Hands-On Horror
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TANYA KRZYWINSKA Hands-On Horror It troubles me that an anonymous oracle knows more of my business than I do. —Alice American McGee’s Alice (Rogue/EA, 2000) “Can you survive the horror?” asks the cover of begin to elaborate on games’ formal differences the interactive game Resident Evil 2 (Capcom/ from cinematic horror. Virgin Interactive, 1998), a question that explic- Given the recent release of several films itly positions the game within the rhetoric of the based on games, such as Lara Croft: Tomb horror film genre. Yet something greater than Raider (2001), Final Fantasy (2001) and most generic familiarity with horror is needed to sur- pertinently Resident Evil (2002), such an analy- vive the specifically interactive nature of the sis into such media cross-fertilization is a horror game—the player must summon the timely intervention. Each of these films bears willpower to learn the skills needed to with- only a superficial relation to the games, how- stand the onslaught of evil monsters and restore ever, and although there are some references equilibrium. In contrast to film, games place a (particularly in Resident Evil) to the games that central emphasis on the act of doing that goes inspire them, the films do not attempt to re- beyond the kinetic and emotional responses that create the interactive aspects specific to the might be produced in cinema. Espen Aarseth formal nature of their game counterparts.2 proposes the term “ergodic” to identify forms in This spate of game-to-film remakes indicates a which “nontrivial effort is required to allow the closing of the circle of the cross-media ex- reader to traverse the text,”1 an effort greater change from horror film to games and back to than that involved in watching a film; games’ film. But the overwhelmingly disappointing interactive requirement situates them squarely and unengaging nature of most of the films so in the “ergodic.” In this article I will explore far seems to suggest that while media interac- how interactivity, with its concomitant emphasis tion works in multiple directions, it is in the on doing, affects the shape and pleasures of realm of games (and how they adapt and ex- the horror-based videogames, and in so doing change templates inherited from cinema) where the most exciting innovations in the 12 Axes to Grind: Re-Imagining the Horrific in Visual Media and Culture Harmony Wu, editor, Special Issue of Spectator 22:2 (Fall 2002) 12-23 KRZYWINSKA cross-media circulation of the horror genre are between self-determination and pre-determi- taking place. And thus it is from the perspec- nation. This rhythm is present in most tive of games that the most insight into videogames, yet in these particular games it changes in horrific forms across media can be takes on a generically apposite resonance mapped and most productively considered. within the context of horror because it ties into Two games, Resident Evil 3: Nemesis and consolidates formally a theme often found (Capcom/Eidos, 1999) and Clive Barker’s in horror, in which supernatural forces act on, Undying (ELEA/EA, 2001) will be used as and regularly threaten, the sphere of human examples of how horror games organize and agency. The surface level and deep manichean manage the game-playing experience to create structure further operates as a containing suspense and tension. The first is a console- safety net for the experience of being out of based (PlayStation) game, which has proved control. My main contention is that the interac- popular; the second is played on a PC and has tive dimension of these particular games is had more limited commercial success. In both organized to intensify and extend the types of games, magic has unleashed evil on the world, emotional and affective experiences offered by disrupting the status quo. Resident Evil 3 is a se- the horror film. quel to two earlier games, each set in an imaginary but contemporary American city. To Interactive Evil and the Moral Occult “beat the game” (and defeat evil) the player The horror genre has made the transition to must explore the virtual city, solve puzzles, ac- videogames for a number of reasons. Horror cumulate and use different objects and offers death as spectacle and actively prom- weapons, and do battle with—or run from—a ises transgression; it has the power to promote range of undead monsters. Undying requires physical sensation, and the genre appeals to the player to perform similar actions, although the youth market that is central to the games within a rather different environment: the industry.4 Many constitutive aspects of game is set on an imaginary island, complete the horror film genre are also present in with labyrinthine castle, ancient monastery horror games, primarily in the way they are complete with crypts and caves, and includes a marketed, their graphic and iconographic number of embedded magical spatial dimen- styles, their shock tactics, themes and sions that defy physical laws. storylines. Like many horror films, many The formal structures of the two games will horror videogames deploy very basic notions be addressed first, with attention placed on cer- of good and evil.5 In both Undying and tain important differences from and similarities Resident Evil 3, the avatar (the character that to the horror film; this material will then be represents the player in the game) has to used to indicate the specific types of pleasures restore balance to a world corrupted by evil offered in this interactive intersection of “hor- forces that threaten humanity and rationality, ror” and “games.” The analysis is framed by and the aim of these games is to defeat the my argument that these games are structured manifestation of such forces. Both games at deep and surface levels according to the deploy surface story lines and concomitant principles of a “manichean” moral duality,3 a aesthetic strategies that reference the good- factor that the games share with many horror versus-evil format of many horror films; films. This binary structure is embedded however, in the games this dualism is even within the interactive dimension of the games. more deeply embedded in the infrastructure Its presence suggests that the pleasures of play- that shapes the dynamic nature of games’ ing such games hinge on a dynamic experience interactivity. This infrastructure works as that oscillates between doing and not doing. In a form of “moral occult,”6 Peter Brooks’s each game there are periods in which the term for how a transcendent moral order is player is in control of the gameplay, and at oth- deployed and articulated in late 19th-century ers the player is not, lending a resonant rhythm melodrama, which he proposes is defined AXES TO GRIND 13 HANDS-ON HORROR by the project of making an invisible moral games, provided by their programming, to order apparent at a surface level, an idea that the range of pleasures they offer, specifically can also be applied to many horror films in terms of the dynamic tension between pe- (elaborated on by Harmony Wu in the intro- riods of passivity and activity. duction to this issue). Brooks’s model is also useful in thinking Charting Generic Crosscurrents in about the ways Undying and Resident Evil 3 Horror Films and Games structure their interactive gameplay. All horror The range and popularity of games based on videogames are resolutely grounded in a horror suggests there are aesthetic and mar- hidden “occulted” or metaphysical dimension, keting advantages in translating cinematic determined by programming, that shapes horror to interactive media. Existing horror- gameplay. What is important to note here is based videogames draw on a number of that the resulting virtual dualism—a simulated familiar pre-sold horror sub-genres. The manicheanism—is fixed: while players can Resident Evil cycle, Nightmare Creatures cycle, interact with aspects of the surface dimension Evil Dead: Hail to the King (HeavyIron/THQ, and the space of the game, they cannot inter- 2001), The Typing of the Dead (Sega/Empire, fere with the determining sub-strata of the 2001) (an innovative use of the zombie genre game.7 Whatever players do in most horror to teach touch-typing: “type or die,” as the games, they still have to occupy the position of slogan goes), and The House of the Dead cycle an avatar of good, not evil. This predetermined (Sega, 1998, 1999, 2001) all draw heavily on transcendent force of the horror games’ moral Romero-influenced zombie movies. Vampire- occult is at work in the way these games chan- based games are also common, such as nel the player through their labyrinths. As a Dracula Resurrection (Canal/Multimedia/ player travels through the space of the games, Dreamcatcher, 2000), Legacy of Kain: Soul he/she encounters aspects that both restrict or Reaver (Crystal Dynamics/Eidos, 1999) promote agency. Examples of these include and Vampire: The Masquerade (Nihilistic/ cut-scenes (pre-rendered sequences that can Activision, 2000). Phantasmagoria (Sierra, only be watched and not “interacted” with), 1995), Silent Hill, Silent Hill 2 (Konami, 1999, physical barriers such as locked doors or 2001) and Clive Barker’s Undying also employ blocked pathways, or helpful power-ups (that aspects of the zombie theme, alongside more boost an avatar’s “life” which becomes traditional gothic and Lovecraftian themes. depleted in battles) and the strategic location These also have a strong connection to the of new and agency-enhancing weapons. The “old dark house” format, common in horror moral occult is also evident in other types of films since the 1920s, and enhance this by help offered to the player, such as clues to deploying extra, alternative dimensions where to go next planted along with way, and within the space of a house or urban environ- in the series of rewards given for overcoming ment.