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 2 (/ from cinematic horror. , 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 —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), (/Empire, fere with the determining sub-strata of the 2001) (an innovative use of the 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 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 , 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. The Alien games (Acclaim/Probe, 1996; obstacles. Throughout the game the effects of Argonaut/Fox, 2000) use the monster-in- a higher power are always in evidence. space theme, presold by the films. The The element of pre-determination, which Mummy (Universal Office/Konami, 2000) lies outside the sphere of player agency, takes a slightly different take on the zombie is therefore linked to the metaphysical theme, and that too is a direct movie tie-in dimension in which manicheanism operates. game. Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation (Core/ The concept of the moral occult plays a Eidos, 1999) draws on the spectacle of Ancient central role in horror-based videogames’ Egypt for its monsters (the flesh-eating beetles fundamental dependence on allowing play- of the game appear in The Mummy—both the ers to experience a dynamic between states of film and the game). Cyberspace-based gore- being in control and out of control. This affec- fests of shoot-em up carnage characterize tive attribute links the deep structure of the Half-Life (Valve/Sierra, 1998), (id, 1996)

14 FALL 2002 KRZYWINSKA

The walking, stalking undead: common monsters in First person point of view in Clive Barker’s Undying horror-based videogames and Unreal Tournament (Epic MegaGames & the vast house and grounds. This investiga- Digital Extremes/GT Interactive, 1999). tive mode is aided by the first-person mode What impact does interactivity have on the and the scope of the 360-degree view that al- rendering of horror genre tropes, strategies lows players to look where they wish. This and formats? As the name implies, Clive freedom to look and explore in Undying Barker’s Undying trades on the auteur prin- marks a departure from the way horror films ciple, thereby leaning on a pre-sold brand that use editing and framing to create tension and includes the Hellraiser films (1987-2001) and claustrophobia. On the other hand, Resident Barker’s novels and comics. Resident Evil 3, as Evil 3’s third-person shooter mode is closer with the whole cycle, uses many elements to film, as the player’s ability to look around from George Romero’s Living Dead cycle is more heavily managed by its game engine. (1968, 1978, 1985).8 These two games have Resident Evil 3 imposes different camera very different ways of handling interactivity, angles onto the viewer’s perspective, with- however, which impact their structure and the holding visual information and creating a kind of experience offered to the player. A pronounced effect of enclosure. Like a film, comparison between the two provides a use- Resident Evil 3 structures space and the ful way of understanding how interactivity is player’s experience through editing and used to solicit and manage horror. Both use fixed framing, which is often used to create different forms of restriction to create the type shock effects. The intrusive effect of pre- of suspense that underpins the genre, in accor- rendered camera angles within gameplay dance with Eve Sedgwick’s (1986) claim that reminds the player that control is limited and gothic horror hinges on the metaphorical and that the gameplay is highly predetermined. literal trope of burial alive.9 As well as helping to shape the aesthetic ex- perience of the game, this and other aspects Spatial Orientation and Tension in of inevitability built into the programming Horror Games infrastructure operates, like occulted fate, to The first-person shooter mode of Undying af- ordain the path that must be taken. fords the player the freedom to look around Because Undying does not use editing and the 3D virtual space, providing a radical fixed framing, it must deploy alternate tactics point of departure from film’s use of restric- to contrive suspense and atmosphere. One tive framing to manage what the viewer sees. way this is achieved is directly related to its The environment of Undying is extremely de- expansive playing arena. As befits the gothic tailed, encouraging the player to spend time nature of the house, there are many dark cor- taking in architectural details and to explore ners and masked spaces that can harbor

AXES TO GRIND 15 HANDS-ON HORROR helpful power-ups and spells or monsters and conventions of editing, framing and camera other dangers. Because the game is in first- movement to manage the spectator’s view person mode, there is increased visual and emotional engagement with the text. proximity to what lurks within such shadowy Although cut-scenes are often referred to places, heightening the sense of contact. This as “cinematic,” in many games no “real” heightened proximity to potential danger camera, or image re-production, is involved. builds disquietude and tension and, because Instead the cuts, the angles and camera exploring such places is central to the game, movements are generated digitally, either Undying handles horror in a markedly pre-rendered or generated “on the fly;” more uncinematic way than Resident Evil 3. the effects of tilts, zooms and tracking Undying makes direct use of the specific quali- shots are manufactured through the au- ties offered by an open environment, actively thoring software used to produce the games. encouraging an investigative approach. Referencing cinematic conventions, yet Therefore, interactivity, with its emphasis manufactured in a different way, these narra- on doing, has a significant impact on the way tively loaded cut-scenes as such are often less the game constructs apprehension and its “anchored” by the real environmental factors particular ambience. Further, it shapes the or- that influence the way that most live-action is ganization of the story and the experience of filmed. Unlike the conventions of most nar- gameplay, marking a qualitative difference rative films, the camera positioning used from the way the horror film organizes space. in interactive sequences is always linked to Resident Evil 3 often allows the avatar the the avatar, moving with it through the space option to run from enemies, and thereby of the game (seamlessly in first-person mode draws more strongly on slasher movie for- and rather less so in third-person modes). mats, whereas Undying, with its shifting The flexibility of digitally-produced camera environment and vertiginous abysses, renders movement found in cut-scenes is often space itself as threatening, thereby following markedly more mobile than that found in the footfalls of the gothic trend of using in non-animation-based cinema, thereby mise-en-scène to create brooding eeriness and permitting a greater continuity between cut- make things not what they seem. Here the scenes and the relatively rapid speed of gameplay space becomes a direct articulation the avatar’s movement during most of the of the intrinsic and extrinsic occult forces at gameplay. But what is most important to the work in the game. Both games make use of terms of my discussion of control and horror-based occult themes, and these mirror interactivity is that the cut-scene wrests con- the predetermined and restrictive occulted trol away from the player and reinforces the nature of the games’ own deep structure: sense that a metaphysical “authorial”10 force “as above, so below,” as the magical- is at work, shaping the logic of the game. alchemical axiom goes. This evocation of helplessness in the face of an inexorable predetermined force is crucial Game Narrative: Cut-Scenes, Point of to maintaining horror-based suspense, in View and Control that the game world often operates outside Increased computer power has allowed the the player’s control. Without this sphere of story-telling element of games to become pre-determination, the traditional pleasures more complex, leaving designers to find new of horror are denied us. ways to integrate predetermined storylines The pre-rendered nature of cut-scenes make into gameplay. Undying has a convoluted them appear closer to cinema than other parts story and, like many games, uses cut-scenes of a game, yet they have a very specific func- to help it unfold. The cut-scenes provide a tion in relation to gameplay and, importantly significant formal connection with the con- for this analysis, are an integral part of how a ventions of film horror as they use cinematic game creates a dynamic between being in

16 FALL 2002 KRZYWINSKA

Restricted and pre-rendered framing in Resident Evil 3 Horror Hospital: A zombie nurse from Silent Hill 2 control and being out of control. Within the story or the movement of players from one narrative of a game, the inclusion of a cut- domain to another: they play an important scene allows for the marking out of important role in confirming the presence of a dimension plot points. Cut-scenes often function as a of the game that is beyond a player’s control. means of rewarding players for a mini-victory. Near the start of Undying, for example, a They are also used to book-end games, setting cut-scene intrudes on the action as the player up the backstory and framing the motivation walks down a corridor. This is likely to take of play. At the end of a game, a cut-scene of- the player by surprise because it is not linked ten underscores the resolution provided by to a conversation or to the end of a mini-quest, the final battle. While the cut-scene, alongside as is more usual in this and other games. other aspects of a game’s inherent moral oc- An edit places the camera back down the end cult, is beyond player control, there are, of of the corridor, which then tracks swiftly to- course, various ways in which other in-game wards the avatar, accompanied by the sounds events are determined by the player’s actions. of slamming doors and a supernatural wind. Resident Evil 3 (like Silent Hill) offers points at This happens whatever the player does, un- which the player decides how to proceed. In derscoring the player’s sense of the existence Resident Evil 3, the choices made along the of an unseen force—in this case, hostile—at way determine the ending of the game. At work in the matrix of the game. At the end of these nodal points, Resident Evil 3 stops the the scene the player is trapped at the end of a action and presents a list of written options, corridor and cannot escape, unless he/she has whereas Silent Hill and its sequel integrate procured a particular spell in advance. Here choice through action, more seamlessly struc- discontinuity between being in control and turing it into the real-time flow of the out of control produced by the cut-scene gameplay. In both cases, the storyline offers a works to suspenseful effect because it is rapid, variety of potential routes, something not unexpected and integral to the gameplay. available in conventional film forms. Undying In Undying the juxtaposition of the does not deploy multiple endings: the final first-person framing of gameplay and that of showdown is presented in traditional linear the cut-scene heightens and signifies the fashion, culminating, after the death of a difference that lies between the sphere of “” (the most powerful enemy on a level), agency and the sphere of predetermination. in a pre-rendered scene. Smaller decisions The camera movement and first-person and actions help to shape the way the game framing used in the cut-scene described above, is experienced, however. as distinct from the first-person framing Some cut-scenes have a more direct rela- anchored to the avatar in the majority of tionship with gameplay than the telling of the the game, is synonymous with the occulted

AXES TO GRIND 17 HANDS-ON HORROR

Fog restricts visual perception in the Silent Hill cycle, creating Self-determined viewpoint in Clive Barker’s Undying: frantic atmosphere and heightening anticipation of acting swiftly to looking for potential threat is a key component of the game contain or avoid potential threat Othered power lurking in the house and in the monster under wraps and as well as sets up infrastructure of the game: the player can do complex relationships between the viewer nothing in these sequences but helplessly and a monster.13 The first-person strategy in watch them unfold. In this particular use of Undying is deployed in a very different way such framing, the cut-scene clearly borrows from the conventions of I-cam in horror film. from horror films which deploy the iconic Unlike its film equivalent, the first-person anthropomorphized “I-cam” moving camera shot in Undying is not used to create an as representative of a demonic, threatening uncomfortable complicity with the film’s force used to great effect in such films as The monster; instead it facilitates a more benign Shining (1980), Friday the Thirteenth (1980), connection between player and the hero- Halloween (1978) and Evil Dead II (1987),11 protagonist avatar, working to place both on explored in terms of suspense, mastery, sadism the side of good, a coincidence of perspectives and masochism by horror film critics such as that is consolidated by the game’s first-person Steve Neale, Linda Williams and Carol mode. Because of this the game is, in many Clover.12 In Undying, the cut-scenes that use ways, less complex in terms of the gaze—and fast tracking I-cam shots operate in contrast to its politics—than in many horror films that the fairly sedate walking pace at which the use a range of enunciative viewpoints player travels through the house, creating a (wherein the viewer is marshaled into differ- rhythmic differential dynamic that works at a ent, and sometimes conflicting, perspectives number of levels. This specific use of the cut- and identifications). In Resident Evil 3, the scene is one of many strategies used in horror connection between player and avatar is di- games to warn players that they must be ready minished by the use of a third-person to deal with a threatening situation, creating perspective and the game’s heavily managed, suspense and expectation, and refreshing play- shifting and pre-rendered framing, which dis- ers’ levels of alertness. It further demonstrates tances the player from close contact with the the way the games establish a dynamic horror. Yet even here there is a less complex between self-determination and a manichean- pattern of viewpoints than occurs in film, structured pre-determination. precisely because shots are always oriented Although games may give the player the around the avatar. freedom to look, first-person framing in The net difference in horrific effect due to gameplay is nonetheless, in cinematic terms, the use of either first- or third-person can be “restricted.” Often the point of view shot in illustrated in two comparable events in the re- the horror film is synonymous with that of spective games. When attacked in Resident the killer or monster, a useful strategy which Evil 3, the player is often not able to effect any simultaneously keeps the identity of the actions and can only watch impotently as

18 FALL 2002 KRZYWINSKA

Nemesis, the archvillain of the game, swings vene in the trajectory of events. While viewers the helpless avatar over his head. By contrast, might feel an impulse to help beleaguered char- in Undying, the particular form of restriction acters in a horror film, they can never do so provided by the first-person mode heightens directly. The horror film viewer might offer cries the illusion that it is the player sitting before of warning to the hapless teenagers who ignore the game screen who is being attacked, rather all diegetic warnings and persist in entering into than an abstracted virtual self. When a mon- the spook house. The formula is well rehearsed, ster makes a direct hit on the avatar, for soliciting groans and verbal advice, yet the example, the framing becomes shaky and the pleasure entailed in this process is founded on player’s aim becomes unstable—the player’s awareness of the inevitability of the events that visual field and ability to act is directly will unfold. Characters and action ultimately affected by the blows. The impact of attack remain isolated from the sphere of the viewer, in Resident Evil 3 is rather different. The regardless of the extent to which he or she might PlayStation’s “dual-shock” handset registers “identify” with them. When watching a horror the effects of the attack through actual, felt film, viewers are always subjected to the flow of vibration administered to the physical body events (unless they decide to turn away or cover of the player, but because the avatar’s and the their eyes—a familiar reaction of some viewers player’s viewpoints are not correlated, there is to moments of heightened horror or suspense). an odd disjunction between sensation and In this sense, I concur with Steve Shaviro’s argu- what is seen—though the player experiences ment that horror film suspense trades on a the rumble, equated with the attack, of the masochistic economy of delicious passivity, handset, the player sees his/her game avatar visceral affect and expectation.15 The spectator’s as a separate figure, visually as distinct from experience of a restrictive inability to act on situ- him/herself as any other character on the ations is often underlined in horror film game screen. The jarring effect of this discon- thematics. Zombification, various types of tinuity actively encourages players to become possession and bodily invasion are typical hor- increasing skilled in the use of handset con- ror film scenarios that represent a loss of trols so they are able to dodge attacks and autonomy and self-determination.16 Theme become better able to minimize the intrusion reflects reception here, the viewer—like the of “end-of-life” cut-scenes (albeit that cut- beset characters on screen—is also helpless, scenes do provide visual reward in other parts unable to alter the trajectory of on-screen action. of the game). The reward for increased skill in Yet film is less able than games to build into battle is greater visual continuity, therefore their deep structure a concrete experience of enabling more cinema-like experience of being in control and out of control of onscreen gameplay. The dynamic in play is towards events. None of this means that the film greater control of the game environment, yet viewer is entirely “passive” in the reception of this control is localized and is always quali- the film, however (a rhetorical trap that game- fied by a game’s broader infrastructure. Film critics often fall into when discussing the offers no equivalent. It is unable to exploit the differences between gaming and cinema). potential of interactive devices to intensify an Viewers constantly engage, rationally and awareness of the dynamic between being in irrationally, with the material presented on control and out of control, and this aspect is key screen; as Bruce Kawin puts it: “we interact to the specific types of suspense and emotion- with the signs in the generation of meaning based pleasures offered by horror games.14 and … our attention is selective.”17 The horror film often plays more overtly with the The Horror Experience: From Film to viewer’s inability to affect the action, how- Games ever, which is the key to some of its pleasures. The horror film derives much of its power to What, though, of the horror videogame? Does thrill from the fact that the viewer cannot inter- the interactive dimension and the resulting

AXES TO GRIND 19 HANDS-ON HORROR

Do you dare investigate the threat lurking behind the toilet doors in Silent Hill 2? ability of the player to control the action sense that they are being acted upon by the prevent horror games from replicating the game’s deep structure. Like the horror film, it terrors and ecstasies of losing control? is sharply apparent that the game’s virtual It is my contention that the interactive world is a closed system: the authored aspect dimension of horror games enables a more of narration governs the fabric of game and acute experience of losing control than that film, channeling the way we negotiate and achieved by most horror films. This is experience it. As Andrew Darley notes, and I achieved partly because, at times, the player build on this to underpin my argument about does have a sense of self-determination; when the moral occult, there are points in a game at it is lost, the sense of pre-determination is which its pre-programmed nature means enhanced by the relative difference. As I have that the “element of control and choice… shown, game events are often taken out of the is revealed as illusory.”18 Unlike Darley, player’s hands, a stratagem which allows the however, I do not see these moments as deployment of horrific pleasures closer to “formulaic” game flaws. Instead, these those of the horror film. Control and autono- moments actively work to produce the crucial mous action, which are always qualified, does sense of being out of control that is inherent to not mean the player is simply in a position of the experience of horror. Although this mastery, however. The repeated actions, con- experience of being out of control is handled tinual “dying,” the intrusions of the sound in a different and deeper manner from that field, the cause-and-effect structure, the of the horror film, there is a sense that the operations of the “authored” structure, and virtual world, and its structuring moral the cut-scenes, each work to offer the player a occult, is beyond a player’s control (even if

20 FALL 2002 KRZYWINSKA the player resorts to cheats and walkthroughs, with all its wider mythic and therapeutic unless the cheat allows a player to defy the meanings). What is “punished” in videogames game’s boundaries, in which case the sense is not so much curiosity, as in the horror film, of immersion is lost). but the failure to make it into the next scene. There are some significant differences Through the active mode of investigation borne of interactivity, however. Games are facilitated by interactivity, the player may organized around the traversal of space, to place his/her avatar in peril, yet the trade-off which narrative is often secondary; in a film, is access to new thrills and the promise of narrative is primary and always drives the or- continued gameplay. These are withheld if ganization of space. This distinction provides a player does not pursue active investigation. a further important difference between the If a player fails to get through a set task, or two media in terms of the way that “looking” fails to explore effectively, the narrative itself is treated. Unlike that of the horror film, the is withheld (no story before bedtime), a di- operation of the moral occult in videogames is mension that is conventionally not available rarely oriented around the punishment of in film. Darley usefully comments on this curiosity.19 Visual investigation becomes cen- exploratory aspect of games by suggesting tral to the trajectory of a game as well as to the that “once a game is under way the player is way the story unfolds. Many horror films also compelled continually and immediately to deploy an investigative strategy in the service respond.”20 Horror-based games are designed of narrative, yet it is at one remove from the to compel the player to investigate and over- viewer, and is far more directed than in come dangerous encounters if they are to games, which rarely deploy ellipses to elimi- uncover the game story and fully “colonize” nate “dead” time. In some respects the more the game space. While the investigatory mode open economics of looking in games unravels might appear to be self-determined, it the predetermined, ideological systems codi- demands a ritualized, mechanical response to fied in looking patterns of the horror film. events. The moral occult of a game’s internal Most games, and specifically Undying, depend structure pulls the player towards its goal of on a player searching areas to find clues, defeating evil. Along the way, it solicits con- power-ups and other equipment that open the tradictory desires for intensity, prolonged way to the next level. As the game guide to tension, anxiety, compulsion and resolution. Evil Dead: Hail to the King warns, “Don’t be The creation of such an emotionally dis- afraid to look around and check out the area. crepant scenario fits quite neatly into Julia Otherwise, you might miss something impor- Kristeva’s view that the experience of horror tant.” Therefore, space is something to be is bound into “a vortex of summons and actively, physically, investigated if the player repulsion.”21 The deployment of extrinsic, is to “beat” the game. Looking in games can Othered forces (akin to Lacan’s notion of mean that the player encounters danger, as the “Big Other”) provided by the games’ with Old Dark House-style horror films, yet programming that impinge on the player’s the difference is that (outside cut-scenes) the freedom to act are rendered within horror’s player is encouraged to assert an active, rather remit to provoke and intensify feelings than passive, mode of looking. of powerlessness, offering an important Through the juxtaposition of being in and media-specific modulation of the generic out of control, horror-based videogames facili- paradigm provided by the horror film and tate the visceral and oscillating pleasures/ affirming the value of looking at horror from unpleasures of anxiety and expectation. The the perspective of games. interactive dimension heightens this fluctuat- Potentially, interactivity presents a prob- ing sense of anticipation, implicating the lem to horror genre dynamics because its player in his or her fate. Failure to progress in inherent ability to allow players to drive the games necessitates repetition (being “stuck,” way that they investigate the space of the

AXES TO GRIND 21 HANDS-ON HORROR game means the loss of authorial control, to fantasy arena of videogames, which are - some extent, of the narrational strategies used ally marked as “fantasy” rather than reality to create suspense, which is crucial to the through their production values and generic development of the horror experience in film. intertexts, the determinism of the game It is for this reason that videogames mix accrues for the player a direct and heightened interactivity with predetermined boundaries experience of being acted upon. Games are and intrusive interventions that channel the carefully designed and authored to take us to player’s engagement with the game. The emotional places that would perhaps be pleasure-suspense dynamics of horror-based avoided if full interactivity were available. games are, as I have shown, very much The manichean-based safety net actively dependent on this combination. Both Undying allows the games to invoke “dangerous” and and Resident Evil 3 allow the player to act on liminal experiences. Horror games interface events, but only in a manner determined with the way in which technology is often by the game’s internal structure. Both games imagined as demonic and Othered; the player create scenarios in which the erotic economics is offered the challenge to defeat the techno- of masochism can be experienced, which the logically-based demon (aided by the “good” on/off dynamics of interactivity create and elements of the technology), which, if heighten. As such it seems mistaken to call achieved, can offer a pleasurable sense that games “promethean”:22 there is no transgres- the technology has been mastered. The sion of higher powers; players remain by and contract drawn up between hands-on interac- large dependent on the tips bestowed, the tion and hands-off pre-determinism works, gameplay path is fated and predetermined. therefore, in part with the emotional and At times during gameplay a player is duti- erotic economics of masochism as much as fully, sublimely, in their service, and the with the drive to act, colonize, and take pay-off is, precisely, the experiential gain of charge. The switching between the two inten- suspense and tension. Yet this is always sifies the experience of being both in control balanced against a sphere of interaction that and out of control, a strategy that is not fully promises self-directed agency. available to the horror film. This is because Unlike their film counterparts, and in spite such switching is grounded in the unique and of an often simplified moral framework, dynamic interactive nature of gaming media. s horror-based videogames create a complex interaction between bounded choice and I would like to thank Sue Morris, Geoff King, Will Brooker, Harmony Wu and the editors of Spectator for determinism that reflects, to some extent, the their insightful comments on this essay, a revised version way in which individuals interact with social of which appears in ScreenPlay: cinema/videogames/ constraints. Within the safe context of the interfaces (London: Wallflower Press, forthcoming).

Tanya Krzywinska is Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at Brunel University, London, UK. She is the author of A Skin for Dancing In: Possession, Witchcraft and Voodoo in Film (Flicks Books, 2000), co-author (with Geoff King) of Science Fiction Cinema (Wallflower Press, 2001) and co-editor (with Geoff King) of ScreenPlay: cinema/videogames/interfaces (Wallflower Press, 2002). She is currently working on a book entitled Sex and the Cinema, interspersed with playing videogames in preparation for a co-authored book with the work- ing title Tomb Raiders and Space Invaders.

NOTES 1 Espen Aarseth, Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1997) 1. 2 See Geoff King and Tanya Krzywinska in the introduction to the forthcoming book, ScreenPlay: cinema/videogames/ interfaces (Geoff King and Tanya Krzywinska, eds. [London: Wallflower Press, 2002]) for a more lengthy consider- ation of the relationship between games and cinema.

22 FALL 2002 KRZYWINSKA

3 The term refers to a model of the universe formulated by a 3rd-5th century sect, the Manichees, for whom the cosmos is a site of an endless dualistic battle between good and evil. Many popular texts are structured around a battle between good and evil, good usually winning out in the end (see Tanya Krzywinska, “Hubble Bubble, Herbs and Grimoires: Magic, Manichaeanism and Witchcraft in ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer,’” Fighting the Forces: Essays on the Meanings of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, David Lavery and Rhonda Wilcox, eds. [Lanham, Boulder, New York and London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002]). The way in which good and evil is defined in a given text is, of course, subject to dominant, and often fundamental, ideological values. 4 The horror genre has played an important role in targeting videogames to young adults (most games fall into the 15 rating bracket). The genre also has an established and very active body of fans, which makes them an ideal grouping for videogames’ marketing. 5 Silent Hill 2 (Konami, 2001) is an example of a horror-based game that, in drawing from psychological-based horror, makes an attempt to disrupt the conventional good-evil paradigm. This is achieved by building questions about the “good” status of the avatar. 6 The term was first used by Peter Brooks to describe the way in which melodramas often work to literalize and make visible in a text an ideologically constructed metaphysical order of universe, which is mainly organized in terms of manicheanism: good versus evil. As Brooks puts it “Balzac and James need melodrama because the deep subject, the locus of their true drama, has come to be what we have called the ‘moral occult’: the domain of spiritual forces and imperatives that is not clearly visible within reality, but which they believe to be operative there, and which demands to be uncovered, registered, articulated” (The Melodramatic Imagination: Balzac, Henry James, Melodrama and the Mode of Excess, 2nd edition [New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995] 20-21). 7 Unless, like Star Trek’s Captain Kirk (who once tampered with the programming of a “no-win” training simulation, thereby beating an unbeatable scenario) players are able to interfere with a game’s programming. 8 Romero was slated to direct the Resident Evil film, but pulled out during production. 9 Eve Sedgwick, The Coherence of Gothic Conventions (London: Methuen, 1986). 10 The term is used in a programming context, which is, necessarily, a collective activity. 11 The game version of the Evil Dead films, Evil Dead: Hail to the King, employs the same fast-moving I-cam forward- tracking shot in a clear attempt to map formal hallmarks of the parent film text onto the game medium. 12 Steve Neale, “Halloween: Suspense, Aggression and the Look,” Planks of Reason: Essays on the Horror Film, Barry Keith Grant, ed. (Metuchen, New Jersey and London: Scarecrow Press, 1984); Linda Williams, “When the Woman Looks,” Re-Vision: Essays in Feminist Film Criticism, Mary Ann Doane, Patricia Mellencamp and Linda Williams, eds. (Frederick, MS: University Publications of America/American Film Institute, 1984); Carol J. Clover, Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film (London: BFI Publishing, 1992). 13 See Neale, Williams, Clover. 14 Other formal differences and similarities between film and games operate. The presence of altered realities in Undying helps to sustain visual and narrative interest and may help to compensate for the absence of what in cinema would be supplied through the use of cross-cutting, a key device used to create tension and signal threat. Sound also plays a crucial role in both media to invoke the emotional impact of horror, and is often linked to the operation of the moral occult. Many videogames deploy sound as a key sign of impending danger, designed to agitate a tingling sense in anticipation of the need to act. The effect can be produced through changes in the type of music being played or through sounds that have their sources directly in the space of the game. These aural cues, present in both Undying and Resident Evil 3, help to create an increased level of expectation and play a significant role in the creation of atmosphere as well as in emotional and structural dynamics of the games. 15 Steven Shaviro, The Cinematic Body (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota, 1993) 55. 16 See Tanya Krzywinska, A Skin For Dancing In: Possession, Witchcraft and Voodoo in Film (Trowbridge: Flicks Books, 2000) for a discussion of possession in the horror film. 17 Bruce Kawin, “The Mummy’s Pool,” Planks of Reason: Essays on the Horror Film, Barry Keith Grant, ed. (Metuchen and London: The Scarecrow Press, 1984) 4. 18 Andrew Darley, Visual Digital Culture: Surface Play and Spectacle in New Media Genres (London and New York: Routledge, 2000) 157. 19 For example, Kawin states that the horror film “emphasizes the dread of knowing, the danger of curiosity” (8). A very literal rendition of this appears in Opera (1988), where the eye is literally and graphically punished. 20 Darley, 156. 21 Julia Kristeva, The Powers of Horror, trans. Leon S. Roudiez (New York and Oxford: Columbia University Press, 1982) 1. 22 Steven Poole, Trigger Happy (London: Fourth Estate, 2000) 217.

AXES TO GRIND 23