Video games have an extraordinary ability to creep out a player. When watching a scary movie, it’s the characters on screen that finds out what’s hiding around the corner. However, when playing a horror video game, you are the one who must creep into the darkness.

Colette Bennett at destructiod.com makes the case that the horror genre is being redefined by video games rather than the cinema:

…horror games are outdoing horror films by a landslide in quality. What’s the reason? Perhaps games allow for more detail in the storyline (twenty gameplay hours sure beats two in the theatre for building an engaging story). It also helps that games do not require brand name talent…

Why aren’t the films able to generate the same powerful reactions the games did, even though they are telling very similar stories? What do the games have that films can’t seem to capture? Some suggest that immersion and conflicting interests are the problems:

• There’s actually a chance the main character will die. The movie is a completed product, with a set story. In the back of your mind you can think, how is the main character going to get out of this one – no such guarantee in games. At any moment, some zombie/giant spider/hatchet murderer could rip your head off. Movies simply cannot create the suspense and adrenaline rush that a game creates because the main characters almost never actually dies.
• Horror games allow us to take a more personal role. Instead of watching the drama unfold, you decide when to walk through the door/dark hallway/basement. The movie builds the suspense, but when to take the plunge is decided for you, you can even turn away and “Is it over yet?” as some must.
• Excellent movies are hard to make; most movie studios are interested in keeping costs low (mediocre actors and directors) and courting the teen dollar.

For those who prefer video scare to film ones, gamergirl.com presents the Top 7 Scariest Games (descriptions form Wikipedia):

1. Fatal Frame (2001, Xbox, PlayStation 2) – On a dark September night in 1986, a young college student named Miku Hinasaki arrived at the Himuro Mansion to look for her missing brother, Mafuyu. Mafuyu went to the mansion to find his friend and mentor, a mystery novelist named Junsei Takamine, who went there previously to research a book with his editor, Koji Ogata, and a friend versed in the paranormal, Tomoe Hirasaka. Armed with only a flashlight, Miku enters Himuro Mansion, which has a long history of bloodshed, curses, and horrific rituals. She later finds the mysterious camera that Mafuyu had brought with him, and that the siblings’ mother passed down to them that can kill ghosts when she takes pictures of them. During her time in the mansion, she sees various apparitions of her missing brother, Mafuyu. She also sees a young girl on many occasions and an angry female spirit, Kirie, who on many occasions tries to kill Miku. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 1%

Release: 2006
Runtime: 1 hour, 26 min
Genre: Drama, Horror, Thriller
Language: English
MPAA Rating: R
Starring: Cory Knauf, Samuel Child, Joseph McKelheer, Mackenzie Firgens, Rebekah Hoyle, Brittany Daniel

Amazon Link: The Hamiltons

SYNOPSIS: A low-budget frightener about a seemingly picture-perfect suburban family who harbors a terrible secret. When their parents are killed in a tragic accident, the eldest Hamilton sibling David (Samuel Child) relocates the family to a quiet California suburb and assumes the responsibility of caring for his orphaned siblings Wendell (Joseph McKelheer), Darlene (Mackenzie Firgens), and Francis (Cory Knauf). While twins Wendell and Darlene seem to share a incestuous bond that segregates them from the rest of the family, Francis the angst-ridden emo teen, acquires a video camera and sets out to film his family for a school project. As the all-seeing camera begins to reveal something malevolent in the Hamilton’s home, the youngest sibling is forced to choose between following family traditions or sparing the lives of his family’s victims.

Having seen several of the 2006 After Dark Horrorfest films, I’m beginning to think that I’ve been duped by the marketing machine at Lionsgate. The trailers and web site would have you believe that Liongate has gathered a horrorifying bevy of flicks as too “extreme” for normal audiences. So far, the only After Dark title worth watching has been Gravedancers. Others like Penny Dreadful and Dark Ride were lame at best. However, the worst so far is The Hamiltons – an amateurish, emo mess that deserves nothing less than an honored place in the direct-to-video bargain bin. The Hamiltons is directed by Mitchell Altieri and Phil Flores under the moniker, The Butcher Brothers. With a name like that I had visions of a pair of disreputable gomers selling ‘homemade’ gorno movies out of the back of their Buick Regal, but the reality of their creative juices is far worse.

The Hamiltons are an orphaned group of siblings having difficulty adjusting to life after the death of their parents. Eldest brother David has taken up the patriarchal mantle and does his best keeping to support the family, when he isn’t busy trolling for homosexual drifters and transients. The twins Wendell and Darlene are extremely close after their parents’ death. How close? Well… to put it bluntly, they are incestuously close. The only ‘normal’ member of the family is the younger, angst-ridden brother Francis, who seems to have escaped the bizarre hunger afflicting his siblings. Oh, and then there is the unseen creature locked-up in the basement behind a chained door. So far the premise might sound intriguing, but trust me it isn’t nearly as good as it sounds.

While the DVD cover art suggests this is just another bandwagon-jumping slice of ‘torture-porn’, the reality is actually somewhat different and everyone in the room is now dumber for having watched it (apologies to Billy Madison). Feeling more like an indie drama written by emo kids than a horror flick, the movie is jam-packed with all the things that make low budget films so irritating: Clumsy screenwriting, wooden acting, stagnant pacing and a delusional sense of self-importance running rampant throughout.

You could probably describe The Hamiltons as Party of Five or Dawsons Creek with cannibals, incest and relatives locked behind closed doors ala V.C. Andrews, but that’d be way too kind. The Hamiltons feels more like an hour-long After School Special grafted to a few scenes of murder and mayhem. Viewers are supposed to find it ceaselessly shocking that the 4 ‘teen-somethings dabble in kidnapping, murder, blood-drinking and (of course) incest, but the story is presented in such dry and formless fashion, it’s tough to really care about the mess, bloody or otherwise. And the less said about the two ‘twists’ (what’s actually wrong with the family and what is in the box) the better, mainly because they’re predictable but also because they’re just stupid.

Goozlepipe Rating:Hated it

Popularity: 1%

We know this may be considered heresy by the loyal Star Wars fans out there, but we just had to repost this clip.

YouTube - Link toDarth Vader Hoedown

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Crazy is cool. At least that’s what the guys at theshiznit.co.uk think. For them, action heroes are boring, but the one’s who are totally unhinged that make movie magic:

Cinema’s craziest SOBs: “…given the choice between a clean-cut, rational character and an unshaven, mumbling, drugged-up lunatic, we’ll take the schizo every time. Nothing lights up the silver screen like a bona fide wacko… Take a large step back and enjoy: may the mentals do battle!”

1. Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) in THE SHINING (1980)
2. Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) in PSYCHO (1960)
3. Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) in AMERICAN PSYCHO (2000)
4. Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper) in BLUE VELVET (1986)
5. Don Logan (Ben Kingsley) in SEXY BEAST (2000)
6. Gary Oldman, period
7. Tommy Devito (Joe Pesci) in GOODFELLAS (1990)
8. Ichi (Tadanobu Asano) in ICHI THE KILLER (2001) [incorrect, the villian was actually Kakihara]
9. Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) in THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991)
10. Bruce Wayne (Michael Keaton/Val Kilmer/George Clooney/Christian Bale) in the BATMAN movies
11. Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen) in THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974)
12. Francis Begbie (Robert Carlyle) in TRAINSPOTTING (1996)
13. Colonel Walter E. Kurtz (Marlon Brando) in APOCALYPSE NOW (1979)
14. Sergeant Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) in LETHAL WEAPON (1987)
15. Vic Vega AKA Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen) in RESERVOIR DOGS (1992)
16. Michael Myers (Tony Moran) in HALLOWEEN (1978)
17. Walter Sobchak (John Goodman) in THE BIG LEBOWSKI (1998)
18. Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich) & Stuart Macher (Matthew Lillard) in SCREAM (1996)
19. Garland ‘The Marietta Mangler’ Greene (Steve Buscemi) in CON AIR (1997)
20. Francis ‘Frank’ Costello (Jack Nicholson) in THE DEPARTED (2006)

Additional deranged people we would like to see on the crazy train:

• Fred C. Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart) in Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
• The Narrator (Edward Norton) in FIGHT CLUB (1995)
• John Doe (Kevin Spacey) in SE7EN (1995)
• Jeffrey Goines (Brad Pitt) in 12 MONKEYS (1995)
• Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) in TAXI DRIVER (1976)
• Brick Top Polford (Alan Ford) in SNATCH (2000)
• Asami Yamazaki (Eihi Shiina) in AUDITION (1999)
• Yellow Bastard (Nick Stahl) in SIN CITY (2005)

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For many horror fans, the beginning of the horror/ monster genre began with the classic Universal monsters: Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy, the Wolf Man, the Phantom of the Opera, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. However, the relatively recent discovery of the Thomas Edison Company’s silent photoplay of Frankenstein (1910), demonstrates that horror subjects were present early on in motion pictures.

Indeed, two all-time horror classics were produced in the silent movie era: Nosferatu (1922) and The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari (1919). The first was an unofficial version of Bram Stoker’s vampire epic Dracula. Caligari is the ultimate in dark German expressionism on celluloid. For both those who haven’t experienced these silent, but still scary horror gems and for those who have, the LikeTelevision Blog is listing (and streaming) the top 5 silent horror movies as part of its LikeTelevision Streaming Screamfest.

1. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari, 1921) A man named Francis relates a story about his best friend Alan and his fiancée Jane. Alan takes him to a fair where they meet Dr. Caligari, who exhibits a somnambulist, Cesare, that can predict the future. When Alan asks how long he has to live, Cesare says he has until dawn. The prophecy comes to pass, as Alan is murdered, and Cesare is a prime suspect. Cesare creeps into Jane’s bedroom and abducts her, running from the townspeople and finally dying of exhaustion. Meanwhile, the police discover a dummy in Cesare’s cabinet, while Caligari flees. Francis tracks Caligari to a mental asylum. He is the director! Or is he?
2. The Phantom of the Opera (1925) At the Opera of Paris, a mysterious phantom threatens a famous lyric singer, Carlotta and thus forces her to give up her role (Marguerite in Faust) for unknown Christine Daae. Christine meets this phantom (a masked man) in the catacombs, where he lives.
3. Nosferatu (1922) – This 1922 F.W. Murnau film is really creepy. Based on Bram Stoker’s epic novel Dracula, Max Schrek is amazingly frightening as the Vampire Nosferatu. Read the rest of this entry »

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