Editorials
[Retrospective] The Psychological Terror of ‘X-COM: UFO Defence’ at 30
Fear of the unknown is always a reliable go-to when it comes to horror. And throwing something even more mysterious like aliens into the mix only adds to it. Admittedly, MicroProse’s classic 1994 PC turn-based strategy game X-COM: UFO Defence (or UFO: Enemy Unknown for you fans in the UK) isn’t pure horror, but it definitely did have that psychological terror and that “just one more turn” addictiveness that kept you coming back for more during your playthrough. At the same time, it also held a sense of dread from the very real potential that you could lose it all from an unseen alien threat that was hiding in the shadows (or right behind you). After all, that dread kept the series going for multiple entries, and even led to the series’ rebirth by 2K in 2012.
Originally planned by Julian Gollop as a sequel to to his original 1988 game Laser Squad, X-COM: UFO Defence (or UFO: Enemy Unknown in Europe) grew into something far deeper and ambitious. Set in the then-near future of 1998, increased reports of UFO sightings, coupled with stories of abductions and attacks by extraterrestrials, has led Earth’s nations to establish a defence and research organization known as Extraterrestrial Combat (X-COM). X-COM’s role is to protect Earth from invading UFOs, including monitoring for covert alien bases and cleaning up after alien encounters.
If you’ve never played the original X-COM before, the concept is relatively straightforward. There are two main views in the game: the Geoscape and the Battlescape. From the beginning in the Geoscape view, players pick a starting location on Earth for your base, begin building up your crew/fleet/weaponry/base network, research new tech, and go around shooting down UFOs, and travelling to crash sites and defending cities from alien attacks. As you progress in the game, the aliens grow in difficulty, shady government dealings happen, and a twist in just what’s going on with all of the sightings leads you to confront the real foe in a final showdown.
While the Geoscape portion might not seem terrifying at first when compared to the meat of the game in the Battlescape, all of the little bits that Gollop and his team added to the former create some of the most tension-inducing moments you’ll find in a strategy game. As author David Craddock states in his book on the making of X-COM, Monsters in the Dark: The Making of X-COM: UFO Defence, terror, unlike horror, is psychological and a slow burn.
Composer John Broomhall‘s score was the key to inducing this terror for players. “I wanted the music to fill [the player] with a sense of unease and foreboding. A perpetual gloominess that the next UFO threat was inevitable and the world now had to live in this atmosphere of dread, anticipation, and grimly determined resistance.” Broomhall took what initially sounded like an upbeat but subdued action piece that slowly morphed into something far more sinister and slowed down.
Coupled with the now-minimalist (and now primitive) look of the Geoscape, and the eventual alert you receive regarding an alien craft being detected, the urgency to scramble your Interceptors to shoot it down builds that feeling of terror. It only increases once your Interceptor encounters the UFO, and you have to shoot it down. Air-to-air combat is simplistic, but that lack of direct control to jump in and pilot your craft, and instead being forced to rely on button commands that tell your craft to engage the UFO from a certain distance, does give a feeling of helplessness. It’s really not unlike many real-time strategy games, but here, that dread seems that much more present.
Not to mention that you have to factor in your Interceptor’s ammo and condition when engaging with the UFO. You can obviously send more Interceptors to assist, but time is always a factor. That, and the fact that you could potentially lose your Interceptor in battle, especially later on when the UFOs are tougher to take down. If you do manage to shoot down the UFO over land, you can send in a Skyranger and a team to mop up, similar to when a UFO landing is detected. From there, X-COM: UFO Defence shifts from the Geoscape to the Battlescape view. And with the shift, the terror really gets going.
Once you arrive at the site, you outfit your team with weapons and supplies. It’s here from the start that Broomhall’s score is put to good use once again. The steady pulse of the score immediately conjures up that scene from Aliens where the marines are barricaded in medical, with the Xenomorphs closing in as the motion tracker beeps and pulses as the aliens close in. Or, for you John Carpenter fans, the theme resembles Ennio Morricone‘s main theme from The Thing. Either way, the music does the job of getting your nerves rattled as you prepare to step out of the Skyranger and onto the site.
Unlike the rebooted version of the series in 2012 that had you moving in SWAT-style, the battles in X-COM are more of the hide-and-seek variety of individuals. Your squad take turns emptying out of the craft to start spreading out to cover ground, after which is the aliens’ turn to move. That aspect of having to seek out the aliens to kill them is terror-inducing by itself, but is compounded by a couple of things. For one, each encounter is randomly-generated, meaning that you won’t know the terrain (other than its environment), and you won’t know where the UFO is located on the map. These prefabs do get familiar, but the odds that you’ll get the same ones in successive order are pretty low, keeping the suspense high.
Another factor in the tension these battles induce is their field of vision. Immediately jumping out of the craft, it’s not uncommon to spot an alien, or more likely, to be fired upon from some obscured foe. X-COM: UFO Defence has its fog of war mechanic set up so that not only do doors obscure the contents of a house or UFO (obviously), but environmental things like smoke and even members of your squad facing the opposite direction will obscure potential threats. Since you’re having to establish your squad’s footprint before spreading out, you’re at a bit of a disadvantage from the start. You could wait a turn for the aliens to expend their time units, but they could also lie in wait just as you could.
Once you do spot an alien, you’ll need to engage. As you’d expect, you have to balance your time units with your movement and the ability to get off a shot, which depending on which one you choose, will use up more time units for more accuracy. You of course have to deal with the previously-mentioned obstructions, but also you’ll need to keep an eye out for civilians and your own squadmates from getting caught in the crossfire. Depending on the situation, the tension of hoping for the right outcome is palpable. You’d also better have enough spare ammo on each of your squad members, since once you have your loadout, you can’t head back to the ship for resupplies/rearming.
If all of that’s not enough to leave you jumpy, you’re probably assuming that your battles all take place during the day. On the contrary, if you encounter a site during the night, then the tension just gets cranked up even more. During night battles, your team’s individual visibility is reduced to just nine tiles. The aliens, on the other hand, are completely unaffected, and could technically waltz up and fire at you before you even see them. You can utilize electroflares that you toss like grenades to illuminate an area, but doing so uses up precious time units. Or, you could delay the mission until dawn, but as always, timing is critical, especially when it comes to the terror missions where aliens have invaded a city centre.
If you do need to retreat, as long as you get one squad member aboard the ship, you can abort the mission, which is probably preferable to losing not only your squad, but also your ship. And those don’t come cheap.
Ultimately, the real terror for X-COM (as one might expect) are the aliens themselves. At the start of the game, you’ll face off against the typical grey aliens (called Sectoids in the game), which lean towards being more of a pushover if you have the right firepower. That changes quickly, as you’ll also encounter different species of aliens, each increasing in difficulty. You’ll encounter Floaters, whose main ability is to fly to avoid your shots, the reptilian-like Snakemen, the muscle-bound Mutons, and the mysterious Ethereal. But there’s one species in particular that’s a cause for alarm if you’re unprepared: the insectoid Chryssalid.
Chryssalids are probably the alien that closest resembles the Xenomorph in X-COM. They’re fast, tough (though vulnerable to explosive ammunitions), rely on melee attacks, and have an ability that’s as disturbing as it is frustrating. Chryssalid attacks can cause instantaneous death to civilians and soldiers, but instead of outright killing its victims, the Chryssalid will instead inject an egg into its victim, which causes the victim to rise up as a zombie. Zombies in turn when shot will have the egg mature and slough off the zombie skin, resulting in a new Chryssalid emerging. As you might expect, if you don’t have the proper equipment, the Chryssalids will overwhelm your squad, resulting in a potentially devastating end to your mission.
Suffice to say, X-COM: UFO Defence was and still is for many fans who grew up on it a terrifying experience. It’s not the full-on horror game that some are looking for, but that’s not X-COM‘s aim. It walks that line of slow-building terror that gives you just enough control that you feel you can persevere without outright scaring you, which it turn feeds into its addictive gameplay. All of the elements, from its interface to its soundtrack and its mechanics created something that at the time had you feeling like you could save the world, or die trying. It’s definitely worth a playthrough today, especially if your only experience in the series is from the 2012 reboot.
Soon after the New Hollywood generation took over the entertainment industry, they started having children. And more than any filmmakers that came before—they were terrified. Rosemary’s Baby (1968), The Exorcist (1973), The Omen (1976), Eraserhead (1977), The Brood (1979), The Shining (1980), Possession (1981), and many others all deal, at least in part, with the fears of becoming or being a parent. What if my child turns out to be a monster? is corrupted by some evil force? or turns out to be the fucking Antichrist? What if I screw them up somehow, or can’t help them, or even go insane and try to kill them? Horror has always been at its best when exploring relatable fears through extreme circumstances. A prime example of this is Larry Cohen’s 1974 monster-baby movie It’s Alive, which explores the not only the rollercoaster of emotions that any parent experiences when confronted with the difficulties of raising a child, but long-standing questions of who or what is at fault when something goes horribly wrong.
Cohen begins making his underlying points early in the film as Frank Davis (John P. Ryan) discusses the state of the world with a group of expectant fathers in a hospital waiting room. They discuss the “overabundance of lead” in foods and the environment, smog, and pesticides that only serve to produce roaches that are “bigger, stronger, and harder to kill.” Frank comments that this is “quite a world to bring a kid into.” This has long been a discussion point among people when trying to decide whether to have kids or not. I’ve had many conversations with friends who have said they feel it’s irresponsible to bring children into such a violent, broken, and dangerous world, and I certainly don’t begrudge them this. My wife and I did decide to have children but that doesn’t mean that it’s been easy.
Immediately following this scene comes It’s Alive’s most famous sequence in which Frank’s wife Lenore (Sharon Farrell) is the only person left alive in her delivery room, the doctors clawed and bitten to death by her mutant baby, which has escaped. “What does my baby look like!? What’s wrong with my baby!?” she screams as nurses wheel her frantically into a recovery room. The evening that had begun with such joy and excitement at the birth of their second child turned into a nightmare. This is tough for me to write, but on some level, I can relate to this whiplash of emotion. When my second child was born, they came about five weeks early. I’ll use the pronouns “they/them” for privacy reasons when referring to my kids. Our oldest was still very young and went to stay with my parents and we sped off to the hospital where my wife was taken into an operating room for an emergency c-section. I was able to carry our newborn into the NICU (natal intensive care unit) where I was assured that this was routine for all premature births. The nurses assured me there was nothing to worry about and the baby looked big and healthy. I headed to where my wife was taken to recover to grab a few winks assuming that everything was fine. Well, when I awoke, I headed back over to the NICU to find that my child was not where I left them. The nurse found me and told me that the baby’s lungs were underdeveloped, and they had to put them in a special room connected to oxygen tubes and wires to monitor their vitals.
It’s difficult to express the fear that overwhelmed me in those moments. Everything turned out okay, but it took a while and I’m convinced to this day that their anxiety struggles spring from these first weeks of life. As our children grew, we learned that two of the three were on the spectrum and that anxiety, depression, ADHD, and OCD were also playing a part in their lives. Parents, at least speaking for myself, can’t help but blame themselves for the struggles their children face. The “if only” questions creep in and easily overcome the voices that assure us that it really has nothing to do with us. In the film, Lenore says, “maybe it’s all the pills I’ve been taking that brought this on.” Frank muses aloud about how he used to think that Frankenstein was the monster, but when he got older realized he was the one that made the monster. The aptly named Frank is wondering if his baby’s mutation is his fault, if he created the monster that is terrorizing Los Angeles. I have made plenty of “if only” statements about myself over the years. “If only I hadn’t had to work so much, if only I had been around more when they were little.” Mothers may ask themselves, “did I have a drink, too much coffee, or a cigarette before I knew I was pregnant? Was I too stressed out during the pregnancy?” In other words, most parents can’t help but wonder if it’s all their fault.
At one point in the film, Frank goes to the elementary school where his baby has been sighted and is escorted through the halls by police. He overhears someone comment about “screwed up genes,” which brings about age-old questions of nature vs. nurture. Despite the voices around him from doctors and detectives that say, “we know this isn’t your fault,” Frank can’t help but think it is, and that the people who try to tell him it isn’t really think it’s his fault too. There is no doubt that there is a hereditary element to the kinds of mental illness struggles that my children and I deal with. But, and it’s a bit but, good parenting goes a long way in helping children deal with these struggles. Kids need to know they’re not alone, a good parent can provide that, perhaps especially parents that can relate to the same kinds of struggles. The question of nature vs. nurture will likely never be entirely answered but I think there’s more than a good chance that “both/and” is the case. Around the midpoint of the film, Frank agrees to disown the child and sign it over for medical experimentation if caught or killed. Lenore and the older son Chris (Daniel Holzman) seek to nurture and teach the baby, feeling that it is not a monster, but a member of the family.
It’s Alive takes these ideas to an even greater degree in the fact that the Davis Baby really is a monster, a mutant with claws and fangs that murders and eats people. The late ’60s and early ’70s also saw the rise in mass murderers and serial killers which heightened the nature vs. nurture debate. Obviously, these people were not literal monsters but human beings that came from human parents, but something had gone horribly wrong. Often the upbringing of these killers clearly led in part to their antisocial behavior, but this isn’t always the case. It’s Alive asks “what if a ‘monster’ comes from a good home?” In this case is it society, environmental factors, or is it the lead, smog, and pesticides? It is almost impossible to know, but the ending of the film underscores an uncomfortable truth—even monsters have parents.
As the film enters its third act, Frank joins the hunt for his child through the Los Angeles sewers and into the L.A. River. He is armed with a rifle and ready to kill on sight, having divorced himself from any relationship to the child. Then Frank finds his baby crying in the sewers and his fatherly instincts take over. With tears in his eyes, he speaks words of comfort and wraps his son in his coat. He holds him close, pats and rocks him, and whispers that everything is going to be okay. People often wonder how the parents of those who perform heinous acts can sit in court, shed tears, and defend them. I think it’s a complex issue. I’m sure that these parents know that their child has done something evil, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are still their baby. Your child is a piece of yourself formed into a whole new human being. Disowning them would be like cutting off a limb, no matter what they may have done. It doesn’t erase an evil act, far from it, but I can understand the pain of a parent in that situation. I think It’s Alive does an exceptional job placing its audience in that situation.
Despite the serious issues and ideas being examined in the film, It’s Alive is far from a dour affair. At heart, it is still a monster movie and filled with a sense of fun and a great deal of pitch-black humor. In one of its more memorable moments, a milkman is sucked into the rear compartment of his truck as red blood mingles with the white milk from smashed bottles leaking out the back of the truck and streaming down the street. Just after Frank agrees to join the hunt for his baby, the film cuts to the back of an ice cream truck with the words “STOP CHILDREN” emblazoned on it. It’s a movie filled with great kills, a mutant baby—created by make-up effects master Rick Baker early in his career, and plenty of action—and all in a PG rated movie! I’m telling you, the ’70s were wild. It just also happens to have some thoughtful ideas behind it as well.
Which was Larry Cohen’s specialty. Cohen made all kinds of movies, but his most enduring have been his horror films and all of them tackle the social issues and fears of the time they were made. God Told Me To (1976), Q: The Winged Serpent (1982), and The Stuff (1985) are all great examples of his socially aware, low-budget, exploitation filmmaking with a brain and It’s Alive certainly fits right in with that group. Cohen would go on to write and direct two sequels, It Lives Again (aka It’s Alive 2) in 1978 and It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive in 1987 and is credited as a co-writer on the 2008 remake. All these films explore the ideas of parental responsibility in light of the various concerns of the times they were made including abortion rights and AIDS.
Fifty years after It’s Alive was initially released, it has only become more relevant in the ensuing years. Fears surrounding parenthood have been with us since the beginning of time but as the years pass the reasons for these fears only seem to become more and more profound. In today’s world the conversation of the fathers in the waiting room could be expanded to hormones and genetic modifications in food, terrorism, climate change, school and other mass shootings, and other threats that were unknown or at least less of a concern fifty years ago. Perhaps the fearmongering conspiracy theories about chemtrails and vaccines would be mentioned as well, though in a more satirical fashion, as fears some expectant parents encounter while endlessly doomscrolling Facebook or Twitter. Speaking for myself, despite the struggles, the fears, and the sadness that sometimes comes with having children, it’s been worth it. The joys ultimately outweigh all of that, but I understand the terror too. Becoming a parent is no easy choice, nor should it be. But as I look back, I can say that I’m glad we made the choice we did.
I wonder if Frank and Lenore can say the same thing.
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