Editorials
Looking Ahead to the Horror Games of 2015
The last handful of years haven’t treated some of gaming’s greatest horror franchises very well. Resident Evil lost its way a few times, Left 4 Dead 3 has been MIA, Dead Space and Alan Wake were put on hiatus — soon to be joined by F.E.A.R. — and until recently, Silent Hill was largely assumed dead. Looking at all that, you would think horror was fading into obscurity again.
Thankfully, that’s not the case.
Indie horror is healthier than ever, bolstered by several high profile releases like The Forest, Slender: The Arrival and Outlast as well as a number of upcoming games that are all worth getting excited about. We’ve begin to see this renewed interest affect AAA horror, starting with the imminent arrivals of Alien: Isolation and The Evil Within next month. That’s just the beginning. We have a veritable horde coming next year.
If my guide to the remaining horror games of 2014 left you wanting, this (working) list of releases the genre has in store for us in 2015 should remedy that.
Bloodborne
If you don’t mind being broken down over and over again by a game with a thoroughly unforgiving nature that goes a long way in making the occasional victory all the sweeter. Bloodborne promises to be as challenging as the Dark Souls series that inspired it, only now that winning formula has been injected with a dose of horror.
Release Date: February 6, 2015
Call of Cthulhu
This past January, Magrunner: Dark Pulse developer Frogwares revealed their plan to make a new Call of Cthulhu. Since then, the game has kept unusually quiet. After the cancellation of the two sequels that were planned to follow Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth and the state of limbo that Guillermo Del Toro’s InSane has found itself in, I’m wondering if there isn’t some sort of curse that’s been put on any developer that tries to create a game based on or inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft.
Release Date: TBA 2015
DayZ
PC gamers have been able to experience the wonders of getting robbed by strangers at gunpoint over cans of beans for what feels like ages. Soon, PS4 owners will have the opportunity to experience that same joy.
Release Date: TBA 2015
H1Z1
Trying to take a bite out of that juicy DayZ pie is H1Z1. It’s more or less the same game, so if you like trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic wilderness where your fellow man is infinitely scarier than the walking dead, there’s a solid chance this game won’t disappoint.
Release Date: January 15, 2015 (Steam Early Access)
Dead Island 2
With Spec Ops: The Line developer Yager taking the reigns, I have faith they’ll be able to elevate this troubled series. Between its renewed focus on humor, over-the-top action and vibrant environments, Dead Island 2 is already doing a lot right.
Release Date: Spring 2015
Doom
After several delays, Doom is coming. We might not have seen it yet, but there’s plenty of folks who have. If id Software’s refusal to place it under the scrutinizing eye of the Internet is any indication of its quality, this may end up being a 2016 release.
Release Date: TBA 2015
Draugen
The day before Halloween, indie developer Red Thread Games decided to give us something scary to look forward to with Draugen, a survival horror game that feels like Gone Home meets Amnesia: The Dark Descent. It’s set on the Norwegian west coast, so you can be sure it’s going to look ridiculously good.
Release Date: TBA 2015
Dying Light
With Dead Island 2 in the hands of a new developer, Techland was left with some free time and a love for the undead. Rather than try something entirely new, the team is working on improving the foundation they created with the first Dead Island. The result is an incredibly ambitious game with a multiplayer that’s been seamlessly woven into the experience.
And parkour. Lots of parkour.
Release Date: January 27, 2015
The Evil Within: The Assignment
The Assignment, the first of three planned expansions for The Evil Within, will follow Sebastian’s partner, Juli “The Kid” Kidman. We don’t know much else about it yet, but I imagine there will be lots of blood, barbed wire and nightmarish creatures — including The Keeper, which has been confirmed for this DLC and the expansion that’s slated to follow it — for us to flee from.
Release Date: Early 2015
Fatal Frame V: The Black Haired Shrine Maiden
This game bums me out. Part of me takes solace in knowing this beloved survival horror franchise isn’t being entirely neglected, but most of me is too busy being frustrated to notice. If ever there was a time to release a quality horror game like this to the world — not just Japan — it’s now. The only reason this game is on this list is because I hope Nintendo just hasn’t gotten around to mentioning an international release yet.
Release Date: September 27, 2014 (Japan) / Possible 2015 release elsewhere
Hellraid
Originally announced as a last-gen console release, Techland gave us a substantial reason to be pumped for Hellraid when they confirmed it had been delayed to give them time to rebuild the game in a new engine for current-gen consoles. The new-and-improved Hellraid brings together the combat of Skyrim with the brutality of Dead Island, complete with a dark fantasy setting and tons of hellish monsters to battle.
Release Date: TBA 2015
Killing Floor 2
Tripwire Interactive hasn’t mentioned an ETA for the sequel to their hit cooperative horror game Killing Floor. When I saw it in action last month, it looked like the game was pretty far along. The mechanics are in and the gore is top notch, but multiplayer games require a lot of tweaking to get the balance right, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Killing Floor 2 arrives early next year.
Release Date: TBA 2015
Kodoku
Kodoku looks like a series of nightmares that were induced by a particularly bad acid trip. I have no idea what’s going on, but I like it.
Release Date: TBA 2015
Let it Die
Despite being a fan of Suda 51’s wacky work and the worlds he’s created, I haven’t seen enough to get me enthusiastic about Let it Die. It could be a twisted ride that showers us with the blood spilled from our mostly naked enemies, or it could be shallow and use its copious amount of violence as a gimmick. We’ll have to wait and see!
Release Date: TBA 2015
Resident Evil
I have two theories to explain why Capcom is re-releasing the Resident Evil remake. I’ve already gone into great detail on the first theory, but I haven’t even mentioned the other. My second theory revolves around the idea that Capcom is fully aware of our desire for a Resident Evil 2 remake, which they’ll get around to doing, but not before they every other Resident Evil first.
Release Date: January 20, 2015
Resident Evil Revelations 2
Not long after Capcom announced they’d be remastering the GameCube remake, they also revealed a sequel to Revelations. Their decision to build on a spin-off that’s widely considered to be one of the best Resident Evil games of the last decade. We know it will be delivered episodically, feature offline co-op, is set on a prison island and stars Claire Redfield and Moira Burton — Barry Burton’s daughter.
Release Date: Starting February 17 (full schedule here)
SOMA
Last October, Amnesia developer Frictional Games started teasing their next project, the freaky looking horror game SOMA. Here we are a year later and the game is significantly less mysterious than it was back then. Even still, I can’t help but wonder if we’ve only scratched the surface. SOMA looks like a mystery wrapped in an enigma that’s been slathered in gore, modified corpses and face-eating robots.
Release Date: Early 2015
State of Decay: Year One Survival Edition
State of Decay is one of the better zombie-themed video games we’ve been gifted with lately, and it’s undead hordes are slated to shamble onto the Xbox One in the near future. Other than the still glaring lack of co-op, what’s not to love about that?
Release Date: Early 2015
The Order: 1886
The Order: 1886 is set in Victorian era London and follows an ancient order of soldiers with steampunk weapons and gadgets, and their ongoing war with human “half-breeds”, or werewolves. If that doesn’t have you sufficiently excited, I don’t know what will.
Release Date: February 20, 2015
Human Element
Earlier this month we were treated to our very first look at the post-apocalyptic zombie survival game, Human Element. Much like The Walking Dead, the zombies aren’t the real threat — it’s your fellow man you should be worried about.
Release Date: November 2015
Until Dawn
After going silent for a while, Sony re-revealed developer Supermassive Games’ teen slasher Until Dawn. It’s been improved in every way possible, including a complete reworking of the original script to make it exponentially more terrifying. This game has a lot of promise, and if it’s successful, it could pave the way for more games like it.
Release Date: TBA 2015
Outlast 2
Back in October, developer Red Barrels confirmed a sequel to Outlast, their popular first person horror game set in the Mount Massive asylum. If it’s anywhere near as scary as its predecessors, we’ll all need to stock up on Depends.
Release Date: TBA 2015
Remember, this is a working list. 2015 is still a ways off and the unpredictable and always-changing nature of video games means a lot of the above will change, probably more than once, in the coming months. If I missed something, feel free to let me know in the comments.
College kids, strippers and vampires—those were Donald P. Borchers’ only requirements when he approached Richard Wenk about writing and directing a movie for New World Pictures. As requested, Wenk cooked up Vamp (1986), a tailor-made blend of the decade’s teen movie craze as well as its horror boom.
Grim and earnest stories were still very much a part of the ’80s horror landscape, yet Vamp is something of a comedy. One difference between it and, say, Saturday the 14th, though, is the former avoids using schtick. Wenk’s movie proves that horror comedies also don’t have to subtract thrills from their recipes. Of course, it takes a minute before reaching that point; college antics and culture shocks preface this one macabre misadventure.
Vamp‘s initial setup is apt for a typical college-set, sex-driven comedy; to bribe their way into a fraternity house, two pledges (Chris Makepeace, Robert Rusler) go looking for some adult entertainment. Without wasting time on any further exposition, the characters embark on an all-in-one-night trip that quickly detours into terror.
To procure their elusive MacGuffin—a stripper willing to gyrate for some frat boys—Keith (Makepeace) and AJ (Rusler), plus a third wheel named Duncan (Gedee Watanabe), trade the safety of their remote college campus for the seediness of some unnamed city. The setting is recognizably L.A. by day, but as soon as night falls, downtown, along with the characters, slips into a kind of surreal universe. Director of photography Elliot Davis gave this early entry on his prolific résumé an unusual yet distinctive look; that Mario Bava-esque, magenta-green lighting is omnipresent, so much so that it’s almost its own character.
Chris Makepeace and Robert Rusler in Vamp
The faint comparisons to Martin Scorsese’s After Hours are merited, although not just because of Vamp’s distinguishing nighttime aesthetic. Save for the primary characters, the supporting roles in Wenk’s movie are also quite colorful and transactional in their behavior. The difference here, though, is the additional urge to ruin Keith and his friends at every turn. Some of that harm is humorous and tolerable enough, whereas the moment Vamp dishes out its first fatality, it’s abundantly clear how this movie qualifies as horror.
Vamp falls into that category of horror movie that reveals its genre with a scream rather than a series of whispers. The opening scene can function as a hint of what lies ahead—things are not at all what they appear to be—but otherwise, Wenk is more than happy to hold off on the horror. When that time does come, though, it catches the viewer off guard. In addition to the pure shock value is that sudden decision to upend the movie’s foremost feature. Or so it would seem.
If afraid of major spoilage, those new to Vamp would be wise to stop reading here. There’s just no skirting around the fact that the central fellowship in this buddy movie hits a serious snag when AJ is killed. That development causes the story to become more of a “long, bad night” journey for Keith and his romantic interest. So while Wenk scores points for subverting expectations, there is also a touch of sadness in his decision. Because if Vamp does anything well, it’s making the characters likable.
Something that comes easily to Vamp—and other teen horror movies from this same era—is its ability to invent young characters worth caring about, or at the very least, are interesting and not so immediately off-putting. More impressive is how Wenk did all this without actually fleshing out those characters. Still and all, Keith and his kind are a grade above cookie-cutter, and in some cases, aren’t completely devoid of growth.
Grace Jones in Vamp
Vamp appeals with an assorted cast of characters. No two are the same, nor are they operating on the same wavelength. The cinematically extroverted AJ, whose actor conveyed charm and vulnerability in near equal amounts, comes alive when he’s at his most undead. Makepeace then makes the chronically cautious Keith a sympathetic fellow, even as he’s more and more affected by the night’s bizarre events. Meanwhile, Duncan is indeed the designated loser of the whole bunch, but Watanabe still manages to humanize him. As a bonus, the role didn’t require him to pull a Long Duk Dong.
As for Dedee Pfeiffer, she is plain adorable as the mysterious After Dark server nicknamed “Amaretto”. She spends all night fixing her dress strap while at the same time trying to get Keith to remember how he knows her. As their offbeat romance grows, it becomes another highlight of this movie. Whether or not Pfeiffer’s character is really a vampire also creates some welcome tension in the story.
Like a lot of its contemporaries, Vamp went on to become a bit of a cult classic. That current status is determined by several factors, but without a doubt, the casting of Grace Jones is the most considerable. The image of her writhing on that unique-looking chair, a Keith Haring original, springs to mind whenever this movie is brought up.
Chris Makepeace, Billy Drago and Paunita Nichols in Vamp
Prior to that first display of unequivocal horror, local vampire queen Katrina (Jones) took to the stage and delivered a strip show like no other. One would expect nothing less from that renowned model and performance artist. By now reports of Jones’ tardiness on set are no secret, yet it’s also hard to deny her commitment to the part of Katrina. It was, in fact, Jones who took charge of her character’s appearance—on top of Haring painting her body and that now-iconic chair, she had Andy Warhol handle her costuming. And not too many actors could seize a room’s attention without saying a single line of dialogue.
In 2022, Vamp received a retrospective novelization from Encyclopocalypse. This literary union of preexisting source material—Wenk’s original screenplay—and new ideas from author Christian Francis amounts to a more comprehensive visit to the After Dark Club. The basic story there is no different than what’s shown on screen; however, Francis gets creative with the characters’ origins and designs, and he enhances a number of key scenes.
The novelization expands on the urban and social decay of the main setting, and supplies a background for the After Dark Club. Sandy Baron’s character, Katrina’s emcee and familiar, is given ample motivation for sticking around; up until the fiery end, he is loyal to his friend and former business partner “Squeak”, who looks like he was “fed through a combine harvester, and left as nothing more than a heap of mangled remains”. Then there is Billy Drago’s character Snow, the leader of a street gang called The Dragons. His reason for menacing Keith and AJ is more altruistic than in the movie; he and his peers act tough to scare off any potential food for the vampires.
Lisa Lyon in Vamp
If not for all the backstories, Francis’ Vamp would be a hell of a lot shorter. Instead, this tie-in read dives into how AJ met Keith—the orphaned Anthony Joseph hailed from a broken home back in Brooklyn—and how their friendship flourished over the years. Keith’s archership is no longer just an assumed part of his entire being; it’s a confidence-building extracurricular for a boy who got picked on before coming into the protection of the new kid in town. These supplemental, in-depth looks at the protagonists, plus their close connection, are maybe unnecessary. The movie already did a fair and concise job of addressing their platonic intimacy without the need for flashbacks and insights, specifically in that scene where AJ lays it all out as he sacrifices himself.
Where the novelization gets off course is its approach to the minor characters. Intermittently backstorying the likes of Katrina’s indentured servants, Seko (Leila Hee Olsen) and Vlad (Brad Logan), ends up disturbing the flow of the writing. Was it absolutely essential that readers know Vlad was the Grand Duke of the House of Romanov, or how Snow’s accomplice Maven (Paunita Nichols) became so dentally challenged? No, not really. However, one’s mileage with these random biographies may vary.
The novelization is a more substantial experience, but for a movie like Vamp, less is more. And as plentiful as they are, it never simply coasts on its campy charms, either. The character work sits comfortably in that realm between cursory and meticulous, the script is sharper than first realized, and Greg Cannom’s vampire makeup is straightforward yet effective. Most of all, the movie didn’t squander its out-of-the-box concept. Richard Wenk made his vision of a “comic nightmare in which just about anything that can go wrong does” come true, and it is very enjoyable.
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