Prelude to Halloween, part 2

 So they made a video game about Saw.

 At first, I was surprised, and though I still feel pretty distant from the game world in a graphical sense, it looks as if it could be a solid rental game. That shouldn't surprise anyone, considering that unless a horror flick is legendary, it's usually destined for the rental lot in the first place. From a review standpoint, the game is getting higher marks than I would expect, with most major reviewers pegging it in the 70 percent range.

 The entire premise of Saw is to get under the audiences skin with scenes of explicit violence and gore. OK, so that's not saying much, since pretty much every work of horror out there warns of explicit violence and gore. Bluntly, the movies are completely sick and twisted, though I admit, in a pretty innovative way. Sometimes the movie business needs a shot in the arm when it comes to scaring people, as each generation has gone through the motions of bringing something new to the table. The whole "torture porn" genre that's being coined these days for movies like the Saw franchise and Hostel is our response to the 90's teen slasher phase and the days of super-slashers from the 80's. Simply put, there's a different kind of horror for each generation, and Saw happens to be one of the two major horror phases going on right now. The other, of course, is the in-your-face quick cutting horror present in most Michael Bay and Rob Zombie movies.

 Here are a few movies and their video game parallels to give you the rundown on the history of horror in both genres, and what they had to offer in the way of innovation.

Resident Evil/Psycho

 Before you ask why these two are connected, let's just start with the basics. Both are pretty much the grandaddies of their genre, and while they may not be the first, their mastery of the art is what links them in entertainment history. With Psycho, it wasn't necessarily about what the killer was going to do. The worst that was going to happen was someone taking a knife to the chest, a far cry from what serial killers do in movies these days. After Hitchcock killed off his marquee actress in the infamous shower scene, setting the stage for another brutal slashing later on. In that final scene, it wasn't about the unknown of what was going to happen, since you already knew, but rather the sound of inevitability. Once the scream filled the house, you could hear the footsteps rushing down the stairs to find and kill the source, and that tense feeling of knowing sent chills through anyone slightly relating to the protagonist.

 With Resident Evil, you're given one scene that sets the stage for the rest of the game. Once that mid-snack corpse turns his head to face you, you know exactly what you're in for: zombies. You're left knowing exactly what to expect around every corner, but hearing the moans and scraping footsteps keep you on edge. Later horror games threw cheap scares at you and loud noises, but Resident Evil kept the cheapness rather tame. Hitchcock was a master at still scaring you while showing you absolutely everything about a given scene, keeping surprises to an absolute minimum. While Resident Evil has its share of shocks, for the most part the third person perspective gave players a clear view as to what was in any given room. Simplicity means more, sometimes.

Evil Dead II/Doom

 You can either fear the darkness, or you can rush into it headfirst with a chainsaw and a smile. Evil Dead II isn't always about badassery, but the tone was significantly changed from Evil Dead and ultimately was a better movie. No longer is the plot just about terror, but instead about taking what's good about horror movies and embellishing the whole thing. From the chainsaw hand to the gallons of blood shooting out of the walls like a firehose, Sam Raimi's classic delivered the goods and never stopped to apologize. Once you've experienced it for the first time, a return trip is all about how much fun horror can be, and how one person can go from cowering in fear to being a no-apologies master of ass-kicking.

 In Doom, it's pretty much the same thing. When you first played it, you got scared. Sure, you heard the snarls, but when you opened up that first door with an imp right behind it, you jumped just like everyone else. Each strobing corridor was an invite to your, well, doom. Treading carefully seemed to be the only way to go until you got more comfortable with the games mood. Then, just like the transformation of Ash, a terrifying game became a personal playground for your inner badass. Like the Doom Trooper's picture at the bottom of the screen, a disturbing grin was on everyone's face when demons tried to surprise you from around a corner. It was a matter of choice at that point; what weapon would be most fun in the killing process? Dead Rising owes everything to Doom giving you that first real sense of enjoying yourself while trying to survive.

Halloween/Clock Tower

 No one is going to say that Halloween is an Oscar worthy film. It's about a bunch of kids getting hacked up by an immortal guy in a Captain Kirk mask. It is, however, the first notable uber-stalker that the movies ever had. Even films with no distinct bad guy like Final Destination steal from Michael Myers and his persistence. To steal a line from the sports world, "You can't hope to stop him. You can only hope to contain him."

 Sure, Freddy has personality and Jason has an uncalled for amount of athleticism at times, but Michael's faults make him better than the rest. He's huge and powerful, but he's usually slow, clumsy, and completely narrow minded. He's the ultimate stalker. John Carpenter's creation and the way he shaped the movie around this "stalker" image is what made that movie a horror classic. No matter what the character's do, he always shows up, and while he might not leap through floorboards to get to you, he'll always be on your tail in the end.

 When Scissorman made his debut on the Super Nintendo, gamers were finally given a similar figure to run from. Sure, Jason himself was chasing gamers on the Nintendo in the historically bad Friday the 13th, but Scissorman had all of the qualities that made Michael Myers have such a unique presence. He would butcher you if he caught you and he was always just a step behind you, but he wasn't godlike in his abilities. You had your chances to escape, and it was your own fault if you blew it. He was slow and small, but the shrill snapping of the man-sized scissors let you know that he was all about serious business. The entire game is based on running from him, and the formula worked, causing several sequels on other consoles. If you think he hasn't had much of an influence on the history of gaming, then you obviously missed Resident Evil's inclusion of characters like Nemesis. Not only will you likely hear those scissors again someday, but I have a good feeling that unkillable stalkers are going to come back into the console scene pretty soon.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre/Silent Hill

 I first watched the Texas Chainsaw Massacre when I was in my early teens, mainly to try to figure out what all the fuss was about. Honestly, I can say that there's nothing special about the movie except one thing: it's disturbingly violent. The "meat hook" scene exemplifies everything you need to know about the movie. The world that the characters find themselves in is completely psychotic, all summed up in the room Pam falls into while exploring the killers' house. In broad daylight she finds skeletons, hellish decorations, and a floor littered with bones. It takes her a minute to process this, and when she does it completely ruins her mental state. By the time she pulls herself off the floor, she finds herself backing right into the personification of the insanity: Leatherface. Jason was pretty elaborate in his kills, and Freddy may have loved playing his sick dream-games, but this was the first time in cinema where the audience was gulping from the brutality rather than being scared.

 When you first enter Silent Hill, you immediately think that you're in for a clone of Resident Evil. That all changes pretty quickly though, as the player is introduced to a world with its own rules. Not only were the monsters designed to be evil looking, but they were also created for the sole purpose of making you completely uncomfortable. This game took its gore and atmosphere and forced it into your brain whether you liked it or not. Pyramid Head is the iconic figure of the series, and one of the biggest reasons why is that you can expect nothing less than the worst when it turns up. Just as Leatherface casually flings people onto meat hooks, Pyramid Head will turn up and cleave someone in two, then walk away and brutally rape a fellow monster minutes later. Excessive, yes, but the disturbing visuals cause you to lose all the happy places left in your brain that were helping you deal with the nightmare.

Night of the Living Dead/nothing

 I feel compelled to end the article with one movie that may not be matched in video games anytime soon. Night of the Living Dead is the ultimate zombie movie. It has everything you need out of a good movie about the undead, and while there are many excellent follow ups in the genre, none of them can claim to have the complete package. The sequel, Dawn of the Dead, is the only one that comes close. Sure, we've upgraded the zombies since then, but it's not always about them. Seclusion, fear, distrust, teamwork, complex characters...Night of the Living Dead has all of this. To this day, the film is lauded for how it deals with everything other than the zombies themselves.

 That's something that games haven't figured out yet. Arguably, Left 4 Dead contains some of these elements, but not in the way that they should be presented. Yes, you have to move forward as a cohesive unit, and the odds of survival are pretty slim if a team member goes down, but it's never a question of character. The biggest concern of character you have is whether someone is a a n00b or not. You can't ragequit a zombie holocaust, so how to you translate that tension into a game?

 I often refer to Night of the Living Dead and Battle Royale as two movies that just can't be made into a game. Sure, they both sound cool on paper. One is about zombies and the other is about killing fellow classmates, but they don't work as games. You can scare a person. You can put them on edge. You can chase them. You can break their boundaries and test their sanity. It's much harder to make them care about someone else. Right now, I'd go so far to say that it's impossible. Characters in these movies  have a personal stake in their actions, but a gamer doesn't. Whatever game manages to change that will not only be a landmark title for the genre, but it will forever change the entire business of gaming.

 As a side note, I don't believe I have the ability to end this problem, but I have a pretty good idea of where to start. So if a developer out there wants to nab the Battle Royale franchise and get back to me, I can show you how to give the movie some justice. Promise. Digg It Stumble it ! Reddit