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Videogames Make Better Horror Than Movies?

Posted by Zonk on from the i-scream-you-scream-we-all-scream dept.

Wired author Clive Thompson has up an article stating that, with today's jaded audiences, videogames are more effective horror-conveyances than movies. Thompson argues that the removal of the fourth wall, placing the player directly into the story, overcomes the obstacles movie-makers face when telling a scary story. "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? S^!t, 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! 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." Do you agree? Is your favorite scary tale a movie ... or a game? (Silent Hill, I'm looking at you.)

8 of 225 comments (clear)

  1. Absolutely. by oxidiser · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I've never been scared by a movie, ever. But I almost soiled myself the first time I played Resident Evil (the part where the dogs jump through the window in particular).

    1. Re:Absolutely. by iapetus · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You think you had it bad - after seeing the start of Resident Evil for the first time I had to walk home past a graveyard. :)

      That said, the Resident Evil formula (in the early games at least) soured pretty quickly. There's only so many zombies that can come through so many windows before it loses its impact. Silent Hill was a big step up in that, with a far better sense of creeping dread - and one that didn't always lead to a big explosive ZOMBIE THRU TEH WINDOW finale - some of the creepiest sections were those where nothing actually happened at all.

      --
      ++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
      Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
    2. Re:Absolutely. by dintech · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I had the same crapping my pants experiences with the original Alone in the Dark game. I'm pretty sure that predates Resident Evil. Also it does it without any incredible Hollywood special effects.

    3. Re:Absolutely. by cHALiTO · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Agree. I also found Alien vs. Predator (the games, I and II) very scary, especially when you played as the marine, and kept seeing blips in your movement detector getting closer and closer and you couldn't see where the heck they were coming from until you had them on you.

      --
      "Luck is my middle name," said Rincewind, indistinctly. "Mind you, my first name is Bad." -- Terry Pratchett
    4. Re:Absolutely. by Fallingcow · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I think the worst part was that they put a monster in every. single. place. where one could be hidden.

      "Oh, look, a new room with a pillar in it. 10-1 odds there's a monster behind it. In fact, I'll just strafe and fire blind... *BLAM* *GLARG* Yep, sure enough."

      I was never creeped out, because EVERY room had a monster in EVERY possible place that it could. Which is cool if you're going for the, "OMFG monsters everywhere!" chaotic sort of scariness, which Doom1-2 did, but they didn't really do that The hell levels are the only part that consistently succeeded in anything like that, and consequently, are just about the only part of the game that I liked. The rest of the time they seemed to be going for "atmospheric, reading-about-scary-stuff, survival-horror creepy", and failing miserably.

      All the way from the first 10 minutes or so of fighting (I kind of like the opening scenes and initial chaos after the portal is opened, actually) up to the beginning of the hell levels, I was bored out of my mind. To make things worse, the level design wasn't any good from a run-and-gun perspective, either. Lame. I'd have liked it much better if they'd dedicated the first 1/3 or so of the game to watching the place fall apart under the demonic influence, with more NPCs running around for a while. It would have made the isolation later on more frightening, and they wouldn't have had to rely on their (terrible) attempts at "boo" fright for as long, which may have made it tolerable. By the time that was getting old, you'd be in the hell levels, which they could leave more-or-less as-is.

  2. No. by Xtense · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I don't agree. While you're playing the game, you have some sort of an adrenaline rush, that effectively makes you immune to any kind of scare the developers might devise. That, and the inherent stupidity of the monsters you'll encounter surely makes them less of a threat.

    But, on the bright side, it's easier to make a specific mood in a game, and make the player be afraid of that, for example - I was absolutely scared of playing Ultima Underworld alone when I was about ten or eleven. There was something in those dark corridors, bones lying around, and the music that provided the tension needed to scare the hell out of me. And it works today, too. Not in the way Doom3 would like us to have, but, for example, BioShock manages to capture the freaky atmosphere perfectly, making you look around your shoulder far more often.

    --
    "We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams [...]."
  3. Halflife, duh... by nweaver · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The original Half Life was a really classic example of this. You could make a decent monster movie along the same plot, but you wouldn't have quite the tension.

    EG, the tension where you are creeping through the silo with the giant tentacles, the first time you meet the big shark-thingy, the elation and then horror as the marines come, etc....

    A movie wouldn't be nearly as immersive.

    --
    Test your net with Netalyzr
  4. Very different experiences by Rob+T+Firefly · · Score: 4, Interesting

    For me the experience of watching a movie is usually so far removed from that of playing a game that I can't directly compare them. While a movie can use a particular character or characters as surrogates for the audience, youre essentially watching things happen to other people. You can be sympathetically scared for them, but you don't really feel scared for yourself.

    When you're playing a game, that avatar on the screen is, for all intents and purposes, you. You're not just watching some movie star go down the stairs to their doom, you have to choose to go down those stairs yourself. The experience of that sort of scare is very different, and to me much more personal, than the one-sided character/spectator relationship in films and such.

    The only experience that for me sort of blurs that line between those two types of scares is listening to an audio play, such as radio drama or Big Finish Productions' audio CDs. When I'm listening to one of those I usually have my eyes closed and my imagination turned up high, and thus tend to see things from more of a first-person perspective in my mind's eye. A good horror story on audio can therefore approach the levels of immersion that a good video game provides, without being interactive.

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