Editorials
5 Recent Horror Comics That Would Make Great Video Games
It’s been a decade since Telltale’s The Walking Dead set the game world on fire. Despite the fact that there was a popular version of the story on television at the time, the game pulled from the comic series instead for the sad and depressing world it presented. Comics have been taking over the movie and TV world, but it would be nice to see more comics get big, Walking Dead-quality video games projects.
Here are five recent horror comics that would make great adaptations.
DEPARTMENT OF TRUTH
Writer James Tynion has been on a roll with a series of spooky creator-owned comics, and his hit Image title Department of Truth is the one that’s best suited for the medium of video games. Set in the world of shadowy government agencies and conspiracy theories, the book follows the agents of the titular department as they learn the ways in which belief can shape reality. The breadth of topics covered in the series, ranging from UFOs to cryptozoology, make it perfect for an adaptation.
One mission could have you trying to save someone lost in the woods while being stalked by Bigfoot, and another could see you investigating a case of Satanic Ritual Abuse. To emphasize the impact the player has on the world, things would change based on how well you cover things up afterwards. Don’t clean up the evidence of reptilians? Belief in them increases and they show up more in the future. The theme ties so perfectly into a dynamic game narrative, and it would be satisfying to see play out.
HOME SICK PILOTS
Haunted houses and giant robots are two things that don’t normally get mentioned in the same breath, but Home Sick Pilots, by Dan Watters and Caspar Wijngaard, finds a way to combine them. After a punk rock show at the Old James House, high schooler Ami has been bound to it, cursed to help hunt down haunted items that have been taken from the ghosts within. Oh, and the house sometimes gets up and walks like a person. Add in some teen counterculture spice to that already interesting blend and you’ve got one of the most unique horror books on the stands.
I could see two different modes of gameplay working well for this: haunted house investigations where you’re searching through strange areas for the lost items, followed by giant mecha battles that play out like a fighting game. The power and abilities of your haunted house mech could be tied to what items you find, giving the player an extra reason to scour the spooky environments to press their luck for the chance of improving their abilities. Horror games thrive when they can figure out how to alternate feelings of being helpless with cathartic scenes of power, and Home Sick Pilots would give you a perfect opportunity for both.
SNOW ANGELS
Survival and horror go hand in hand, and the world presented in Jeff Lemire and Jock’s Snow Angels is one in which survival is as challenging as it gets. The world has been frozen over, and all humans, that you know of at least, have been relegated to a seemingly endless trench dug into the snow and ice. To make matters worse, the two sibling main characters are being stalked by the mysterious and deadly Snowman, a mythic unstoppable killer. The bleak and scratchy drawings of Jock bring the world of Snow Angels to life in painstaking detail, with desperation bleeding into every panel.
I imagine this setup being perfect for an Alien: Isolation-like stalker enemy that would unpredictably attack you as you explore the wasteland scrounging for resources and trying to figure out what’s going on in this cold and desperate world. If you wanted to add another layer of uniqueness to the game, you could make it a mandatory co-op game, a la A Way Out or It Takes Two, and force each player to be one of the siblings working together to make it out of the horrifying situation.
FARMHAND
Not all horror titles have to be gloom and doom. Farmhand focuses on a goofier side of the genre, with a little body horror mixed in. The title, written and drawn by Rob Guillory, features a small town where the Jenkins Family Farm grows a strange crop: replacement human organs. Obviously growing human organs isn’t a natural thing, so there are sinister mysteries afoot that adds tension to a small-scale family drama that’s at the heart of the action.
This setting seems like fertile ground (pun intended) for a bizarre little business sim where you have to manage your odd crops while dealing with everything from corporate espionage to brainwashed cults. Imagine trying to maintain your crops of replacement ears while being sure to allocate enough resources to security to keep rivals from coming in and stealing your seeds. I’m all for adding horror twists to genres that don’t usually have them, and this seems like a perfect opportunity.
NOCTERRA
Scott Snyder became a household name with his runs on Batman and Justice League, but his comics career has deep roots in the horror genre. He’s responsible for such titles as American Vampire and Wytches, but it’s one of his more recent books, with art by Tony Daniel, that would make for a perfect game setting. Nocterra combines elements of Pitch Black and Mad Max, set in a world where the sun has vanished and the dark mutates people and animals into horrific creatures. To traverse the everlasting night, drivers known as ferrymen transport people between outposts in eighteen-wheelers lit up like Christmas trees.
It would be great to use this setup for a vehicular action game that had a heavy emphasis on survivor horror-style resource management. Driving down a stretch of road fighting off horrible beasts in the dark, only to have to pull over to scavenge for batteries at an abandoned station before the next wave of monsters comes down on you would make for a thrilling scenario. Having a rotating cast of passengers would give you a wide variety of stories to help fill in the world and add depth to the mystery of the disaster that led to it. Daniels’ art provides a perfect template for a gorgeous world that will be absolutely terrifying to explore.
Are you reading any comics you think would make for a great horror game? Sound off in the comments below!
The problem with filming sequels back-to-back is that, unless you can afford expensive reshoots, there’s no easy way to adjust course in between movies if fans react badly to where the story is headed. That’s why it’s important to have a complete narrative thought out well in advance lest you accidentally kill a budding franchise.
However, this isn’t always the case. Every once in a while, it seems like the cinema gods smile upon certain chaotic productions and gift moviegoers with complete franchises that feel like more than the sum of their hastily produced parts. Ted Nicolaou’s Bloodlust: Subspecies III is precisely one of these miraculous pictures, with the raw talents of the artists involved (as well as the continued support from Romania) turning the feature into an effective conclusion for a series that kind of made things up as the filmmakers went along.
That’s why I’d like to invite my fellow readers to join me on this third part of our journey through the Subspecies franchise as we look into Bloodlust and talk about how it remains a surprisingly satisfying finale to the original trilogy.
A Trilogy Planned on the Fly
Released only a year after Bloodstone found plenty of success in rental stores and mail-in VHS catalogues worldwide, 1994’s Bloodlust was produced at the same time as its predecessor in (mostly) the same locations and with the same team. This means that the movie benefited from all the same upgrades as Bloodstone, with the crew now being more experienced with the ins and outs of surviving a low-budget Romanian production and the cast really settling into their characters.
At this point, everything from location scouting to the makeup process had been streamlined, with Wayne Toth and Norman Cabrera, the main duo behind special effects, even switching out time-consuming prosthetics for latex gloves in order to speed up Anders Hove’s monstrous transformation. The titular “subspecies” demons were also once again relegated to a mere cameo appearance due to the laborious puppetry required to bring them to life.
The only real hiccup came from the fact that actress Denice Duff had replaced the first film’s Michelle (Laura Mae Tate) and was immediately expected to portray the character as both an innocent victim in part II and as a secondary villain in part III. According to behind-the-scenes interviews, the hectic production schedule that blended two different movies meant that Duff would often find herself having to alternate between two incredibly different versions of Michelle during the same shooting day – though it’s obvious that she’s having more fun with Bloodlust’s more traditionally vampiric version of her character.
In the finished film, we pick things up immediately where the previous entry left off as Rebecca (Melanie Shatner) is forced to leave her vampire sister Michelle (Duff) behind in the dungeons of Castle Vladislav due to the rising sun. This allows Mummy (Pamela Gordon) to use Michelle’s blood to revive the vicious Radu (Hove) so that he may continue his quest for the coveted Bloodstone – a magical artifact that perpetually drips the Blood of Saints.
Meanwhile, the dreamy US embassy agent Mel (Kevin Blair) agrees to help Rebecca plan a rescue mission, though they’re unaware that Radu has become infatuated with Michelle during his attempts to guide her growing bloodlust. This all culminates in a climactic confrontation meant to tie up all of the series’ loose ends in one of Full Moon Pictures’ most ambitious productions.
The Evolution of Radu
Like its predecessor, Bloodlust: Subspecies III was also warmly received by fans who argued that the series was an even bigger success than Full Moon’s other major horror franchise, Puppet Master. This praise wasn’t unanimous, however, as 1994 had seen the rise of a more modern breed of sexy vampire popularized by Anne Rice, with old-school Nosferatu like Radu being viewed as obsolete when compared to the likes of Lestat and Gary Oldman’s take on Dracula.
In a way, one might argue that Nicolaou’s film is something of a swan song for the classic vampire story, as Bloodlust combines all of the traditional elements we tend to associate with these tales into a single tragic yarn that ties a neat little bow on Radu’s story as well as the old-fashioned monster movies that he represents. The finale remains shocking despite the fact that this is the third time we see Radu get brutally killed onscreen, with the brief tease that he may one day return feeling more like a nod towards the nature of evil rather than sequel bait.
The film dabbles a bit in gothic romance and even explores the inherent power fantasy behind transforming into an immortal creature of the night, but the filmmakers never lose sight of Radu as a demonic force even when he’s willing to betray his beloved Mummy for Michelle’s sake. In fact, his twisted “love” for his fledgling makes him even creepier as we get the feeling that his passion comes from a dark and disturbing place.
Anders Hove is at his absolute best in this film, with the effects department boosting his moments of what the younger generation would call “aura farming” whenever Radu emerges from shadows like a 90s version of Count Orlok. There are even a couple of surprisingly effective jump-scares here, which is why I’d argue that Bloodlust cements Radu as one of the most memorable cinematic vampires of all time despite his humble origins.
Subspecies Saves Its Best For Last
Nicolaou and Vlad Panescu also saved the best for “last” (more on that in a bit) regarding the film’s visuals, with the cinematography and overall atmosphere of Bloodlust absolutely surpassing what we saw in the previous films. Everything feels appropriately climactic this time around (including the wonderful soundtrack that was co-composed alongside an authentic Romanian orchestra), and I appreciate how this is the fastest-paced entry in the trilogy since the film doesn’t need to waste time setting anything up.
Bloodlust still suffers from some of the same low-budget blemishes as its predecessors, but there’s so much creative passion here that no amount of wonky effects work or stilted dialogue can get in the way of appreciating the flick’s gothic grandeur. That’s why it’s not surprising that the movie’s definitive(-ish) ending would later be retconned as fans begged for more Radu.
Of course, the next entry in this series would be a different kind of vampiric endeavor altogether, with the filmmakers attempting to engage with the same trends that ultimately killed Radu and his antiquated kin. That, however, is a story for another time. For now, I’ll merely insist that Bloodlust: Subspecies III remains a highlight of Full Moon’s expansive catalogue and is definitely worth seeking out today.
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