Does a Good Video Game Movie Exist?

 

I was reminded this afternoon of the existence of the new Mario movie, a movie I refused to see on principle because it was made by actual trash-lords Illumination.  You cannot convince me that a movie made by the people who are responsible for The Minions existing are able to create something entertaining when the film they are creating only seems to serve as fanwank for children to excitedly point at and go "I KNOW THAT REFERENCE!"

In fact, I can't think of a single video game movie that I have seen that is even remotely acceptable.  Silent Hill might be one that comes sort of close but the story is so fucked in that film and the Pyramid Head cameo so uncerimoniously shoe-horned in that it falls short.  Maybe if it wasn't called Silent Hill it would be a sort of slightly above average horror movie but slap that brand recognition and it becomes unbearably stupid.  Advent Children may also come close but I've not seen that movie in many many years and the only thing I do remember is the fight choreography and the antagonists were constantly asking where their mother was like a lost child in a supermarket.  In an example of one I've not seen I have been told by people who's opinions I don't really take seriously in the first place that the Uncharted movie is pretty good but Uncharted was already ripping off a movie (Indiana Jones) in the first place so turning it into a movie again feels a bit daft.

I don't even understand this obsession with wanting games to have movie adaptations anyway.  The idea that I get from people is that having a movie come out for a game somehow legitimizes gaming, or at the very least that title, as a "proper" artistic medium but that's bollocks.  Who gives a fuck what stuffy old film makers think of gaming, why do people care about their validation so much?  The alternitive is that people just want to mindlessly consume more crap pumped out by a thing that they like which is equally, if not more sad.  I understand wanting a movie adaptation of a book, having the things written on the page that exist only in text brough to life on a big screen.  It's fun to see if how you envisioned the events in a book play out the same way on the screen.  But gaming is already a visual medium, gaming already has titles like Metal Gear that are basically like really long movies anyway but where YOU get to control all the cool gun-fighty and sneaky bits, you don't need a movie.

But maybe I'm wrong, maybe the adaptations of games I have seen thus far have just been bad picks.  Maybe Uncharted is great, maybe Five Nights at Freddies is the best horror film ever made (lol), maybe the Uwe Boll House of the Dead movie isn't complete gutter trash (double lol).  So to test this idea, I will spend the rest of 2024 watching as many video game adaptions as I can, both movies and TV shows.  There's an Onimusha show that dropped on Netflix kinda recently actually so maybe I'll start there.  Also there's movies and a series, I think, of Persona which is basically already an anime anyway so maybe that can't go too wrong either.

I'll probably come back here and write a little blog post about each one as I watch them so watch this space, my quest for a good video game movie/TV adaptation begins today

It Follows? It Sucks! (Kinda)

 

Between streaming horror games on my Twitch channel I've been trying to squeeze in a few horror movies as well, with it currently being the season for it and all.  One film that I've had my eye on since it came out and never got around to watching was It Follows from 2015 a film that has had quite a lot of positive press surrounding it for a long time and now I finally got to see it.  

Despite the title of this blog post I'm not about to attempt to tear it a new one, it wasn't THAT bad.  The acting is fine, the cinematography is really nice and there's a handful of pretty effective scenes and touches that stop it from being a stinker but overall the whole thing is just kind of silly

The premise to the film is that there is a person who is being followed by some kind of thing in human form that is invisible to everyone except the person who is the current target and previous targets.  If you are the target, the only way to get the creature off you is to have sex with another person, where the curse is then sexually transmitted to the person that you had sex with and then they must pass it on to someone else.  However, if the person you had sex with is killed, then the thing starts going back up the line so, for example, if I was the creatures current target and then I have sex with you, the reader, and then the monster kills you it will then come right after me again.  This isn't a Ring style situation where you can just have someone watch the tape and then be rid of it, you'll always be sort of concerned that your turn is coming. 

The idea of a slow yet tireless thing that will follow you for all of time is a decent premise despite the whole "sexually transmitted" part being a bit daft and the scene at the very start of the film is extremely good in giving you an idea of whats going on while still leaving a bit of mystery.  It's after that scene though where the whole thing starts to fall apart a little.

See, the thing in It Follows is a real thing that exists in the world its inhabiting.  It's not a ghost than can walk through walls, its got maybe some slightly higher than average strength but for the most part its similar to a human and while its invisible to everyone except the victim, other people can interact with it and you can even make it partially visible by throwing a sheet on it.  Also you seemingly can't kill it but you can stun it for a small amount of time but shooting it in the head or using some other means.

Now that I've explained all that, the reason I think this movie is quite silly is that despite all of this being figured out by a group of about 5 people, they spend the entire movie making absolutely braindead decisions and putting themselves in danger for pretty much no reason.  Anyone watching the movie could figure out that the trick to stopping it would be to simply trap it in something.  The main character in a scene about half way through the film stuns it by blasting it in the head and on multiple occasions she also sees it being blocked by doors and walls and yet, despite this, the idea to lock it inside a place NEVER CROSSES HER MIND.  Instead she goes for some absolutely batshit insane plan where they try and electrocute it inside a swimming pool which completely fails and then their plan after that is to just....have sex with hookers?  

A long time ago I watched an anime that I quite enjoyed called Ajin, a series about immortal people getting up to some shenanigans.  There's a scene in that show where the army is trying to aprehend an Ajin who's up to no good and they know that while they can't kill him they can stun him, like the thing from It Follows, for a small amount of time by hitting him in the head.  So they get the first hit on him and then their plan is nearly successful because they surround the body and have a guy with a rifle putting another bullet between his eyes every couple of seconds as they try to carry him into containment.  

The characters in It Follows have a gun, have a means to blast it in the head over and over and could probably quite easily get their hands on some kind of container that they could lob into the ocean and yet it's never done, it's never tried and its never even talked about.  They are more than willing to barricade themselves IN to rooms at multiple points but the very basic idea of just trapping the thing is left completely off the table.

The situation in It Follows reminds me of why I had such a problem with other horror movies such as A Quiet Place, where very obvious solutions to an issue seem to be all around around them but because they are "horror movie characters" they go with the most stupid, nonsensical actions possible so that the film actually has something to work with which in my opinion is just shitty writing.  My first thought actually was to just flee to a different country but the film actually establishes that the thing can swim so that obviously goes right out the window but it puts so many solutions so blatently there on the table that the characters not rubbing their brain cells together just takes me out of the film completely.

Like I said, it's not an awful film by any stretch and if you're looking for a competently shot, competently acted movie with some decent scares here and there to maybe have on in the background or watch with friends, It Follows is a good pick for that.  Just don't buy into all that hype about it being "striking" or those weirdo critics claiming that its "deep" because the demon is sexually transmitted.  

One of the most 6/10 movies I've ever seen

Gaming Is The Best Platform For Horror

So as you may know, I'm a big fan of the horror genre.  Doesn't matter if it's a horror book, movie, game or whatever, if it's horror I want to at least check it out.  However out of all the mediums that the genre of horror can come in I feel that video gaming is the best way for it to delivered.

That's not to say that the other mediums aren't fit for horror.  A good horror story in the hands of a talented author like Steven King or Koji Suzuki can do a fantastic job of freaking you out.  Koji Suzuki is a particularly good example for this because video games of Ring suck massive ass and the imagery that my head conjured up for the cursed tape based on his descriptions in the novel did a much better job of making me feel uneasy than the movies depiction of it.  There are also TONS of great horror movies, way too many to even attempt to list off.  I have a friend and every time we go drinking together we talk for HOURS about different horror movies each time.

But gaming though, gaming is special.  It takes all these things like these mediums have, the writing, visuals, music etc and makes YOU actively be a part of it.  You're the one that has to fight for survival and brave the nightmares ahead.  You can watch a movie like Friday the 13th where you can just watch someone run away from the murderous killer or you can play a game like Amnesia where YOU have to run away from the monster lurking in the shadows.  If you play something like Silent Hill you can all the excellent parts from the other mediums AND you have the horror compounded by the fact that you are the one that has to navigate your hero though.  You're not just a passive observer in the terror, you're right there experiencing it with the character.

Also because gaming is an interactive medium it can use this to its advantage to further enhance the fear that you feel.  Resident Evil did this early on by turning the games save system against you.  In most games you just save as much as you want but in RE if you didn't have an Ink Ribbon then tough shit, and your first time through you never knew when you were going to get your next spool.  Fatal Frame does it by forcing the player to get right up in the grill of the ghosts that you're fighting.  Not only that, if you want to really succeed at the combat, you have to wait until right before it's going to hit you.  Amnesia did it by making the player freak out if they were to stare at the creature for too long.  It's not like a movie where someone might say "Don't look at that thing you'll go mad" and you just have to sit there going "wow I sure hope he doesn't look at that creature", the responsibility for the characters sanity is entirely on you.

All this said though, I'd much rather have an excellently crafted horror novel or a well made horror movie over a mediocre or shit horror game.  I'd much rather have a copy of Nightmares and Dreamscapes in my hand or The Shining on my TV rather than some shit like The Evil Within or Outlast.  But when a horror game does get it just right it really is unforgettable.