"Jill, why don't you, the master of unlocking, take this lock pick."

For this entry I decided to veer away from the usual and delve into the world of videogames instead of film. I myself enjoy horror in any medium I can get it, be that in music, comics, television shows, and of course videogames. I’ve played games since I was very young, starting off with the Atari, which most children would gouge their eyes out if they were forced to play on such ancient technology. Of course I moved on to Nintendo and Sega Genesis eventually and I played the classics like Mario and Megaman, but I didn’t really stumble on to horror gaming until I played the original Splatterhouse. My fragile young mind was never the same. Thinking back, it might have been Splatterhouse 2, but I’ve slept since then so give me a break. Anyway, the mix of blood and guts was something I’d never experienced in gaming, and although I’m sure other horror games came and went, my thirst for horror gaming was not sated until I played Resident Evil. The voice acting was terrible, the graphics are now laughable, but at the time I was completely enthralled with the story surrounding the S.T.A.R.S team. Before I go much further there are some major spoilers ahead for those who haven’t played the game, so reader beware.

The first game in the Resident Evil series follows the exploits of the S.T.A.R.S. (Special Tactics and Rescue Squad) team. Bizarre cannibalistic murders have taken place in the forest surrounding the small town of Raccoon City and the S.T.A.R.S. Bravo team is sent out via helicopter to investigate. Not long after their departure Bravo team crashes and the S.T.A.R.S. Alpha team catches the distress message. Alpha team is sent in to the rescue only to find the remains of the helicopter and a severed human hand before all hell breaks loose. The team is attacked by simplified dogs and as the flee farther into the forest the stumble upon the Spencer mansion. So the great conflict of being eaten alive by monster dogs or taking cover in a creepy mansion arises and of course creepy mansion wins. This is where the player begins. You either choose to play is Jill Valentine or Chris Redfield. Jill carries better weapons and has more item space, but Chris can handle more of a beating, great play mechanics right? Well it’s not long before you stumble upon a zombie and as you return to the only real safe part of the mansion you find that the rest of your team has pretty much abandoned you, well that’s true if you play as Chris. If you play as Jill you get the help of one Mr. Barry Burton, who resembles a burly lumberjack. At this point you might be blaming your plight on your fearless leader Albert Wesker, as well you should. Well long story short, a bunch of monster fights, bits of horrible dialogue, and one giant shark later you find out that Wesker was working for the pharmaceutical company Umbrella Corporation, who has secretly been developing biological weapons. The whole point of your little mansion adventure was to run a military team into zombies and mutant freaks to see if said mutant freaks were combat ready. So in a very James Bond like situation, Wesker corners you and explains his nefarious plan, while holding you at gunpoint of course, and in a very stupid move, releases a behemoth known as the Tyrant, which resembles Vin Diesel if he had a bad skin condition and a giant claw for a left arm. Well the Tyrant evidently isn’t to happy to be woken up, and chooses to impale Wesker before setting his ugly sites on you. Cue climatic fight in a creepy laboratory. Well make that anti-climatic. The fight is pretty easy and when I first played the game I was utterly disappointed. Of course this was before I learned the Resident Evil formula, which is first anti-climatic fight leads to actual climatic fight with a time limit. That’s right the whole mansion is set to self-destruct and you have to make it to the helipad. Of course once on the helipad Mr. pissed off Tyrant makes his return to make you crap your S.T.A.R.S. issued britches. This fight isn’t really all that difficult either, but it does have a satisfying ending consisting of a rocket launcher used to make Tyrant a big ass stain and a horrible memory. Although it really goes without saying, the remaining S.T.A.R.S. members board the helicopter and make it out of the mansion just in time to watch the fireworks from afar.

Now for fans of the game we all know that Wesker managed to inject himself with some kind of super T-Virus and ended up escaping the mansion and became an evil super human killing machine. I mean that’s plausible right?……Well even if it isn’t, it’s still a part of the enthralling and sometimes very strange Resident Evil lore. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not comparing the story to the works of Shakespeare, but for the horror game fan, it’s pretty damn cool. I myself have played Resident Evil 1-5 and Code Veronica. I know I tried a few of the off shoots from the main story, but let’s just say there’s a reason those games aren’t popular. The story has grown and grown and while I still consider myself a huge fan I have to say that I miss the zombies. Sure 4 and 5 had some eerie villagers with a bad parasite problem, but they just don’t have the same flare. Anyone who’s played the original games knows that while 4 and 5 may be creepy they lack the scares, such as zombie dogs jumping though hall windows or the first sight of the hideous Nemesis in number 3. And on that I do have to say that’s it’s really to bad that the second Resident Evil film had to ruin Nemesis, sorry, just saying. And as long as I’m just saying let’s move on to the films.

Oh Resident Evil movies, where do I even begin. I still remember the day I saw the preview for the first Resident Evil film. My fourteen year old brain almost shot out of my skull in excitement. I wish the preview would have been as far as I went because my curiosity only lead to great disappointment. I remember sitting in the theater and continually asking myself why they couldn’t just stick with the story from the game, why no leave well enough alone. Well they’ve managed to not follow the storyline for four movies now. The only similarities are some of the characters, Raccoon City, and the Umbrella Corporation. Other than that they are completely different entities. Now some years later I rewatched the first Resident Evil and managed to come to terms with the difference between the film and the game. Although I’m not nearly as interested in the events or characters, the film did manage to capture the same isolated feeling as the game as well as the idea of a militant team facing off against Umbrella’s monstrosities. Now I view the film as somewhat of a guilty pleasure, but that’s not to say I have any fuzzy feelings towards the sequels. For some reason unknown to even myself, I have watched each sequel and I have to say each effort just becomes more bizarre and more embarrassing. The plot is barely cohesive and it seems as if the writers just make up new rules as the story goes along. The worst part of all of this is that the studio plans to put forth more money into more sequels. Well I have a real swell idea. How about the directors and writers pull their heads from their posteriors and just start over again. Usually I hate the idea of reboots, but in this case they really just need to start again and actually follow the games. Of course the reason this doesn’t happen is because that would actually be something the real Resident Evil fans would want and we all know that isn’t important at all.

Well now that I have that out of my system I suppose I should draw this blog entry to a conclusion. Resident Evil is and shall remain one of my very favorite games of all time. Every once in a while I break out the old playstation and I put in my ancient copy of the game. The second I hear the horrible voiceover I feel the nostalgia and that’s something I can’t say for many games. Although Resident Evil 5 might not be the swan song of the series I still hope for more sequels, and Capcom please bring back the zombies.

"We'll tear your soul apart"

In 1987 a movie named Hellraiser hit theaters, and although it didn't make a huge impact at the time it would lead to a great cult following.  Based on the novella The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker, the film featured a group of creatures known as cenobites, described as demons to some and angels to others, the most popular of these cenobites was dubbed by fans as Pinhead.  The image of his bald white cranium adorned with gleaming silver pins has burned it's way into the mind of horror fans across the world.  The lesser known man in the Pinhead equation is Doug Bradly who played Pinhead with an icy demeanor completely devoid of all emotion.  While subsequent films portrayed Pinhead as the main antagonist the original followed the exploits of the demented Uncle Frank Cotton, a sociopath with a taste for the bizarre. 

Frank's story begins with his purchase of a puzzle box said to hold unimaginable pleasures, unfortunately some people's definition of pleasure is quite a bit macabre as is custom in most of the works by Mr. Barker.  Long story short, Frank opens the box and in turn summons the cenobites, who proceed to tear his body apart.  Soon after these events Frank's brother, Larry, moves into Frank's abandoned house with his wife, Julia, who had an affair with Frank directly before her marriage to Larry.  While moving in Larry manages to cut his hand rather badly, spilling his blood across the attic floor.  As it turns out this is just enough to bring a dead man back to life, and Frank emerges from the pool of blood, not to mention in a rather poor state seeing as how he has no skin.  Not long after Frank reveals himself to a terrified Julia, asking for help, which just so happens to be a delivery of humans to feed on so that Frank can resume his original form.  As if things couldn't get bad enough Larry's daughter comes to visit and the real horrors begin.  Now to go on any farther would ruin the story for those who have not seen the film or read the book.

To give a short synopsis of Hellraiser would not do the film any justice.  The film, just like the book, is not simply a story about monsters from another dimension.  It is a ride through the depravity of human beings and in short a story about how the need to know and feel more isn't always a good thing.  While some would argue that the cenobites are the most horrifying aspect of Hellraiser, they are much more civilized than the man who escaped their clutches, Frank Cotton.  Frank represents every bad thought and every evil deed put into motion by humankind.  He is simply a criminal on the run from the only captors who could deliver him suitable punishment.  Having said this, the cenobites are definitely not saints.  They are remorseless as well as relentless in their pursuit and torture of those who open the puzzle box, whether they are guilty of horrific crimes or not, a description made even more chilling by the fact that they are simply humans who embraced the pain and torture inflicted upon them as presented in sequels. 

Personally I feel as though Hellraiser is the underdog of the eighties horror genre.  Although the film lives on as a cult classic it has never reached the same popularity of films such as A Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th, probably due to the dwindling quality after the second film.  This is unfortunate because the film presented a certain dark depth to it's creatures that not many films are willing to display.  While Nightmare and Friday appealed to youths because they reflected pop culture at the time, Barker directed Hellraiser as a film which purely and simply focused on horror without regard to what was popular at the time.  In my opinion this makes it superior to much of the genre at the time and most of it today.  Despite best efforts no director has managed to duplicate the same vibe as Hellraiser, and one would be hard pressed to find another Doug Bradley to create such a macabre figure as Pinhead or for that matter another Oliver Smith or Andrew Robinson to portray the bloodthirsty Frank. 

To this day I still watch Hellraiser on occasion and hope for another film that will dive into the great depths of darkness in the human heart and some have come close such as Midnight Meat Train, which is also based on a story by Barker.  If Hellraiser were to have come out in this decade I fear it would not do well in our pop culture saturated society that always calls for more violence and a faster pace for it's horror films.  When Barker released The Hellbound Heart Stephen King stated "I have seen the future of horror and his name is Clive Barker".  It's only a shame that such popularity didn't last longer.

Off topic, but below is a link to a horror compilation video on youtube I quite enjoyed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=WxICG9gb3Zw

"They're coming to get you, Barbara!"

Zombies have become one of the most popular monsters in horror films over the last decade.  One need look no farther than the horror section of their local video store to see just how man films feature the walking dead.  From the new television series based off of Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead to the much lighter Shaun of the Dead, zombies have become a part of pop culture.  All of these films, video games, comic books, music videos, etc. owe a great amount of respect to one man and one film.  The man, George A. Romero.  The film, Night of the Living Dead. 

Although the special effects, and more importantly acting are somewhat laughable today, the idea of the story is still effective in it's simplicity.  The undead come to life, no one really knows why.  What they do know is that anyone they bite will die, come back to life, and be hungry for human flesh.  In this day and age the idea sounds familiar enough and it's really nothing to get excited about, but in 1968 the idea was horrifying.  Those who saw the film in 68 were divided by those who found it groundbreaking and those who found it offensively sadistic.  If those people were to watch a film like Zach Snyder's remake of Dawn of they Dead they would probably suffer a major heart attack, but at the time a film about slow moving flesh hungry ghouls was enough to create controversy.  Rather than convey a sort of cartoonish horror Night of the Living Dead displayed a brutal realism to it's monsters.  The camera did not cut away from the monsters devouring flesh or even portray such events in shadows cast in the background.  This made the tone of the film very dark and dragged the audience through moments of loss, chaos, and terror.  The zombies were creeping death.  They did not run as they do in some modern zombie tales, they simply gathered in large numbers and attacked in swarms, they're only weakness being destruction of the brain.

Personally the film stands as one of the greats.  While it was shot on a very modest budget with amateur actors all is forgiven due to the master storytelling by George A. Romero.  This is not a film with a happy ending.  There is no solution to the zombie problem, and at the end the human race seems just as doomed as they were at the beginning of the story.  Shamefully I must admit I did not view this movie until later on in my teens.  At this point I had already watched many zombie films and although their budgets were much bigger and the actors were more professional, Night of the Living Dead still hit me hard.  I believe part of this is due to the film being in black and white.  The lack of color adds to the dark tone of the film making everything seem like a nightmare, a quality that lead to my discovery of the undead actually being scary.  Where slasher films have a group of teens being terrified by a man in a mask, Night had the whole world facing the danger of an army of the dead, the worst part being that all of them had been normal human beings beforehand. 

Aside from Night being the first film to set up today's zombie mythology, it also set up rules still used in films about the undead.  The first being that a single zombie bite will kill and then transform one into a zombie there self.  Second being that zombies hunger for living human flesh and will stop at nothing to get it, and last of all, but most importantly, the only way to kill the ghoul is to kill the brain.  The modern zombie films that do not follow this formula are few and far between and that is because it is a formula that works very well in creating great zombie films.  Love them or hate them, zombie seem to be here to stay largely due to George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead.

"Somebody in this camp ain't what he appears to be."

Moving on from Wes Craven as well as slashers in this blog, I want to discuss John Carpenter's The Thing.  Although Carpenter is probably best known for his film Halloween I am of the opinion that The Thing is his real masterpiece.  The film is actually a remake of 1951's The Thing from Another World, but it is considered a more faithful adaptation of the story Who Goes There? by Howard Hawks-Christian Nyby, which both of the films are based on. 

The film's plot revolves around a group of scientific reasearchers in Anarctica who are terrorized by a shapeshifting alien being.  Rather than point out facts about the film I'd rather discuss the impact and finer mechanics of horror on display.  At the time of the movie's release another little movie made it somewhat unpopular.  That movie is now known as the classic E.T.  Spielberg's E.T. presented a loveable, even adorable alien creature to the American audience, which soured them on the idea of a blood thirsty, not so adorable alien which wasn't too keen on making friends with humans.  While E.T. has definately lived on as a classic to this day, The Thing did something even more impressive, it manged to transcend into a cult classic among horror films and is actually considered to still be pretty scary, which is saying alot for a film that came out in 1982.  I myself am one that considers this movie to be scary where other movies of  the decade have faded into campy genre films.  In my opinion the main draw of the film is not the creature effects, which are definately there courtesy of Rob Bottin and Stan Winston.  Instead the movie draws me in for repeated viewings because of the gloomy story and slow burn set up.  While other creature films would simply be happy to jump right into kill scenes and keep things going at breakneck speed The Thing actually works up to these scenes, but never keeps a steady pace.  This technique leads to some great tension-built scares because the trick is simple, if you keep the audience waiting for just long enough they'll begin to put the monster in the back of their head and that is the perfect time to strike.  I would describe some of my favorite scare moments, but I do not wish to ruin the film for those who have not seen it. 

The aspects that make The Thing as good as it is are the same aspects that make any classic horror film great.  The darkness becomes a scary place to be, no one can be trusted, and most importantly the audience is kept captivated in their want to know more.  I personally saw the movie when I was fourteen years old and my young teenage mind was blown away simply by the idea.  I had seen alien movies before, most notably Ridley Scott's Alien, but the idea of a creature that could look like anyone and strike when one was at their most vulnerable struck me as brilliant.  At that age I wasn't completely aware of my dream job of writing for Fangoria magazine, but every time I look towards the future I find myself hoping that one day I will be able to write for a movie which is just as good, and even more unlikely, better.  The Thing is the kind of film that gets stuck in your brain and scenes play again and again giving horror fans such as myself new appreciation each time they watch it.  From the subtle growl of sled dogs to the frantic screams of men fighting to avoid their own destruction, the film is just down right scary in the message it delivers, which is there will always be new threats to our very existence and one day we might not be able to overcome that threat.

1, 2 Freddy's coming for you.

I find it only fitting to start this blog with my absolute favorite Wes Craven film, A Nightmare on Elm Street.  Ever since I was a small child the image of the child murderer with his dirty fedora, striped sweater, burnt skin, and of course the iconic glove, stuck with me.  To this day Freddy Krueger remains as iconic to the horror crowd as Mickey Mouse to children.  Mention the name of this cinematic mad man to most people and you get one of two reactions.  One of deep seeded childhood fear or in my case the reaction of immediate joy and nostalgia.

On the surface A Nightmare On Elm Street is viewed as a generic slasher film in which a supernatural killer stalks adolescents in suburbia, picking them off one by one.  This would be true if it were not for specific factors which have given Freddy Krueger the power to haunt children's, and in some cases adult's, dreams for over two decades, the most important of these factors being the ability to kill one in their dreams.  This detail alone makes A Nightmare On Elm Street stand head and shoulders over most slasher films of the time.  Where one could argue that the victim should have run faster from Jason Voorhees in the Friday the 13th films or perhaps that the victims should have been smart enough not to take the back roads in Texas as portrayed in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the same cannot be said for avoiding the dreadful swipe of Freddy's claws.  Freddy is pure evil, the kind you can't outrun no matter how hard you try, because eventually you have to fall asleep.  This idea alone gave Nightmare an edge over the competition, but what made the idea even scarier was the fact that the characters could not differentiate between being awake and dreaming. 

While I could simply mention the dream aspect of the film I find it unfair to leave out the terrifying performance by the amazing Robert Englund. While other slashers were interchangeable, seeing as how they were simply a hulking figure in an intimidating mask, Robert managed to give Freddy a unique and macabre personality due to the fact that he actually had lines in the film.  With a dark brand of humor and now legendary mannerisms, Englund portrayed an unforgettable monster still imitated by children and adults alike come Halloween.  While the great actor Jackie Earl Halye portrayed Krueger in the remake of Nightmare, horror fans still agree that Krueger will always belong to Robert Englund.

On a personal level A Nightmare On Elm Street holds a special place in my childhood.  At the time I was way too young to watch horror movies, but I snuck the tape into the VCR late one night when no one was awake and had I known the effect would be a week long bout of insomnia I might have waited a few years.  The shadow in the closet, the phantom sound in the night, the creaking of old wood in the house all became Freddy Krueger to me.  I would lie awake with one eye open waiting to find that I had been asleep the whole time and that Freddy Krueger had found me.  Although some would see viewing the movie at such a young age as a mistake, I wouldn't change a thing.  The fact that it had such an effect on me only makes the memory that much better.  To this day my home has hints of Mr. Krueger sprinkled throughout.  A poster here, a large replica of the monster there, and my personal favorite, a replica glove.  The legendary performance of Englund and the genius plot helped to make me a horror fan, a catalyst to my fascination with movie monsters and fear himself.