Horror Games Discussion

[Anian]

Hmm, Saw films don't exactly scare me as some other horrors. Saw films frustrate because even when characters react in a close to logical or smart way, you still are far more objective and therefor think of far better solutions to puzzles and stuff.

Yes, they do provoke emotions, you do automatically think - what if I had to cut of my foot to survive etc.  But for me that is an unpleasant experience, and while horrors should make you feel uneasy, I simply don't find watching torture  and torture alone (because let's face it's just a series of torture chambers all that fascinating in a movie (in a game perhaps).
Saw, Hostel etc. are kind of in the same basket with some stories about sick kids or molested women similar - yes, it has it's place and ar subjects that should be thought of, but it's not entertainment (I don't think only as "fun" but an experience in all) to me, just makes me feel bad or discusted. Those are far better as elements of something bigger where they have far greater impact.
Ok, I'll give you that the part about "the killer actually trying to fix people" is interesting, but not 6 movies interesting.

As Limp mentioned those parts of horror are a "creepy" and "unerving" and strange, maybe a slight mix with other parts perhaps, just personal preference I guess. Feeling like I'm gonna be sick or to ol' BOO! tricks - those always feel like just cheap and uncreative stuff.

[Tentacles]

    One film I recogmend is called Gacy (In America I believe its called Crawlspace.)

[Dualnames]

Seriously. I've been like watching "Thriller" movies for like ever. I'm a fool for a scare, though never had one in front of TV. A good one. I've been startled, unnerved, but no, never scared. I mean like SCARED. SCARED TO THE BONES! The problem that people that make those movies don't understand is that they break the immersion really fast.

"When you face your fears you overcome them"

So, you just see the bad guy on the movie, you wait for him to be killed or in rare occasions kill them all, and if he is killed, then at the end of the movie he re-appears.
And wow, am I just scared!

Seriously. ONE GOOD MOVIE!
I've had my hopes on a movie banned in 250 countries. "The Cannibal Holocaust". Gory, very nice scenes, but..not scary!!!
I've seen the grudge (jap), got me unnerved. Not scary.
I've seen the eye (jap), started out really good, I was sure I'd shit my pants. Then sucked badly!!!

Fact: Nothing visible can scare you. Even if it looks scary like hell, or disturbing or ugly or anything. When you see it, you overcome your fear. Nothing that can or can't die, can scare you either, for the first category you know you need a weapon and for the second, you know it's too damn slow to move.

What you cannot see, you can fear. What you cannot see, you cannot kill, therefore you can fear.

[Anian]

Fact: Nothing visible can scare you. Even if it looks scary like hell, or disturbing or ugly or anything. When you see it, you overcome your fear. Nothing that can or can't die, can scare you either, for the first category you know you need a weapon and for the second, you know it's too damn slow to move.

What you cannot see, you can fear. What you cannot see, you cannot kill, therefore you can fear.

Well yes, that's why the "scariest" stuff is not something that can be seen or something that can't, but something in between - something that just as an idea causes fear but also can manifest in a place that's on the edge of existence, maybe mix in some human comopnent (like and emotion ie anger) and some contradicition (something that should be fun an loveable and pure - a clown - but it uses that to lure and eat children).

Not counting the really obvious supernatural mess that came in the end (IMO King starts with good ideas but then f*** them up), a movie like The Shining is creepy as hell. On the other side, stuff like Freddy Krueger in the first movie...you can see it but you're helpless to do anything about it (yes, they find a way to fight him and all that, but the premise is pretty good for a slasher pic).

[Tentacles]

     Well like for me, even though its not very gory, something like A Clockwork Orange, just felt more like something that could actually happen, and therefore felt scarier to me. And obviously if you have a soul, kind of sad too.

[Grim]

I don't believe most horror stories are actually supposed to scare us... The idea of an unemployment is scary,the illness or death in the family- real life events that we know happen to other people and might happen to us. But with stories..well, once we're grown up it isn't about the getting frightened by them but experiencing something that visually and contextually differs from other genres. It's not for us to be scared, it's to feel empathy for the characters in the story who are!

  I'm 28  now and the last time I got scared on a movie was when I was 14 and watched The Return Of The Living Dead, late at night. I watch a lot of horror movies but honestly can't recall ever feeling the same as then. I put it down simply to being an adult.

  Actually... no. I got scared once after that. Or at least it was the closest feeling to that I can think of... There's a British film called Eden Lake. It was a funny feeling I had while watching it... something I couldn't quite explain. For some reason I cared so much for the characters in the film and hated their torturers like of they were real...I just could not take my eyes of it for the whole 2 hours of its duration even though I didn't like what I was seeing...

  And, Dual, to me, the one and only scary thing about japanese horror films is acting!!!

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Cannibal Holocaust was never meant to frighten, it was meant to disgust and sicken the viewer like some Ironman slaughterhouse competition where you win just by being able to stomach the fairly realistic-looking gore.  It doesn't even hold up well as a movie, with any pretext of story falling away as soon as the natives appear.

Scares come more from things that either surprise or terrify you on some primitive level rather than make your stomach churn; the addition of gore in films over time has been because directors find that making you feel physically uncomfortable works in their favor when mental shocks appear, though it's gotten so over the top in most films that we can't even suspend disbelief anymore.  Films that work with common phobias are generally quite good at eliciting scares from people who suffer claustrophobia, fears of spiders and the like.  Aside from tapping into the personal fears of the viewer all they can do, really, is either raise tension with effective mood and music to make YOU do the work or resort to cheap scares that work on almost everyone but aren't satisfying, like the typical 'throw cat at person' gimmick.  I find the gradual tension building and making the viewer do the work to be the most worthwhile, as in the case of John Carpenter's The Thing.  To me that movie is an excellent example of a gory shocker because not only does it have key moments that are really disturbing visually but Carpenter also takes breaks to show the cold dark Antarctica night and build up a sense of tension and isolation that the viewer shares with the characters, any of whom could be the villain at any time.  The combination of these things (isolated, dangerous location, an enemy that can be anyone) combine to make a very effective scare picture.  The game was a so-so attempt at recapturing that magic (I mentioned it somewhere above) but ultimately it broke its own rules (the blood test being accurate only until scripted moments) which made it far less satisfying.  Add to that the genericness of each character you met and the fact that you knew they were all fodder held back the game from being as good as it could have been.  

Developing a vested interest in the characters is the key to sucking you into any story, whether on tv or in a game.

[Questionable]

... as in the case of John Carpenter's The Thing.  To me that movie is an excellent example of a gory shocker because not only does it have key moments that are really disturbing visually but Carpenter... of these things (isolated, dangerous location, an enemy that can be anyone) combine to make a very effective scare picture.  The game was a so-so attempt at recapturing that magic ...held back the game from being as good as it could have been.

Never played the game but a good point about "The Thing," I completely forgot about that movie. Often times when a movie has shots of beautiful country-side with wind blowing the tall grass, or stolid moments of silence and subtlety it is all just filler. Well, it is SUPPOSED to be atmospheric, it is supposed to subconsciously drag you deeper into the world and who the characters are, to invest in the simulation of it all and begin to lose awareness that it is a fiction. "The Thing" does a pretty good job of getting you to empathize and engage in the mythos and ultimately when teh shat hit the fan it felt like getting hit in the chest by a car wreck, to me... great. Not entirely unpredictable but still great. It isn't a movie that I would quantify as "scary" (you don't necessarily fear anything) but it is IMPACTING in a non-positive way; which is, maybe, just as important.

[Dualnames]

There's this great film, about an experiment held in Oxford (or an english town anyway), that a couple of volunteers enter an experiment, and they are randomly decided to be either 'cops' or inmates. The 'cops' eventually take advantage of their power and act really disturbing. If anyone knows what I'm talking about should really tell others. As for disturbing movies 'Pink Floyd's Wall' always kind of depresses me. And I've watched for many years now, and still has that feel.

[Anian]

There's this great film, about an experiment held in Oxford (or an english town anyway), that a couple of volunteers enter an experiment, and they are randomly decided to be either 'cops' or inmates. The 'cops' eventually take advantage of their power and act really disturbing. If anyone knows what I'm talking about should really tell others. As for disturbing movies 'Pink Floyd's Wall' always kind of depresses me. And I've watched for many years now, and still has that feel.

Das Experiment or in english...The experiment  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0250258/
Stanford, not Oxford. But this movie is in german. And yes it is a curious phenomenon and how quickly it gets "real".

Haven't found Wall that disturbing, when I put myself into "this is how your brain looks on drugs" I just went along with it. By the end it would be more "disturbing" if it made any sense.

[Questionable]

There's this great film, about an experiment held in Oxford...

According to Wikipedia it's based on an experiment conducted in the U.S. @ Stanford Univeristy in California. As Anian pointed out the film is German, although there is an American Remake currently filming: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Experiment_%28film%29

[Creed Malay]

Yeah, the Stanford Prison Experiment is a pretty terrifying one to read about. Also look up the Milgram Conformity Experiments if you're interested in what normal people like me or you will willingly do.
We are pretty personnaly certain that *we* wouldn't give into the urge to abuse power or just blindly follow authority to do what we feel is wrong - but would we?
There's some horror right there.

[auriond]

Speaking of the Milgram experiment, I didn't think it would be possible to carry it out again in today's post-Milgram world. Apparently not everyone's heard of it yet though.

I could see this being exploited in a game. That would make for a truly horrific game, but only if you were self-aware enough to understand the enormity of what you were doing.

[Igor Hardy]

I could see this being exploited in a game. That would make for a truly horrific game, but only if you were self-aware enough to understand the enormity of what you were doing.

The 2008 adventure game Overclocked was a bit in this vein. Although it was more about how easily it is to manipulate anger.

[xenogia]

For a good game, try Clock Toweron a SNES emulator. Scissor Man!

My god 2ma2 exists

[Questionable]

For a good game, try Clock Toweron a SNES emulator. Scissor Man!

My god 2ma2 exists

DON'T JYNX IT!!

[Khristian Cammilleri]

Want to try another horror game?
Search for : Escape from the Chaotic City
In ags

[Snake]

Want to try another horror game?
Search for : Escape from the Chaotic City
In ags

Why are you making them search when all they have to do is click your signature?

I second it anyway. Nice game it is... haven't finished it yet though

[Stupot]

Has anyone played 'Scratches'?  I finally got around to buying it the other day.  It seems okay so far, but unfortunately it causes my Laptop to overheat, so I might not be able to keep playing it  :'(