Editorials
[Best & Worst ’14] Adam’s 5 Favorite Horror Games of 2014!
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times. This has been a fantastic year to be a card-carrying enthusiast of the horror genre, and as good as it is now, 2015 is looking even better. We’ve seen more success stories than ever before, and while much of the attention our favorite genre has seen can be attributed to a stronger-than-ever showing from indie developers, it’s clear the studios behind AAA games have also upped their game.
Before we continue our plunge into 2015 and the virtual worlds it has waiting for us, let’s take a moment to look back at some of my favorite horror games of 2014, starting with what I consider to be the scariest of them all…
Outlast: Whistleblower
The first Outlast was new and terrifying enough to hide some of its imperfections when it released last year. Outlast: Whistleblower didn’t need to do much to be successful, but rather than rest on its laurels, developer Red Barrels used the expansion as an opportunity to tweak the original game’s winning formula, starting with some trimming of the fat.
Whistleblower is a leaner, scarier and more focused gaming experience that benefits from improved pacing and a selection of enemies and environments that never remain on-screen long enough to grow repetitive. It also manages to be even more twisted, with a final act that ranks among the craziest WTF Did I Just See? moments in gaming, horror or otherwise.
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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