Required Horror Material

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High Priest Mikhal
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Required Horror Material

Post by High Priest Mikhal »

After seeing several theaters pull The Cabin in the Woods off their showings due to poor attendance, and thinking back on how some of the best horror films, books, and video games are not getting a lot of press (or are just "old" and forgotten by the masses) I decided it's high time those of us at the Cafe compiled a list of what we think of as required horror material. This isn't even the tip of the iceberg for what I'd recommend, but it's a start.

Anything by H. P. Lovecraft - The insignificance of humanity, truly alien beings that are as gods to us, and the just plain strange and terrifying. Few authors have managed to capture these ideas as well as Lovecraft did. Even Stephen King admits that Lovecraft was one of his main inspirations.

Anything with Vincent Price - The man was a living legend when he was alive, and he still lives on in the hearts and minds of those who see what a consumate actor he was. In particular The Masque of the Red Death should be seen.

Alone In the Dark (original PC game) - The game that truly created "survival horror." You can buy this on Steam, along with the first two sequels, for less than five bucks. The New Nightmare is such a deviation it doesn't deserve to be called a true AItD game, while the fifth installment, simply Alone In the Dark, is actually pretty good and expands on the themes of light and darkness being very real cosmic forces at work, especially Lucifer (lit. "Light-bringer") and the power of flame as light to cleanse evil.

Splatterhouse (1988) - The arcade version wasn't afraid of using Satanic imagery and other themes to make a game about one man, a Mask, and the terrors of the Underworld into a classic. The sequels for the Sega Genesis are fair, if not as good, and the Turbografx-16 port did away with a lot of things to satisfy censors in the US. The 2011 remake for PS3/XBOX 360 is true to the spirit, but the nude photographs of Jennifer, the Mask's incessant wisecracks, and the deliberate connection to the Cthulhu Mythos really make it more of a stand-alone game than a true remake.

The Phantasm Series - A strange Tall Man, metallic spheres containing the compressed brains of his victims, and the alien dimension he merges with make the movies excellent viewing. They also showcase the "strange" side of horror quite well.

Koudelka and the first Shadow Hearts - Koudelka is a much underappreciated PS1 game that is now very difficult to find. Yet it remains among the Top Ten Scariest Video Games I've Played simply because of the mysterious setting that is Nementon Monastery and the consequences of humans playing with forces they shouldn't. Shadow Hearts, the sequel, likewise delves more into powers beyond human ken and the struggle of one man to control the power he was born with and doesn't want. The last two games are not really horror so much as dark comedy and deviate into the fantastical too much.

The Dead Series - George Romero. 'Nuff said.

The Crow - The first movie is a fantastic example of how heinous crimes gone unpunished can bring the dead back to right the situation. Imagine a dread revenant (maybe a deathless one) who has been brought back to punish those responsible for crimes too horrid to forgive. Do players oppose this being who is pursuing overdue justice or join them? Not horror, but still required IMO. The sequels I wouldn't waste time on.

The Amityvill Horror (novel) - "Based on a true story" is open to interpretation, but that doesn't make the book any less scary. In particular are the well in the basement (long believed to be the gateway for restless spirits and demons) and the Red Room. This was also the inspiration for the original Ravenloft Module, and the story of the Weathermays fleeing the House on Gryphon Hill in the middle of winter just four weeks after moving in is a direct parallel to what happened to the Lutzes. The original movie, while not as scary and skipping over several things, is almost as good.

The Exorcist (movie and novel) - Classic American horror at its best and also based on a true story.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (original movie) - When you're not even safe in your own dreams, there is truly nowhere left to run. The first four sequels are pretty good if not quite as terrifying. Freddy's Dead is abymsal, and Freddy vs. Jason is not all that useful. Wes Craven's New Nightmare showcases a bogeyman fey and one of the more ingenious ways to trap the creature: through stories.

Silent Hill (PS1 game) - The game that started it all. Even as dated as the graphics look, it still does an excellent job in terms of atmosphere and the story is simply fantastic. The sequels make a sudden drop in quality at the fourth installment and even Downpour is marred by the poor inventory system and (on the PS3) lag during play.

Resident Evil (Original, Director's Cut, and/or REmake) - If you don't know what Resident Evil is about, WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?! Of the three, REmake does the game the most justice in terms of atmosphere, fright, and story. The movies have very little in common with the games, but they do illustrate the very real dangers of bio-weapons and their potential as extinction-level threats. Sometimes fact really is more terrifying than fiction. The technology is not that hard to get, and if terrorist-sponsored geneticists don't kill themselves trying to create diseases that specifically target individuals based on ethnic genetic markers, we could very well face something that makes the nuclear scares of the Twentieth Century seem quaint.
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Re: Required Horror Material

Post by HuManBing »

My usual "must-try" list of computer games with a great horror feel:

Blood
VIEW CONTENT:
superficially a gory shooter fest, this game actually had some pretty engaging backstory to it. Set in rural-Gothic early 1900s USA, it chronicles the revenge quest of a single revenant gunslinger against his murderer. Pretty standard fare, for a vengeance story, but with a twist: his murderer was a demigod, and the path is beset with fantastic and fearsome otherworldly monsters as well as ruthless human cultists who won't stop until he's dead again. This game is now available for legal purchase and download from Good Old Games (search for "One Unit Whole Blood"). Spawned a lackluster sequel that was rushed to market, but which has a much more moddable source code.
System Shock 2
VIEW CONTENT:
the spiritual predecessor to the much-later, much more popular Bioshock. SS2 was a sci-fi FPS game, but it had serious elements of RPG horror gaming too. Ammunition was scarce, resources were scarce, and enemies were everywhere. Your character started off a simple marine, but as you progress through the game you received cyber modules which you could use to boost your stats, your skills, your weapon familiarities, and even psionic powers. The later game Bioshock was almost a carbon copy of the earlier game, with somewhat more limited replayability but much more slick presentation and atmosphere. Both are well worth playing for a great handbasket of "alone in the dark with lots of bad guys" horror game tropes, including a few well-done plot twists.
Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth
VIEW CONTENT:
a vintage game that takes the watchword "make everything real, detailed, and mundane... before you throw in the supernatural weird stuff". A great example of some very interesting and effective ideas, and in my opinion one of the best arguments ever made that "first person games make the most immersive horror". Your character is a standard detective investigator, not an experienced gunman. You don't even get a gun until about a third of the way through the game! Stealth is crucial to survival, and there are some very interesting puzzle-solving bits too. Once you do get a gun, the tempo of the game changes slightly, but you never lose the feeling of vulnerability and being out of your depth.

Before you can shoot to defend yourself, you've got to draw your gun. Are any enemies nearby? Because if they are, they might hear the noise you make drawing your gun (same goes for reloading it). If you just blast away without aiming, you'll be making a lot of noise and will probably miss all your shots. Aim, and your peripheral vision contracts, leaving you potentially vulnerable from the sides and rear. Aim too long, and your arms will get tired and your attention will waver, eventually forcing you to cease aiming.

If you get injured, your vision goes red and blurry from pain, and your limbs and body will register the injury. You can't get better until you heal up - but you can't just hit a button to heal yourself. You need to find a quiet, undisturbed spot to open your medical field kit. Then you have to examine your body for scrapes (require gauze), deep cuts (require sutures), and breakages (require splints). Then and only then can you start using them on yourself, which takes a decent amount of time... and which will prove nerve racking if you're hiding from enemies!

Finally, no Call of Cthulhu game would be complete without some insanity element to it. First-person games are especially good at this, because you see all the visions and hallucinations first hand. Your vision swims as you struggle to comprehend the impossible. Expose yourself to too much sanity-blasting weirdness, and your character might even bring his hands up to choke himself to death, or put a pistol to his own temple! An excellent game, and well worth checking out. (Note to potential gamers: the PC version of the game was hurriedly ported and features several game-breaking bugs. A variety of websites feature tools and saved games to help you past those bugs.)
Thief: The Dark Project
VIEW CONTENT:
Probably the best fantasy plot of any FPS game I've ever played. Thief was developed by a studio that was something like 33% or 50% female. The gameplay is extremely cerebral, focusing on studying patrol patterns and light sources and walking surfaces. Stealth is crucial as you navigate the levels as a thief, stealing as much loot as you can before making your escape. The second half of the game involves a dark cult, and a truly chilling series of cutscenes. The plot and pacing of the game is superb, with earlier verses and poems coming back to rude significance later on as events take a very disturbing turn. Has two sequels and a full-game-length fan mod (Thief II: The Iron Age).
Clive Barker's Undying
VIEW CONTENT:
A great example of dark fantasy horror gaming. The game could easily be ported into the Ravenloft setting with minimal changes (although apparently it doesn't run well on Windows 7 OS). It features a cursed family estate off the coast of Ireland, where five siblings grew up with an occult secret that warped and haunts them still. Four of the siblings are gone but not forgotten, and the fifth needs your help to lay them to rest. Much of the game takes place in a brooding mansion, but portions of it take place in the catacombs below, or a breathtaking astral world ("Oneiros"), and finally in a devolved prehistoric violent paradise called "Eternal Autumn". One of the very few FPS games to feature an occult magic system that works well with the atmosphere. The end boss of the game may be a bit too fantastic for the buildup, but other than that, the game is a great WWI-era period piece.
Amnesia
VIEW CONTENT:
Immersive first-person puzzle horror game. You're exploring a castle and its environs, while reading diary entries that clue you in on your past... and it turns out there's a reason you lost your memory. This game is entirely non-combat, making it a highly unusual first-person game. It also succeeds better than most at instilling a very real sense of fear and horror in the player as the unknown dangers in the darkness stalk you. Darkness hides you from enemies, but it makes your sanity expire faster. Merely seeing an enemy is enough to make your sanity slip somewhat. Getting injured or worse is enough to make your vision blurry, your turn rate uneven, and your character will start muttering and weeping. There is minimal on-screen display - everything is presented as much as possible from the character's actual viewpoint.
Nosferatu: The Wrath of Malachi
VIEW CONTENT:
A retelling of the Dracula story, but with several twists. Your relatives are in the castle with you, and as the clock counts down, they can and will be sacrificed to Malachi's dark ritual. You can save them, which will have direct consequences on the final fight. Features a surprising degree of innovative item use, such as using a cross to both turn undead and to bless holy water (giving you a very powerful weapon). Also, the location of key personnel and items in the castle is randomly generated at the start of each game. One of the first time challenges you'll face is finding a doctor to heal an injured ally within half an hour. Fail in this, and you'll lose the ally and a valuable item that will make the rest of the game much smoother. Finally, the ending has a few surprises, perhaps in a show of defiance to winner-takes-all Hollywood endings.
Fallout 3
VIEW CONTENT:
specifically the Dunwich Building level, which is overrun by ghouls and dominated by a Lovecraftian artifact in the basement). The rest of the world is a wasteland devastated from a nuclear war with China, and heartbreaking vistas of US Capitol monuments in ruins. The first time I saw the National Mall, dug through with trenches from some last-ditch attempt to save the nation, and the once-proud cracked cupola dome of the US Congress, it kicked me right in the gut.
Aliens vs. Predator Classic (released 2000)
VIEW CONTENT:
play as the lone stalking Alien, which can climb walls and ceilings and must strike from darkness. Or the Predator, which uses an array of powerful exotic weapons to kill. Or the Colonial Marines, who have high-tech weaponry but whose evolutionary resilience hasn't kept up with their scientific prowess. The Alien and Marines campaigns are especially good for horror and fear.
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Re: Required Horror Material

Post by High Priest Mikhal »

HuManBing wrote:My usual "must-try" list of computer games with a great horror feel:

Blood
VIEW CONTENT:
superficially a gory shooter fest, this game actually had some pretty engaging backstory to it. Set in rural-Gothic early 1900s USA, it chronicles the revenge quest of a single revenant gunslinger against his murderer. Pretty standard fare, for a vengeance story, but with a twist: his murderer was a demigod, and the path is beset with fantastic and fearsome otherworldly monsters as well as ruthless human cultists who won't stop until he's dead again. This game is now available for legal purchase and download from Good Old Games (search for "One Unit Whole Blood"). Spawned a lackluster sequel that was rushed to market, but which has a much more moddable source code.
Have it, still play it. Love to set foes on fire with the hairspray flamethrower.
HuManBing wrote:System Shock 2
VIEW CONTENT:
the spiritual predecessor to the much-later, much more popular Bioshock. SS2 was a sci-fi FPS game, but it had serious elements of RPG horror gaming too. Ammunition was scarce, resources were scarce, and enemies were everywhere. Your character started off a simple marine, but as you progress through the game you received cyber modules which you could use to boost your stats, your skills, your weapon familiarities, and even psionic powers. The later game Bioshock was almost a carbon copy of the earlier game, with somewhat more limited replayability but much more slick presentation and atmosphere. Both are well worth playing for a great handbasket of "alone in the dark with lots of bad guys" horror game tropes, including a few well-done plot twists.
Also have it. Getting it to work on Win 7 requires some third-party programs, but it can also update the graphics quite a bit. Nice and eerie.
HuManBing wrote:Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth
VIEW CONTENT:
a vintage game that takes the watchword "make everything real, detailed, and mundane... before you throw in the supernatural weird stuff". A great example of some very interesting and effective ideas, and in my opinion one of the best arguments ever made that "first person games make the most immersive horror". Your character is a standard detective investigator, not an experienced gunman. You don't even get a gun until about a third of the way through the game! Stealth is crucial to survival, and there are some very interesting puzzle-solving bits too. Once you do get a gun, the tempo of the game changes slightly, but you never lose the feeling of vulnerability and being out of your depth.

Before you can shoot to defend yourself, you've got to draw your gun. Are any enemies nearby? Because if they are, they might hear the noise you make drawing your gun (same goes for reloading it). If you just blast away without aiming, you'll be making a lot of noise and will probably miss all your shots. Aim, and your peripheral vision contracts, leaving you potentially vulnerable from the sides and rear. Aim too long, and your arms will get tired and your attention will waver, eventually forcing you to cease aiming.

If you get injured, your vision goes red and blurry from pain, and your limbs and body will register the injury. You can't get better until you heal up - but you can't just hit a button to heal yourself. You need to find a quiet, undisturbed spot to open your medical field kit. Then you have to examine your body for scrapes (require gauze), deep cuts (require sutures), and breakages (require splints). Then and only then can you start using them on yourself, which takes a decent amount of time... and which will prove nerve racking if you're hiding from enemies!

Finally, no Call of Cthulhu game would be complete without some insanity element to it. First-person games are especially good at this, because you see all the visions and hallucinations first hand. Your vision swims as you struggle to comprehend the impossible. Expose yourself to too much sanity-blasting weirdness, and your character might even bring his hands up to choke himself to death, or put a pistol to his own temple! An excellent game, and well worth checking out. (Note to potential gamers: the PC version of the game was hurriedly ported and features several game-breaking bugs. A variety of websites feature tools and saved games to help you past those bugs.)
Bought it on Steam, scary as hell! I especially love the portrayal of the "Innsmouth look."
HuManBing wrote:Amnesia
VIEW CONTENT:
Immersive first-person puzzle horror game. You're exploring a castle andFallout 3
VIEW CONTENT:
specifically the Dunwich Building level, which is overrun by ghouls and dominated by a Lovecraftian artifact in the basement). The rest of the world is a wasteland devastated from a nuclear war with China, and heartbreaking vistas of US Capitol monuments in ruins. The first time I saw the National Mall, dug through with trenches from some last-ditch attempt to save the nation, and the once-proud cracked cupola dome of the US Congress, it kicked me right in the gut.
Nice homage to Lovecraft in FO3, especially the audio diaries you can find in the building.

Evil Dead Trilogy and games (P1 & 2) - The first movie is out and out horror, as is Hail to the King on PS1. ED II and Army of Darkness are more horror-comedy but still quite good. Fistull of Boomstick for PS2 is a combination shoot-'em-up and puzzle game heavy on Ash's usual wisecracks. Evil Dead: Regeneration is much more horror-oriented, though your sidekick and the crazy things you do to him are hilarious.

It has been confirmed that director Sam Raimi (who directed all the movies) and Bruce Campbell will be remaking The Evil Dead in 2013 (assuming the Mayan Long Count doesn't mean we all die in a fiery blaze on Dec. 22). Ash will not appear in this one, Campbell is producing it along with Raimi.

D 1 & 2 (PS1 and Sega Dreamcast) - The D games are largely unknown, but both are scary enough to warrant listing here. The first is a puzzle game, while the second is action-puzzle. I won't spoil the stories, since it's been so long I can't remember them. :P

The Ring: Terror's Realm (Sega Dreamcast) - What starts out as a video game quickly begins to erode your perception of just which world is which. This is a fine action-horror game with puzzle elements to break up the tedium.

Illbleed (Sega Dreamcast) - Words cannot do this game justice. FIND IT, BUY IT, LOVE IT!

The Castlevania Series (numerous consoles) - There's a damn good reason this series is still alive and kicking. From the original Haunted Castle arcade game on it's left its mark both good and bad. Symphony of the Night in particular is a must.

Galerians (PS1) - A young boy, gifted with psionic powers, must find out what happened to him, the secret behind the supercomputer Dorothy that controls the world, and why she created the Galerians. Excellent atmosphere, mind-boggling puzzles, and dark secrets. The sequel is not as good and is more of a psionic shoot 'em up than anything else.

Doom, Heretic, Hexen - Let's face it. These early FPS games left lasting impressions. Each has sequels that can be just as frightening. Doom 3 in particular is virtually required; the atmosphere is just incredible, the monsters terrifying, and the story is particularly fascinating.

Dreamweb - One of the earlier SVGA games that puts you in control of a character trying to figure out what the Dreamweb actually is and stopping those who would abuse it. A fine trip through the bizarre.
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Re: Required Horror Material

Post by ScS of the Fraternity »

Absolutely required:
Psycho
Jaws
The Haunting
The Changeling (You will never look at a wheelchair, or a rubber ball, without shuddering)
And of course, the John Carpenter trilogy:
The Thing
The Fog
Halloween

These are three vastly different films, each of which makes great use and revolutionizes their respective genre.
Some people will say that the real John Carpenter trilogy is The Thing, Prince of Darknesss, and Mouth of Madness, but Prince and Mouth are purely optional. Mouth of Madness is a great piece, though, but no more critical than many other great films.
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Re: Required Horror Material

Post by A G Thing »

Blood Omen the legacy of Kain series: Revenge and damnation all in one... The series was underrated but the first one was excellent in execution for its time...

ICO: Mysterious enough and at times quiet creepy if you look at the scenario from a Ravenloft view...

Shadow of the Colossus: To get what you want for one you love at any cost. And wonderful way to turn the epic fantasy toward dark ends.

The Count of Monte Cristo: Once again revenge but worth the read to get a sense of say Dementliuse type politics and maneuvers. The book, the movie and even the anime are worth your attention.

Coraline: Graphic novel or movie either will give you a basic grasp of a great villain and a trap as well as a domain.

Condemned: Only suggested for atmosphere... Some of the killers in this game are so very creepy it is worth seeing though perhaps in lets play form.

Dead Space: This series is often simply earmarked for simple shock horror and for much of it that is correct but if you want to see a great delivery of madness then both games deliver it through the main character's impetus and struggle.

Candyman: The original Bogeyman... There is no reason to miss the first in the series.

Final Destination Series: Hear me out... Great in looking at how to make deadly prophecies play out to startling effect. Otherwise it is just popcorn...

SCP Website: The file type stories of monsters and things of mystery and horror here give you so much to use and even the few downloadable game mods based on it that are to be found are fun and scary. An excellent resource...
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Re: Required Horror Material

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Route 666 (movie) - Not the scariest film in the world but still worth a look. A haunted road cursed by one man's evil deed, the redemption of the father by the son, and justice served from beyond the grave.

Re-Animator Trilogy (movie) - The first movie is a modern version of H. P. Lovecraft's Herbert West, Reanimator. The second and third follow the horrors of one gifted chemist who would be God by bringing the dead back to life. Although imperfect, by the third movie he has the missing component to restore both body and mind.

Return of the Living Dead series (movie) - A contemporary of George Romero made the first movie based on alternate ideas for the original Night of the Living Dead. The series is more black comedy than horror (the third is all horror), but they're worth a watch if only for the laughs.

Hellraiser Series (movies) - I can't believe I forgot these! The first eight (:shock:) movies are good. But when Doug Bradley quit playing Pinhead it was like Robert Englund quitting the part of Freddy Krueger. Hellraiser: Revelations, the ninth, is terrible in terms of plot.

Diablo 1 & 2 (PC) - What more needs to be said? I can't comment on Diablo 3 since I haven't played it yet (and don't plan on playing it until it's been out for a while so the patches are all out and the prices goes down). From what I've seen and heard it's certainly worthy of its pedigree, though.

Ghostbusters (movies and PS3/XBOX 360 game) - The science behind the movies and even the latest game (the unofficial third movie) are all based on reality. An interesting idea that mundane forms of sub-atomic particles and positive emotional energies can capture, dispel, or even harm wholly incorporeal beings is quite interesting. If you set the game in a modern Gothic Earth, use the Ghostbusters or some group like them. Non-magical ways of combating ghosts and undead; a way to work around the Red Death and illustrate how technology can be used for good.

The Thing (Carpenter version; movie) - Bodily violation, claustrophobia, paranoia, and the Thing itself as something that can take over a person with just one cell. Not all horrors need to be visible to be terrifying. The viruses as monsters from 2e Ravenloft are excellent examples of this kind of subtle horror.
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Re: Required Horror Material

Post by Steve Miller »

Let me recommend a pair of short stories that are worth reading if you run Ravenloft or other horror RPGs. I think they are great examples of merging horror with action. Both are by Robert E. Howard:

"Black Wind Blowing" and "Graveyard Rats."

You can probably find them online for free, but they're also included in anthologies I've put together for NLG.

"Black Wind Blowing" is included in Shadows of Texas (which also contains "Horror from the Mound," the main character of which is rather like an RPG character now that I think about it... "hey, there might be treasure in that there cursed hill... let's go digging!").

"Graveyard Rats" is in Names in the Black Book.

Both volumes are in pdf format, which works great on the iPad and some Kindle models. Not to mention old fashioned laptops and desk top computers. :)
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Re: Required Horror Material

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House of Bones (movie) - A last-ditch attempt to save a paranormal investigation show ends up finding a very real haunting that hungers for human flesh. The story is good, the acting great, the movie really doesn't need special effects but it has them to drive home the visceral horror of a house that is literally "alive." Think Living Walls can ruin your day? How about a "Living House" that's also a phantasmagorum on steroids? The worst of both worlds. A great source of ideas for the House of Lament as well as more personalized haunted houses.
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