systems and the tech and the storytelling tech- niques are good enough to allow the monsters to be more than just targets to aim at. DR: Advances in technology have not only made it possible for better graphics, but the additional in- crease in memory has allowed for more choices on the part of the player. Horror movies, for the most part, are a passive form of entertainment. Horror games allow the player to determine how the story will play out and as a result, add another level of suspense. As for the story, I think that games are finally being treated like a serious form of enter- tainment; as a result more time is being taken with the story and character development.
How have horror games advanced to immerse players deeper into these chilling storylines? DR: I think the best example of larger storage medi- ums affecting storytelling in video games is the re- cent game Heavy Rain. ... You play as four characters trying to solve the crimes of a serial killer. Through- out the game you have to make all kinds of deci- sions to determine how the ending will play out.
There is no guarantee your characters will make it to the end, or you will save the kid, or if the killer will get away. There really is no way to say you won or lost the game as the ending could be anything and who’s to say one ending is better than another? The smallest decisions will affect the rest of the game and as a result, there a ton of possible stories on that game disc. RD: I think the key element to the evolution of horror games has been the understanding that it’s the player that’s the key, not the critters or the gore or anything else. Combine that with the constantly improving technology for interacting (or messing) with the player, and that’s why the games have been able to get better and better. If you look at something like Eternal Darkness, where the metagame actively involves the player – adjusting volume, threatening to erase saved games, blanking the screen – you see the mo- ment where I think horror games took the next step, because there was clear evidence of the game affecting the player, not the player charac- ter.
Have horror games grown more graphic? RD: Actually, I don’t think they have, relative to their surroundings. There was a huge outcry about violence in video games back in 1976, with [the arcade game] Death Race. What has changed is the technology, which has allowed that violence to be depicted differently. ... If games are perceived as more “gory,” it may be because they’re interactive, or because only the gory ones make the headlines, or because we automatically link the word “game” with “kids’ stuff.”. DR: I think the gore and blood that’s used now just looks a lot better. Gore has been in games since they started. I think the reason games may seem gorier is because most games are shooting for realism. Take a game like Silent Hill, you can have a game with body parts and no blood but it’s not going to look real to anyone. … Some develop- ers think that more gore equals more sales. Any- one who’s played Manhunt 2 knows this isn’t true. All the hype over that game and in the end it was mediocre and got more attention than it deserved.
As the face of modern horror cinema has
evolved over the last thirteen years, so has the way critics and audiences have embraced the once-marginalized genre films of the past. No longer is critical appreciation reserved for ac- claimed art house movies and Hollywood mes- sage films, the last decade or so has seen an increased stream of well-researched, often beau- tifully illustrated cult film books that gleefully re- evaluate all manner of sleazy, ugly and crudely fashioned “trash.”
Just 30 years ago, dodgy no-budget productions such as The
Corpse Grinders, Night of the Bloody Apes and Monstroid were considered unwatchable by most mainstream critics, but that’s changed. Now, even ultra-low-budget directors such as Ray Dennis Steckler and Al Adamson have been reintroduced as au- thentic auteurs. “We’re talking about creations concocted on the fly under ex-
treme limitations, often made by desperate, if driven, charac- ters,” says Jimmy McDonough, author of the groundbreaking biography The Ghastly One: The Sex-Gore Netherworld of Film- maker Andy Milligan (2003). “No time, no money and, at least by the standards of many, no talent. Such restraints can lead to interesting artistic by-products – a certain rawness, an imme- diacy, a sometimes excruciating ‘realness’ that can’t be faked.” Stephen Thrower, author of Nightmare USA: The Untold Story
of the Exploitation Independents (2008), a voluminous appraisal of independently produced 1970s and ’80s horror, agrees. “Trash films may be technically shaky, imprecise and lack cer- tain grace notes of quality, but they make up for it with energy, eccentricity and unpredictability.” These are just two recent film books that demonstrate this
new critical approach of redefining trash cinema as important cultural ephemera. It’s a long way from the derision once as- signed to horror movies such as The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant and Robot Monster, when they were covered in Michael and Harry Medved’s The Fifty Worst Films of All Time (and How They Got that Way) (1978) and The Golden Turkey Awards (1980). As the DVD boom of the mid-1990s made once-obscure hor-
ror films readily available, a new breed of cult film book emerged. Surveys such as Pete Tomb’s Mondo Macabro (1998), Creation Books’ Creation Cinema line, including Meat is Murder!: An Illustrated Guide to Cannibal Culture (1998) and Eric Schae- fer’s Bold! Daring! Shocking! True!: A History of Exploitation Films, 1919-1959 (1999) take a more informed, researched ap- proach, building on previous cult video guides, such as Michael J. Weldon’s The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film (1983) and Joe Kane’s The Phantom’s Ultimate Video Guide (1989). Nightmare USA is a fundamental example of the trend. Rem-
iniscent of an earlier key cult text, Re/Search’s Incredibly Strange Films (1986), it combines extensive filmmaker inter-
SEPTEMBER 12, 2006 Max Brook’s zombie apocalypse epic World War Z is published. Over 600 000 copies sold so far.
R 36M
SEPTEMBER 2006 Uwe Boll boxes critics – including then-RM writer Chris Alexander – as part of an event he calls “Raging Boll.”
MARCH 2007 Joss Whedon launches season eight of Buffy (which ended in 2003) as an ongoing comic book series.
APRIL 6, 2007 Despite an avalanche of initial fan support, the $53 million Grindhouse bombs at the box office.
JUNE 26, 2007 King Diamond’s Give Me Your Soul…Please drops, scores Grammy nomination, hell freezes over.
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