Editorials
5 Reasons To Get Excited For The ‘DayZ’ Standalone!
Written by Jason Nawara, @JasonNawara
It’s only been a little over a year since the DayZ mod took the the gaming world by storm, but even with a little more than a baker’s dozen worth of months separating the release of the mod to where we are now in July, the fans are feeling like the DayZ standalone is the latest incarnation of Duke Nukem Forever. As unfair as that might be, the devs have kind of put themselves in that position by promising the standalone release for what seems like a never-ending amount of date pushes, but it is what it is. We can only get over it by pouring over what details we have, and I’m here to perpetuate this agonizing wait.
No matter what, with each passing day(z), the standalone gets closer. That much we can depend on, I hope. So with that logic guiding me, to pass the time I took it upon myself to list five of the best new features that is making DayZ worth these horribly awful, clock-watching delays worth it.
Shoes? You ask. How can footwear make a post-apocalyptic zombie survival game special? Well, DayZ is making it so the shoe-less are truly screwed. Remember all of the great hostage videos in which helpless survivors are forced to make supermarket runs for some bandits or they’ll be unceremoniously shot? Yeah, well I can’t wait to find a survivor and make him take off his shoes then march him/her into the forest, because now you can catch colds, get stress fractures and in general be uncomfortable without shoes. I know it’s sadistic, but I want to kill someone via exposure, just to see what it’s like.
Full disclosure: I’m also willing to die of exposure, just to see what it’s like.
All I want to do is find a little cottage in Chernarus, the DayZ recreation of Czechoslovakia, and call it my own until underground fortresses can be built. With the standalone and nearly every building being enterable, I think that can be a real, doable thing in this game, being a strange cottage man. Here’s my plan: I’m just going to head north, fend off the zeds and the other crazy survivors who want to shoot on sight, then make a little home away from home where I can eat my beans in peace.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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