in his chest. As in the films, our protagonist also comes to realize he shares a dark connection with the other characters. Saw has been developed in the third-person style of Silent Hill, with the player alternately fighting off enemies and attempting to solve the mystery behind Jigsaw’s deadly setup. The game has received mixed reviews from critics, but for players with a taste for gore, it doesn’t come much bloodier than this (players are even graced with the ability to carve open bodies to extract objects – nice!).
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This fully-immersive action/horror game, featuring amnesiac shape-shifting protagonist Alex Mercer, has been one of the best-selling video games of 2009 so far. Players are given free reign of the Manhattan setting, with numerous abilities acquired throughout the game including running up the sides of buildings, gliding through the air, and plummeting from extreme heights without injury. Perhaps the coolest power players will enjoy as Mercer is his ability to absorb the memories, biomass, appearance and powers of other characters in the game. Prototype has received good reviews from most publications, with much of the praise going to the free-ranging nature of the interactive landscape and the uniqueness of each player’s gaming experience based on the enormous magnitude of physical forms, powers and options available during play. Sure, the setup (a virus overtaking New York City) is a little predictable, but players will forget all of that once the action gets started and the mysteries of the plot begin to unravel. Guaranteed to suck up hours upon hours of your valuable time.
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With the enormous success of Apple’s iPhone (I think I’m the only person in the world who doesn’t have one at this point), a raft of video game apps have been released for it as of late that combination horror fiends/iPhone lovers just might salivate over. Here are a few that Bloody-Disgusting fans will probably enjoy:
Silent Hill: The Escape
This first-person Silent Hill entry developed specifically for the iPhone has players navigate ten levels of atmospheric horror. The game-play is pretty simple, really: slide your fingers to move, tap the screen to shoot. This one follows the successful PSP-specific Silent Hill entry, Origins, and any fans of the game series should definitely check it out.
The Relic
This top-down, Gauntlet-style multiplayer game for the iPhone has gamers focused on the destruction of the “Quinotar”, a 5-horned dragon who is able to reanimate the dead. To reach their goal, players must fight through hordes of deadly skeletons, giant spiders and zombies in a claustrophobic dungeon setting. Makes me nostalgic just thinking about it.
Dexter the Game
One of the more unusual video games to come out in many a moon, this creation based on the hit Showtime series should be a big hit with fans of the show. The storyline of this first game follows that of Season 1 of the show, with subsequent installments following the storylines of Season 2, 3, and so on. Control sociopathic blood-spatter analyst Dexter Morgan as he investigates crime scenes and uncovers evidence, all in service of his agenda to mete out a particular kind of justice. Don’t have an iPhone? No worries – the PC (and possibly a console) version is on the way.
Haunted 3D Rollercoaster Rush
This game boasts up to 40 horror-themed rollercoasters that players must navigate successfully (read: not lose too many riders along the way) to advance to the next level. The riskier the stunts you perform, the higher your score. Haunted 3D Rollercoaster Rush (which is a follow-up to the 2D Rollercoaster Rush) is blessed with great replay value too, as players have the option of two modes: Career Mode, where players attempt to pass all 40 tracks, and Challenge Race Mode, where you race against a haunted ghost train. Also available in a free three-level demo version.
Zombie Pizza
The conceit of this one is simple: race to create pizzas topped with human remains like organs, eyeballs and brains to keep the flesh-hungry zombies on the other side of the door satisfied. All of these gory accouterments whiz by on a conveyor belt, where you must keep your wits about you if you’re going to avoid becoming their next meal.
All of these titles are available for download at the iTunes Store, with the exception of “The Relic” (keep checking http://www.chillingo.com/ for updates on that).
Hollywood tends to learn all of the wrong lessons when confronted with an indie success story that doesn’t follow the established rules of the industry. For instance, instead of accepting that the massive success of Backrooms has more to do with Kane Parsons’ individual talent as an established artist who has been producing high-quality videos since the pandemic (combined with the popularity of liminal horror among younger audiences), producers are now trudging through old Reddit posts looking for the next viral meme that studios think might have the potential to be turned into a cash cow.
This is by no means a new phenomenon, and I think one of the most pertinent examples of Hollywood misunderstanding what makes a movie work has to be the aftermath of The Blair Witch Project. While Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez’s genre-defining movie proved that POV camerawork and lo-fi aesthetics can captivate mainstream audiences when backed by a genuinely compelling story, there was a sudden trend of filmmakers attempting to appear hip by incorporating found footage into their films as if the occasional presence of diegetic recordings was enough to make a movie seem “hip”.
That’s why the 2000s were such a frustrating period for found footage fans, as the genre was still mostly relegated to obscure indie productions while studios only teased us with the format’s narrative potential. And yet, talented filmmakers can tell compelling stories under any circumstances, and this is how we get to the weird world of found footage bonus features produced alongside traditional movies.
Diegetic filmmaking may not necessarily be easier than conventional camerawork (it’s a lot harder to simulate reality without the added toolbox of cinematic editing), but it’s certainly a hell of a lot cheaper. That’s why it makes sense that plenty of high profile projects invested in found footage bonus content in order to add value to their home video releases – a once profitable industry that is sorely missed in the current media landscape.
The irony here is that many of these found footage extras were a little too good when compared to their promotional origins. With that in mind, I’d like to take a closer look at three examples of found footage bonus features that were better than the movie they were meant to enhance!
3. Halloween: Resurrection (2002): WebCam Special
I might lose some of my horror cred for admitting this, but Halloween: Resurrection was actually the first Halloween film I ever saw. Thankfully, this misguided entry didn’t scare me off from watching the other movies in the series, but even as a teenager I recognized that the flick’s premise of an online streaming show gone wrong had some merit to it – it’s just too bad that these ideas were never fully realized in the feature itself.
It was only years later that I discovered the fabled WebCam Special on Resurrection’s physical media release and got the film I had always wanted. This 41-minute cut of the film is by no means a masterpiece, but excluding everything except for the found footage elements of the production somehow transforms this ill-advised sequel into a deeply unsettling exercise in voyeuristic cinema.
In fact, I’d argue that the long takes of Michael simply moving through the house without calling attention to himself are much closer to John Carpenter’s original vision of the bogeyman than any of the exaggerated sequels that depict The Shape as something more akin to a superpowered Jason Voorhees. It’s just a shame that the franchise would never explore this format again.
2. Believers (2007): The Quanta Group Videos
Daniel Myrick’s Believers is by no means a bad movie, with this direct-to-video thriller following a duo of paramedics who find themselves captured by a deranged death cult inspired by all the worst aspects of Jonestown and Heaven’s Gate. Unfortunately, the Blair Witch alumni’s low-budget exploration of religious madness was quickly forgotten simply because most people didn’t bother to engage with the other half of the experience by exploring the DVD menu.
Within the disc’s extras, Myrick actually included in-universe interviews and orientation videos meant to expand the Quanta Group’s backstory and beliefs. These found footage recordings greatly enhance The Believers by providing much-needed context for some of the film’s scariest moments. There’s even a wonderfully creepy epilogue sequence here as another group explores the cult’s dilapidated compound after the events of the film.
While it’s baffling that this material didn’t make it into the movie itself through in-universe cutaways (especially IO’s darkly humorous interview), watching it alongside Myrick’s film turns the whole thing into a highly compelling multi-media experience.
1. Dawn of the Dead (2004): The Lost Tape & Special Report: Zombie Invasion
I’ve always considered 2004’s Dawn of the Dead remake to be Zack Snyder’s best film (though most of the flick’s qualities are the result of James Gunn’s excellent script) even if it fails to capture the social anxieties of Romero’s 1978 original. However, this apocalyptic production is also the perfect example of an expensive project being overshadowed by the low-budget bonus features on its own home video release.
You see, the Dawn of the Dead DVD actually boasts two separate found footage short films that I find much scarier than the movie they’re marketing. The Lost Tape: Andy’s Terrifying Last Days Revealed is a somber video diary written by Gunn and starring Bruce Bohne as the ill-fated Andy – a minor character in the main film who becomes trapped in his own gun store when the zombies attack. Then there’s my personal favorite, Special Report: Zombie Invasion, a fully simulated news program starring Babylon 5’s Richard Biggs (as well as Bruce Boxleitner) that chronicles the spread of the undead virus.
Not only do these bonus features add context to Snyder’s film, but I’d argue that they make for a better standalone viewing experience than the so-called “main attraction”. Special Report honestly feels like a charming low-budget adaptation of Max Brooks’ World War Z novel (despite coming out a couple of years before that book was published), and I adore how The Lost Tapes turns Andy into a genuinely tragic figure.
These obviously aren’t the only found footage extras worth revisiting (for instance, I adore that Skull Island mockumentary that accompanied the special edition of Peter Jackson’s King Kong remake), but I figured that the three aforementioned projects could provide us with a snapshot of a curious moment in popular culture where found footage could still impress viewers despite not being quite as respected by the studio system.
That being said, don’t forget to sound off in the comments below if you can think of any other found footage bonus features that deserve a shout-out! After all, I’d love to see this trend of diegetic extras make a comeback in modern times – especially where found footage-heavy movies like Backrooms are concerned.
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