Scary Video Games Better Than Horror Movies?
After playing through BioShock, Wired's Clive Thompson opines that video games make for better horror experiences than the slew of movies in recent years:
Games already seem like dream states. You're wandering around a strange new world, where you simultaneously are and aren't yourself. This is already an inherently uncanny experience. That's why a well-made horror game feels so claustrophobically like being locked inside a really bad -- by which I mean a really good -- nightmare.
With the exception of movies like the The Ring, he argues that most movies have become less "artistically interesting," offering less suspense and more gore while game designers have "quietly perfected the interplay of tension and release that makes for a truly cardiac horror experience."
As an example, Thompson describes the familiar experience of playing a survival-horror game:
If you're a total coward (like me) this ability to control your fate induces considerably more suspense, because I head-game myself into a frenzy. I'll start down a corridor, hear something freaky up ahead, then freeze in panic. Maybe if I stay quiet the monster will go away? Shit, maybe it's already headed this way, and I should move! But if I move the monster will hear me ... so maybe I should stay quiet ... gaaaaah!
Although I agree that horror films these days are all blood and gore with less good suspense and genuine creepiness of older films, video games are inherently an immersive experience because you have to pick up the controller and make choices to engage in the medium; with film, you're an observer. Because of this, Thompson thinks games "may actually be a superior medium to films for scaring the bejesus out of you."
So have scary game designers become "even more faithful interpreters of the horror tradition movies than Hollywood directors"? What do you think?
Gore Is Less: Videogames Make Better Horror Than Hollywood [Wired]
Lazy Panda
Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games on 2 September 2007
· Comments (8)
Other stuff like this: bioshock, clive thompson, hollywood, horror movies, scary games, survival horror, wired
Thats a good point. I love turning the lights down and playing a scary video game. I do not really get the same feel from a film. I guess its because when the character is running for his/her life it is really me who is running! I rarely am gratified to see my character die (granted some death animations are worthwile to see).
I just can't wait for Bioshock II: Big Daddies on a Plane!
I know that games like Silent Hill 2 an Resident Evil 4 (the pinnacles of the Survival Horror genre of games) are MUCH more entertaining than any of the Saw movies, or things like that. But then, I don't see what's so great about watching people get tortured and mutilated. I much prefer horror movis like The Ring (and Ringu), that are more about chills and atmosphere than buckets of blood.
A key element of horror movies is to make the audience feel for and relate to the character on screen. That's why many slasher films are less scary and more gory fun, as we don't give a crap about any of the dumb, 2-dimensional bodycount fodder that makes up the cast.
Video games as a medium inherently makes it easier in that the audience (player) will automatically relate and feel through their character. Also the less a video game character speaks up or stands out personality wise, the more the user can project themselves onto them. This is in direct contrast to movies, where if a character behaved exactly like Gordon Freeman did in HL/HL2, you'd have some cool action, but an empty shell of a character no one could relate to.
That being said, alot of games take the easy way out, and design scenes in the game like those "haunted house" attractions that spring up around Halloween time. Basicly alot of scripted areas with random strobe lights, scary sounds, and scripted events that don't really make sense in context, but. ohhh scary.
I've actually had that thought about games and dreams before. Talking about either gives people one of the only chances to narrate as someone else or say something like "And then I died" or "And then I grew wings and flew away." Say what you will about the virtues of reading, but even a great book doesn't give you a chance to really be somebody else.
You know?
Silent Hill games are excellent, scary experiences, my favorite pulse-pounding, holy-Jesus-I'm-gonna-die! gaming experience though, is: Haunting Ground. I know a lot of people hate it but it's terrifying. You play an 18 year old girl with no self-defense skills and you have to fend off murderous domestic help. Sounds cheesy, and as a movie would be cheesy but as a game it works, I spent many hours fleeing from Debilitas, hiding in closets and holding my breath praying he wouldn't find me. Also, Hewie is the most baddest ass companion ever!
I totally agree that horror games are much scarier than horror movies. When I was playing through Fatal Frame 2, my roomie and I would wait until the sun set for the evening and cuddle up in front of the TV, terrified. For 12 solid hours of gameplay, I was screaming like eight bitches on a bitch boat.
One aspect of games that movies have a difficult time tapping into is the sense of immediate danger. When you are engrossed in a game experience, you feel like your personal well being is at stake.
I can't remember the last time I saw a movie that scared and creeped me out (in a good way of course) as much as playing BioShock does. It's all in the interactivity. The film can control your experience perfectly but it's still not you up there, it's some other poor schmuck.
In a good atmospheric video game it's ME. That's all the difference in the world. Of course it helps if the world is plausibly consistent (I won't say real) like BioShock is and of course it really helps that the audio is excellent, so you'll hear plaster creaking just behind you off to the left, spin around... OH MY GOD. Like other people have mentioned, Silent Hill has been pretty good for this too, even with the relatively cruddy graphics of Silent Hill 1.
I totally think that horror games are not scarier than horror movies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Coz its not even scary!