Friday the 13th. A day intrinsically linked to cinematic horror, when film fans would sit in a darkened cinema, breath drawn in and sweat-lined palms tightly gripping the armrest. However, it’s hard to argue that Hollywood horror is in good health right now, from a qualitative standpoint at least. Another remake hit the silver screen yesterday: Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left, a movie that was hardly revered in its time. It’s systematic of a desperate lack of imagination and invention in a genre that, despite its troubles, still remains hugely popular, with cinemagoers ever hungry for their Friday-night frights. However, current releases such as the inexplicably expansive Saw franchise, tend to rely on shock tactics and gallons of blood and gore.
So where has that imagination gone? “Purists might argue that all horror movies are essentially remakes, and that something like Ridley Scott’s Alien is really just a rehash of B-movie ideas, but there the design was so original and unsettling that it felt new, and this is the key,” says Telegraph film critic, Tim Robey. “None of the current mainstream horror releases have that stamp of shocking novelty.
It’s hard to be scared when you know what’s around the corner and pretty much what it’s going to look like. Even the promising cycle of Japanese and Korean horror films that kicked off with The Ring seems to have played itself out, basically because of self-plagiarism and a shortage of visual ideas beyond those pallid black-haired wraiths, which were good for a few sleepless nights but not several years’ worth.” And this is where another medium has begun to take the edge from movies when it comes to horror: the video game. Also released yesterday was Capcom’s excellent Resident Evil 5, a game that puts you in the shoes of two anti-bioterrorism agents in Africa, facing off against legions of infected zombies in the scorching sun.
The interactive nature of video games places the audience under direct threat, allowing even the oldest of cinema scares to once again feel fresh and terrifying.
While the chainsaw-wielding maniac in the game is an undoubted tribute to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s Leatherface, it’s altogether more frightening when it’s your neck on the line. A rev of the chainsaw signals his arrival, sending a cold shiver down your spine as you realise your ammo stock is perilously low. It’s a taut and tense experience that relies heavily on the nature of interactive entertainment.
Resident Evil 5 is another terrific title in a recent spate of video games that manage to cover the full horror spectrum, from action to comedy, despite an unhealthy obsession with zombies (see sidebar). Sega’s light gun shooter, House of the Dead: Overkill, is a gloriously silly grindhouse tribute, while the latest Silent Hill title, Homecoming, is a fraught psychological horror that, while lacking in several mechanical areas, shows more intelligence in its plot and penetration than many mainstream Hollywood nasties of recent times.
While video game horror is nothing new, technological advances allow developers to constantly find new ways to scare.
EA’s Bafta award-winning Dead Space is a technical marvel and an exquisitely sculpted piece of horror. It makes outstanding use of advanced lighting techniques to disorient the player and features phenomenal sound design to constantly keep the player on their toes.
It’s a game that is heavily influenced by cinema sci-fi horror, but moulds the terror around the unique characteristics of video games to keep its audience on a knife-edge from start to finish.
For a medium that in many ways is still in its creative youth, this understanding of how to use a video game’s technological strengths to engage the player in terrifying scenarios in ways that cinema cannot is key to keeping the genre fresh and frightening.
The film industry, meanwhile, is looking at the recent advancements in 3D technology to further involve the audience and bring new life to the horror movie. Whether this is the answer remains to be seen. For now, however, those scare aficionados looking for a frightening fix can be satiated in the new, digital, house of horrors.
(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/technologyreviews)
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