Happy Halloween

It's a bit early for this, I know. And this isn't really anything to do with horror in a straight forward sense. I can't help it though, as I've recently started working at a seasonal Halloween store, slinging FX makeup and gore decor.

All good horror fans, darksiders and devout christians know the long and ever evolving history of All Hallows Eve. This post isn't about the historical elements-- it's about Halloween. Good ol' plastic pumpkin bucket Americana Halloween.

The progress of the Halloween holiday has evolved into something really quite phenomenal. It breaks the rules of current sociology and it's effects touch on all american demographics, regardless of race, class or geography.

American society, on a whole, is extremely introverted. We live, work and commute independently. Our entire social lives revolve around a tiny microcosm of people, a selective circle of friends and relatives. These groups interact near each other, doing the same things simultaneously but rarely converge. A look at a typical American coffee house is a perfect illustration of this. An environment speckled with pairs and groups, maybe even a solitary, all independent and mindless of each other acting under the facade that "out" equates to "participating in society."

Holidays act to enforce and exemplify and this social-anti-social behavior. Christmas, Thanksgiving, Birthdays-- all emphasize and rely on a select group of people. Holidays are more often than not, about "family," and for these events we retreat into our own, should we be lucky enough to have such a thing. Christmas, as an example, is supposed to be a time of generosity, a time to invoke the "spirit" of the season but becomes "home for the holidays." Something with the attempt of being communal becomes internal on a massive scale.

Halloween, however, is philosophically and in practice the polar opposite. Halloween is about community. It's about people opening their homes to complete strangers. About generosity that makes the colder "season of giving" look like the personification of greed.

The social psychology behind Halloween is a fascinating, albeit a bit disturbing. People will open their homes and pocket books to complete strangers... as long as they are in costume. And here, on October 31st, we celebrate the inevitable dark side of life-- in a big way-- without most of us realizing it. On Halloween, personifications of the dead wander the suburban wastelands and we love it.

Halloween is an excuse to play in the shadows without social or psychological consequence. "It's just for fun."

It is fun. With the aid of costumed anonymity and a pre-approved excuse, we leave our reserve at the door, forget our bullshit, our problems, our stresses and have fun. In times of economic distress, the sale of cosmetics and candy never falter. People will always pay for small luxuries, especially during times of stress. Halloween is an annual embodiment of this. Even with the economy dragging like a low laying fog, people are spending hundreds of dollars on things that, outside of this solitary excuse, would be considered a frivolous waste.

There are, of course, people that believe Halloween is a waste, that it's evil or only for kids. This is grossly unfortunate.

They are missing out on something so much more substantial than fun-sized candy and parades of ghosts and ghouls. They have no idea.

So put on a costume, act like an asshole. Forget your problems, compliment your neighbor and embrace the dark side of life-- even if only for a day.


Happy Halloween.

Review: Alan Wake

I have talked before about video games as interactive horror being superior to the medium of film. In the most basic way, this is why Alan Wake fails. Video game horror is by far my personal preference to play in the realms of fear. The Silent Hill series is my favorite for it’s trifecta of atmosphere, sound and story. No game, however, is in my opinion more actively frightening than the Fatal Frame series.

As far as horror games go, there really aren’t many. It’s genre and it’s a niche. Although the fan base tends to be rabidly devoted (wander through the rabbit hole that is Silent Hill Heaven too see what I mean,) it remains a relatively small demographic. A small audience means small profits. Companies, especially in the current era of gaming, aren’t willing to take the risks necessary to develop and release games that don’t appeal to a wider base. We are currently stuck in the land of sequels and rehashing of television, film, games.

Silent Hill 4: The Room (Konami, 2004) was developed as a stand alone horror game simply titled The Room. It was never intended to be a part of the Silent Hill series... but slapping the tried-and-true branding on an otherwise risky product made it much more appealing-- and much more stable of an endeavor. The result was a forced, lack-luster product that was the first step in a steep decline that ultimately lead to the death of the entire series.

Admittedly, there are quite a few good horror games but the library is insignificant in size. As a result, every time a new horror game is announced, I get all wiggly inside. What really gets me going is the promise of something new, from somewhere unexpected.

Remedy, the developers behind the gritty, film noir - John Woo hybrid Max Payne, announced a sleek n’ shiny new survival horror at E3 back in 2005. Alan Wake.

I got excited. Forgot about it. Got excited again. Waited. Re-played a few favorites from my horror collection to bide time until it’s release and picked it up the day it came out. However, I’ve got a toddler. He is in the “terrible years” and as a result, things get done on his schedule. I wasn’t able to try it until several days after I brought it home. That didn’t mean I wasn’t experiencing it in some form-- Every other gamer I knew assured me I was in for something magnificent. Even the barista at my local Starbucks promised my husband that I would love it.

The “professional” reviews that I skimmed rated Alan Wake extremely high for a thriller / horror title. User reviews were even more favorable with all of them posted on Gamefaqs ranking it an astounding 9/10. While I’m not one to buy into hype, I at least felt a little less guilty about dropping sixty bucks on it.

I’ve got to say, Alan Wake is terribly disappointing. This game has some serious power-house scenery graphics (models are another story) and colossal budget-- but it’s boring. Touted as a “psychological thriller,” it fails to live up to it’s branding in unfortunately every critical way.

First and foremost, this game is completely lacking in the most crucial element of any game. Interaction and immersion. My husband commented that he felt he should be watching it as a film-- and would probably enjoy it if it was one instead of a game. I agree completely. Playing Alan Wake is nothing but going through the motions to advance a dry and predictable plotline that feels cliché before it even gets rolling.

To elaborate on the fatal lack of immersion, Alan Wake is nothing but a rail system behind smoke and mirrors of burning cash. You cannot interact with anything in your environment. You can’t examine things. Approach a door and it opens. With no prompt from the player. You cannot even choose to open a door. There are several NPCs in this game-- but you cannot interact with them. Instead, stand vaguely near them to perhaps initiate dialog. Stand around and wait 30 seconds to see if they are finished when they stop speaking, or if they have another chunk of dialog.

This is the most linear game I have encountered on the next gen systems. You can’t explore-- and even if you were to try, there is no point. If you advance to far, narration kicks in at a trigger point and spins events out of order. There are NO items in this game save a ridiculous abundance of ammunition and batteries for your flashlight. No health items, no puzzle pieces, no memos. Just a few keys that are right next to their use point. To top it off, the items that do make an appearance double as product placement.

Apparently, Remedy realized what a retarded move that was and added collectable coffee thermoses. Oh, and, pages with the story that you are currently experiencing written on them, most of the time spoiling the very next scene and repeating the mediocre voice acted dialog. Some of the pages reveal information “off camera” but there is no way to differentiate between the two. These “collectables” are put in such plain sight that it’s goddam insulting.

Most of the game takes place in the woods-- which look beautiful, no doubt. However, if you stray from the dirt path in front of you, at all, you will find yourself completely surrounded by enemies and utterly hopeless. Due to the fact that the moment you leave the path you’re fucked-- and the fact that there is no reason to anyway, you have no option but to mindlessly advance as you are told and at the pace you are told.

Speaking of enemies, there are about three of them. Total. A guy with a hat, a guy with ear muffs and poltergeist fucking wheelbarrows. Defeating them requires the exact same strategy, which is no “strategy” at all. Aim a flashlight at them and shoot them in the face/haunted aluminum siding/trucker hat. When a new level starts, which plays like an episodic television show, your ammo and battery count are reset. So much for item conservation. “Bosses” are the same and require only a few more hits.

Alan Wake, as hinted at earlier, also has active narration. The character speaks in past tense constantly. “I turned. It came after me. I shot a it in the face/haunted aluminum siding/trucker hat.” Not only does this shatter any tension built but also ends up feeling extremely anticlimactic for the fact that it is spoken calmly in past tense. In a similar vein, the game plays in episodes like a television series, with previous chapter re-caps and everything. I'm not going to even bother mentioning the uncanny similarities (or blatant rip offs) of Lynch.

Music, be it in film, television, theater and especially video games is only behind story and characters in importance. The music in Alan Wake is forgettable, if not unnoticeable. The only time I paid attention to this element is when they threw in my favorite Poe song, which was inappropriately used. Considering the fist-fulls of cash they handed over for rights to existing real-world music, it would have been much better invested into original ambiance, not 1990s alt-rock. Not going to lie, gunshots, footsteps, etc are quality but they feel recycled. The enemies warble gibberish from their past “selves,” shit like “Omega 3 fatty acids are good for your health!” In theory, some flicker of the host’s original self, works. In actuality, it’s ridiculous.

The small bit of content that is interesting and the saving grace of the game is overused so gratuitously that it gets old immediately. As an example, there is a television show in game called Night Springs. It’s a spoof of old, late night pulp sci-fi shows like The Twilight Zone. At the beginning I found myself looking forward to these bits until I started to encounter it EVERYWHERE. Night Springs posters. Night Springs video games. Night Springs clothing. Night Springs cups. Characters playing a Night Springs board game. It totally killed the initial late-night niche feel that it was trying to emulate. Quirky NPC characters that seem to add quaint life to the game end up as major players. Smiling at a reference to H.P. Lovecraft turns into eye rolling.

Last, Alan is a fucking dickbag. While an unlikable protagonist is passible in other mediums, this is a fatal flaw in a video game. The main character, this avatar, is a direct extension of the player. Nintendo hit the nail on the head in the early days of gaming with the silent protagonist of the Zelda series. The main character’s name, Link, was actually chosen to highlight the fact that the fairy frolicking elfboy was a “link” between the player and the game.

Flawed characters make the best characters. This guys is just annoying. His response to everything is to punch it in the face. Alan is supported by a cast of even lamer characters, including a stereotypical New York publishing agent and sweet, supportive and submissive blonde. But I don’t like Alan. He’s obnoxious, hot-headed and pretentious. Yes, that is the point of the character. No, it doesn’t work. If I can’t empathize with a character, why should I care about their predicament? Why should I want to help them? I didn’t and found myself having a hard time finishing because of this as a stand alone issue, regardless of the others.

What annoyed me most some may find trivial. I don’t get it, but many 360 gamers are pretty hard core about getting “achievements.” Alan Wake has an achievement for watching a specific television in game. The television plays... two commercials. One for Mustang and one for Verizon. Are you KIDDING me? So in order to collect an achievement, a fair standard in gaming especially for completionests, you have to watch a fucking commercial.

In contrast, there is the unadvertised budget title coming out of the gates retail at a fraction of Alan Wake's price, Deadly Premonition (Ignition Games, 2010.) A small game from a small company brimming with creativity, originality and at the heart of it all, FUN.

Save the Hollywood flavor for the blockbuster films.

Interactive Horror

James... James... Silent Hill 2 (2001)

I have never, ever seen a horror film that frightened me.

I've jumped, I've cringed, I've studied the tired glow of exit signs instead of the action on the screen. But I've never been scared.

It is almost insulting to anyone reading this to point out that film is voyeurism. We are passive observers to someone else's story. We sit helplessly as characters we know only what we are presented with are tugged along some set track, witnessing their fate irrelevant of our "presence."

There is an intense element of separation when dealing with the medium of film. Movies that attempt to "break the fourth wall" seldom work, particularly in the genre of horror (The Devil's Chair 2006) This consequence of separation due to observing as opposed to

participating is particularly detrimental to horror films. Whatever's fucking with the hapless victims is a threat to them-- not to you. Even films that are based upon timeless folk stories and urban legends loose their basal effect by enacting someone else's story, someone else's consequences, someone else's fate. This is the limitation of film.

When I say that I've never been frightened by a film, I don't mean to sound like habituated snob unsusceptible to fear in media. In fact, that's far, far from the truth. The first and foremost thing to scare me-- and I mean deeply terrify me-- has been a book, which I will address the subject of in a post of it's own. The second, which is the subject of this entry, comes from a perhaps unexpected source.

Video games.

With the advance of technology and the introduction of "next-gen" systems constantly making "impossible" look obsolete-- there is still a stigma attached to this medium. I strangely spend a lot of time defending video games as a serious legitimate form of art and story telling but even I have a difficult time not conjuring the Legend of Zelda chiptune theme and imagery of obese plumbers having suspicious relationships with mushrooms when hearing "video game."

This is truly unfortunate. Thought of a mindless entertainment, kid-stuff. Video games have and continue to be an extremely powerful vehicle for story telling, especially held against film. Video games defy the time and space limitations of film. A story that unfolds over the course of thirty plus hours can be exceptionally more complex than a two hour slot that must hold a cohesive beginning, middle and end.

Obvious benefits aside, the most powerful is the inherent necessity of the complete absence of the fourth wall. A character will move along a set path as in film-- but only does so because you, the player, allow it to be. A symbiotic relationship evolves. The player needs the character to experience the story and the character needs the player to be allowed to do so. This "partnership" results in not only an emotional investment that is fundamentally more personal than in film but inflicts the events of the story onto the players themselves. When a player's avatar is attacked, so is the player and so on. The advancement of video games has brought decision making heavy handily into play-- no longer just a guide, the player is actually responsible for and writing the fate of their avatar from their own choices.

There are several quality horror games. The Fatal Frame series (Namco, 2001 - 2008) stands out particularly. Eternal Darkness (Silicon Knights, 2002) Kuon (Agetec, 2004) and The 7th Guest (Trilobyte 1993) are a few others worth noting. For the sake of my darling husband, I'll begrudgingly give credit where credit is due and obligatorily list Resident Evil (Capcom, 1996 - 2009.) The best of the best, however, great big draggy knives down-- is the Silent Hill series (Konami, 1999 - 2009.)

Silent Hill, as a whole series, is beautiful, haunting and impossibly fucked up. There is one however, that undeniably stands out. Released in 2001, the second installment shattered the concept of video game story telling. If you are reading this, there is a large chance that you've encountered this game of your own accord. I don't want to re-hash the story or give a personal review Silent Hill 2, I want to talk about what makes it stand out as superlative horror.

Spoiler warning.

Silent Hill 2 follows the desperately morose James Sunderland

on an insane search for his dead wife. The game begins with James studying the hollows of his face in vandalized bathroom. "I got a letter. The name on the envelope said "Mary". My wife's name... It's ridiculous, couldn't possibly be true... That's what I keep telling myself... A dead person can't write a letter." Here, in the first few seconds of the game, before the player has even taken control, Konami succeeded in a hugely subtle way. Logic begs, who in the hell would drive to a resort town in search for their deceased wife upon receipt of a letter? Yet, the way James is introduced, regardless of the absence of history, a vague explanation and a logic defying quest-- we trust him.

It is the responsibility of the creator of fiction to convince the audience that the universe in which their story transpires is valid and accepted. Konami seamlessly succeeds at making the player believe and accept. James is a mess. He has become literately lost without his wife and in his increasing loneliness decided to do something impossibly delusional. We accept that James is a sick, desperate and broken man and still, we trust him. We want to help him and we believe in him. As a player, we become him.

James is also, for lack of a better term, pretty lame. Silent Hill excels at producing protagonists that in of themselves contribute to the anxiety of the experience. James isn't an ex-marine or a cop-- in fact, it's assumed that he's never fired a gun. When he runs for extended periods of time, he stops to catch his breath. He swings a bit of wood debris haphazardly to defend himself. This is a stark contrast to the style of Resident Evil where everyone is equipped and trained to wield machine guns and grenades. The enforced helplessness and vulnerability transcends into the player-- James weakness becomes their own fragility.

Silent Hill 2 also boldly twists the concept of "monster." What is a monster? A creature? Or can a monster be a concept? Or how about, even a person? Is a monster, by default, an antagonist? Or can it be a narrator? A relevant, overlooked piece of information? Something familiar? Maybe even yourself? Konami abandons the tired and true things that go bump in the night in favor of something impossibly more sinister. Every monster that appears in the game is a manifestation of James' subconscious. While this is not apparent until significantly later in the game it is impressively effective from the start. There is an omnipresent recognition of an unnamable significance to these creatures-- and when that significance is subtly revealed the ramifications are immensely disturbing. Like a name caught against the back of your teeth, like a buried and forgotten memory.

Just that, is in the end, the heart of the story. When after hours, days, weeks of guiding the bereaved James through literal hell for the madman hope of finding his dead wife results in an unexpected revelation, the scary gets a lot scarier. Gradually the featureless pairs of writhing female legs fused at the waist make sense in way that they shouldn't. James' drive isn't born from heartsick hopelessness, it's from desperate, fucked up delusion. Worst of all, James lied to you. You endured with him, sympathized with him. You hoped and mourned with him. You rallied for him. Everything that he did, said-- you believed in. You connected with him, merged with him. So in the end, what does that make you?

Aside from the beautiful, terrifying creature design, the complex and standard-shattering story, Akira Yamaoka's sound design is completely stand alone. Yamaoka has provided the score for every Silent Hill, including the shitty film adaption (2006.) The sound effects become as relevant and powerful of a character as James himself. Silent Hill 2 utilizes sound to tell pivotal fragments of the story. Whispers, breaking glass. It's not just atmospheric, it's critical. Such focus and use of detail mandates a near paranoid attention.

The most consequential aspect to Silent Hill, as applies not only to Silent Hill 2 but to the series as a whole is unquestionably the atmosphere. Team Silent, above all others, has got this down to absolute flawlessness. A basic formula is utilized. Darkness. Limited vision. Claustrophobia. None of that is new or even particularly interesting. What is, however, is more of a consequence of the game's origin as opposed to something intentional.

The inception of Silent Hill has been attributed, in large, to American horror. The film Jacob's Ladder (1990) has been cited as a major source of inspiration by Team Silent. In the original Silent Hill, several of the street names are titled after horror authors, the "easter-eggs" and tributes are seemingly endless (even the trip-hop band Portishead makes an appearance.) The series itself takes place in the American midwest, was inspired by American horror following American protagonists-- developed by a Japanese team. What makes Silent Hill's atmosphere so defilingly frightening on a fundamental level is that it's foreign idea and presentation of native culture. Everything is familiar, recognizable-- but there is something off. Not enough to even be noticeable on a practical level though enough to be subduedly, yet undeniably unsettling.

Why "Torture Porn" doesn't work

Eli Roth's Hostel (2005)

This is, in no way, a novel debate.

In the same way that the argument on whether or not "Torture Porn" deserves to be considered a permissible member of the horror genre is old news, this style of film in of itself is dated. Torture Porn evolved from a hybrid of “Snuff Films” (alleged in-the-act homicides caught on film,) “Mondo” (a documentary or admittedly faux-documentary profiling extreme and taboo subjects, see Mondo Cane (1962) Mau Mau (1955), Faces of Death (1978) and Hitchcock-esq "Slasher" films. The resulting gore-child metamorphosed into it's full fledged cash-fisted sub-genre in 2004 with James Wan's Saw.

I understand that employees have to put mysteriously sticky home-rental cases on shelves in some sort of order-- and Torture Porn fits most appropriately in the Horror category. I'm not responsible for any form of distribution, involved with marketing or a store with limited shelving space. Without the practical limitations of having to categorize it, I don't.

I'm not saying that there isn't an audience for this sort of spectacle, as the sacrifice of countless minimum wage paychecks are churned into jaw-dropping profits at the box office will attest-- I'm saying it has no right to be considered horror. People will always be fascinated by the macabre, by darkness and by cruelty. I'm not interested in discussing what purpose it serves, I'm interested in discussing what it doesn't.

To explain my stance, I first need to explain what I believe horror to be, at it's core. Horror is about the exploration, celebration, and safe participation in the psychology of fear. Fear is on a basal level, inseparably personal. There are endless variables and derivatives of inherent, human elements. What you are afraid of is wholly dependent on your experiences, your memories and your beliefs. Real horror taps into the audience's intimate psychology-- on a mass scale. As imagined, the success of doing so is no small feat.

As so, Torture Porn is a cheap, fast trick. It's a slight of blood glossed hand and people fall for it. It's not frightening, it's disturbing. Don't misunderstand me, "disturbing" is an absolutely critical element to great horror (Silent Hill 2) though it is almost always a manifested as

a byproduct. The ruse is in convincing people that they are frightened when they are only uncomfortable and feeling so as a result of generic visual triggers. It's not difficult to elicit a physiological "fear" reaction with such inflated and extreme stimuli. It is our sociological empathy that makes these films work in the first place.

Torture Porn shatters my first and foremost rule of horror films-- don't ever, ever wholly reveal the "monster." Whatever you imagine is endlessly worse than anything I could ever show you. This is a testament to the necessity of personal psychology in the success of horror and validation of tried-and-true divested editing and slinking shadows.

It's also, unfortunately, our empathy that is used to justify it's place among the creative power of classic horror. Are these films scary? Why? Are they scary because they flirt with concepts of inconceivable human cruelty? Or are they scary simply because people want to watch them? The cramped tensity disguised as legitimate fear does connect back into us-- we wanted to see that crap and even more frighteningly, we enjoyed the ride. Do we require the safety of genre film to acknowledge the depths of real human depravity? The “horror” is in a subconscious reflection of ourselves masquerading as fun, innocent entertainment. There’s the scam and sadly, the gawkers have been pick-pocketed in the process.

I will acknowledge that nothing is ever that simple. There is a fine line to be traversed here. In fact, one of my personal favorite horror films is Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) Is it not hypocritical of me to enjoy the concept of a madman wielding a chainsaw into the fresh faces of America’s youth? What the hell is the difference between Pyscho’s (1960) Norman Bates and Hostel’s (2005) Dutchman?

It all roots back to the most basic argument on this subject. Torture Porn is, very simply, violence for the sake of violence. The story of Psycho follows the madness of good ol’ Freudian-Fucked Norman with violence as a consequence-- it doesn’t follow violence with a consequence of an antagonist.

There are a thousand other subjects I would have rather started this blog with. I don't expect many people to read this-- though I do acknowledge that I'm projecting my opinions into the most public venue possible. I started this blog as a silly hobby, to explore something I feel isolatedly passionate about. If you choose to read it, I choose to be upfront about the foundation of my perspective. To each their own.

Welcome to my investigation of my own fears. May it lend you insight to your own.