I'm going to be back-publishing this entry so it's chronologically near when I actually watched the movie, so that it fits into the pre-season and doesn't bloat the 28 movies in the actual October viewing list.
Hoo, boy.
House at the End of the Street is a psychological thriller directed by Mark Tonderai and starring Jennifer Lawrence, Elizabeth Shue, and Max Theiriot. It was filmed mostly in mid-2010, and originally intended for release in April 2012 before being moved to September 2012. What's interesting about that is that had it been released in April, another Jennifer Lawrence movie would have still been playing in theaters. The Hunger Games was released in March 2012 and made an absolutely absurd amount of money, also making a massive star out of the then relatively unknown Lawrence. They then enacted a 6 month advertising campaign heavily focused on letting us know Jennifer Lawrence is in this movie, also moving the thriller's release into that late-September to early-October timeframe I mentioned in The Possession's review.
It's quite clear that this movie was never intended to have such a major release, but decided to capitalize on its star's suddenly heightened profile. The major problem again is the characters don't feel real. This time I don't think it's a problem of acting, I think the writing is just poor. The things people do just doesn't make sense, their motivations are practically non-existent and the relationships absolutely don't work. A significant amount of the first act is devoted to showing off Elissa's (Lawrence) multiple artistic and devious talents and how utterly charmed her life is. Instead of the traditional new-kid difficulties settling in and problems fitting in at a new school, Elissa immediately makes friends with everyone. Getting invited to a massive drinking party with all the "popular" kids seemingly on the first day, and being invited to join a band by the second day. She plays guitar, keyboard, sings, has a popular myspace music page, looks amazing, lives in a gorgeous house and the only enemy she has is the slimy alpha male that tried to force himself on her but had the decency to stop when asked. The only tension seems to be between her and her mother, who she deliberately antagonizes presumably because of some past faults or indiscretions which are never elaborated on and just mentioned as existing in passing.
Also, I'm pretty sure there was a bit that included the phrase "trying to do this mom thing" 3 times in as many minutes. The mom also said that Elissa liked to "make projects" out of people or "fix" them and tended to "find the most damaged" person around so many times I lost count. It almost felt like lines where just copy-pasted around. To say the movie repeated itself is an understatement.
The look of the film jumps from ultra-realistic handheld camera to this repeated shot where the camera cranes from below a character up past them and then shoots them from some point above the house to this "artsy" style with psychedelic colors, POV shots, and fast cuts. It's jarring, but the worst part is that all of it fails to convey internal geography. I don't know where locations are in relation to each other, and I don't even know what houses are shaped like.
As to the plot, if you're at all familiar with the Paul_Millander plot from season 2 of the original CSI series, that's basically what's going on. There are some twists to get there but it's pretty predictable. There's also a bit of some other TV plot in there, but I can't actually remember enough specifics about it. And that's the problem, really. This is a 100 minute long movie that tried to create an effective mystery centering around a serial abductor. They've tried to include a well-characterized lead character, add a lot of psychosis to the antagonist and create a complex plot of misdirections to avoid their twists being obvious. This is something TV shows have been able to do really well recently, since they have a few episodes to do it. The movie tried to do a lot, but managed its time poorly and wound pulling out a lot of random "oh yeah...his parents also did meth!" things that came out of nowhere, didn't add much, and were sometimes inconsistent with previous scenes.
I don't know why I was expecting a lot out of this movie, but I really feel let down and the problems were so myriad and obvious I felt really bad about seeing it.
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Monday, September 10, 2012
Horror Pre-Season: The Possession
Late August through mid-September is when studios like to release horror movies outside of the shadow of whatever late-October juggernaut franchise is popular. I guess either because they're unsure of the movie's ability to stand up to the competition or they want to give something a bit different a chance to flourish. I'm honestly not entirely sure which The Possession is.
Don't get me wrong, I liked the movie. I thought it was pretty decent and a largely unexplored concept with a pretty great 3rd act. However, there was something about it that made it hard to take seriously, and if you can't take a horror movie seriously it loses all ability to scare.
Firstly, I really enjoy it when a possession story takes a different approach to the mythology it's going to use. Most entries in the genre focus on the Catholic rites of exorcism, so I take particular interest whenever a movie bases itself on a different culture's possession myths. In this case, the Jewish dybbuk, which is more of a ghostly possession than the traditional demonic one. I recall The Unborn being about a dybbuk as well, and though the movie wasn't too creative with its scare design it had a few really good ones and I thought the unique concept elevated it a bit.
So The Possession is a story about broken family and their experiences after one of the daughters convinces her father to buy her a Dybbuk Box at a garage sale. She falls under the influence of the box and becomes increasingly dangerous to herself and her family as the dybbuk takes hold, while her father tries to convince his ex-wife that something is wrong with the girl and eventually to get an exorcism.
Jeffery Dean Morgan does a decent job as the ex-husband, Clyde, conveying a real sense of a father who just wants his kids to like him. His character is pretty well developed, without spending a lot of time on him which is really nice. Another standout in the cast is Natasha Calis is Clyde's daughter Em. She reminds me a lot of Chloe Moretz, and has some real acting skill. She does a great job here developing the character's mannerisms as the possession continues. There are some nice creepy moments that rely on her acting being convincing in order to carry them, and she sells them well. I wish there were actually more bits in the movie like that.
The sound design is also pretty unnerving. I've noticed this is something that does a really good job scaring me when it's done well. It's probably why I like Ti West's movies so much, he had the same sound designer (Graham Reznick) on House of the Devil and The Innkeepers, and he's really good.
The exorcism sequence itself was also very nicely done, being chaotic while still clear and focused. There are some contrivances to set the scene, but it is an effective setting once you forget how we got there.
However, I think the movie falters at a few points. One being Kyra Sedgwick is pretty unconvincing as the ex-wife. There are only one or two scenes where she seems to be putting the correct emotions into her lines. It's heavily implied she's angry at Clyde, and really into her new boyfriend and the various yuppie lifestyle trappings he brings, but the way she behaves never conveys that. She actually seems to be happy to see her ex most of the time.
Another issue I had is that the dybbuk is absurdly powerful, even when it's still trapped in the box it's able to send a grown woman flying across the room and snap her back. It ruins all sense of proportion, so nothing can escalate properly and the whole movie winds up feeling pretty flat. There are peeks and valleys with the action, but the average line doesn't move much.
It feels like the script had been rewritten or heavily edited several times. They make a lot of hints at what would have been really interesting bits of mythology to play around with, like in one scene Em finds a small carving of some sort of animal in the box, like a dog or a boar. A few scenes later some sort of animal you never see is shown having wandered into Clyde's house and raiding his fridge. Could it have been related? I dunno, would've been cool, though. They have a similar thing with a moth from the box, but then moths are made really prominent. I wish they had given some indication of why moths were so important. As nocturnal creatures they have obvious symbolism, but is that the intent or is it just "bugs are creepy"?
Scenes alternate tone drastically as well, and that keeps breaking the immersion, which makes the attempts at drama fall a little flat. You kindof lose the tension they're trying to develop, so the whole things feels a bit scattered. They also didn't really make use of the dybbuk mythology, and treated it more like a standard demonic possession with a sprinkling of Judaica. So yeah, it was entertaining. Not nearly as bad as everyone seems to be making it out to be, but it does fall a little flat. It's got a few good scare moments, but it never comes together as anything so it winds up being pretty forgettable.
--PXA
Don't get me wrong, I liked the movie. I thought it was pretty decent and a largely unexplored concept with a pretty great 3rd act. However, there was something about it that made it hard to take seriously, and if you can't take a horror movie seriously it loses all ability to scare.
Firstly, I really enjoy it when a possession story takes a different approach to the mythology it's going to use. Most entries in the genre focus on the Catholic rites of exorcism, so I take particular interest whenever a movie bases itself on a different culture's possession myths. In this case, the Jewish dybbuk, which is more of a ghostly possession than the traditional demonic one. I recall The Unborn being about a dybbuk as well, and though the movie wasn't too creative with its scare design it had a few really good ones and I thought the unique concept elevated it a bit.
So The Possession is a story about broken family and their experiences after one of the daughters convinces her father to buy her a Dybbuk Box at a garage sale. She falls under the influence of the box and becomes increasingly dangerous to herself and her family as the dybbuk takes hold, while her father tries to convince his ex-wife that something is wrong with the girl and eventually to get an exorcism.
Jeffery Dean Morgan does a decent job as the ex-husband, Clyde, conveying a real sense of a father who just wants his kids to like him. His character is pretty well developed, without spending a lot of time on him which is really nice. Another standout in the cast is Natasha Calis is Clyde's daughter Em. She reminds me a lot of Chloe Moretz, and has some real acting skill. She does a great job here developing the character's mannerisms as the possession continues. There are some nice creepy moments that rely on her acting being convincing in order to carry them, and she sells them well. I wish there were actually more bits in the movie like that.
The sound design is also pretty unnerving. I've noticed this is something that does a really good job scaring me when it's done well. It's probably why I like Ti West's movies so much, he had the same sound designer (Graham Reznick) on House of the Devil and The Innkeepers, and he's really good.
The exorcism sequence itself was also very nicely done, being chaotic while still clear and focused. There are some contrivances to set the scene, but it is an effective setting once you forget how we got there.
However, I think the movie falters at a few points. One being Kyra Sedgwick is pretty unconvincing as the ex-wife. There are only one or two scenes where she seems to be putting the correct emotions into her lines. It's heavily implied she's angry at Clyde, and really into her new boyfriend and the various yuppie lifestyle trappings he brings, but the way she behaves never conveys that. She actually seems to be happy to see her ex most of the time.
Another issue I had is that the dybbuk is absurdly powerful, even when it's still trapped in the box it's able to send a grown woman flying across the room and snap her back. It ruins all sense of proportion, so nothing can escalate properly and the whole movie winds up feeling pretty flat. There are peeks and valleys with the action, but the average line doesn't move much.
It feels like the script had been rewritten or heavily edited several times. They make a lot of hints at what would have been really interesting bits of mythology to play around with, like in one scene Em finds a small carving of some sort of animal in the box, like a dog or a boar. A few scenes later some sort of animal you never see is shown having wandered into Clyde's house and raiding his fridge. Could it have been related? I dunno, would've been cool, though. They have a similar thing with a moth from the box, but then moths are made really prominent. I wish they had given some indication of why moths were so important. As nocturnal creatures they have obvious symbolism, but is that the intent or is it just "bugs are creepy"?
Scenes alternate tone drastically as well, and that keeps breaking the immersion, which makes the attempts at drama fall a little flat. You kindof lose the tension they're trying to develop, so the whole things feels a bit scattered. They also didn't really make use of the dybbuk mythology, and treated it more like a standard demonic possession with a sprinkling of Judaica. So yeah, it was entertaining. Not nearly as bad as everyone seems to be making it out to be, but it does fall a little flat. It's got a few good scare moments, but it never comes together as anything so it winds up being pretty forgettable.
--PXA
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Horror Off-Season: Martyrs
It's no secret by now that I dislike gore-porn/gorror/whatever. I'm not going to deny that Hostel piqued my interest when it first came out. It had a pretty flimsy story with a few predictable reveals, but the visuals were really uncomfortable since nothing in recent memory had really done that level of torture in a movie. Of course, then I watched Cannibal Holocaust, the granddaddy of it all, and the 5,000 clones whose sole purpose was to do what Hostel did except MOAR! and the whole concept quickly wore thin.
So I knew I was going to have a hard time being objective about Martyrs, the 2008 French horror film directed by Pascal Laugier. Especially after last week's misadventure with The Loved Ones, I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to get into a movie from what is quickly becoming the most trite subgenre of horror. But I felt that if I didn't give it a fair chance I'd feel like a complete hypocrite.
One of my main defenses to the outright damning of any and all remakes is that a film should be allowed to stand or fall by its own merits rather than impossible comparisons. Martyrs sort proves my point in that I should really hate this film since it is literally about torture. However, I actually wound up walking away thinking this was something that provided some food for thought. If I had rejected the movie because it looked like it should be terrible, I would've missed out on this.
The story that unfolds is actually damn interesting. It's one of those narratives that gives you plenty of information but really doesn't like contextualizing anything. There's a tremendous amount of dots strewn about the screen and the movie actually respects me enough to trust that I can connect enough of them myself. It's something I can actually think about after the movie's runtime is over, and almost begs for it since the plot just doesn't make sense so you want to try to explain it.
What I'm not going to say is that Martyrs is the amazing or mindblowing film that scratches every possible horror itch imaginable because it's so multifaceted and amazing. The key problem is that it thinks its most interesting qualities are the visceral: The blood, torture, beatings, skinning, etc. So that's where the movie lays its focus. Even when it tries to slow down to let an emotional impact sink in, it's focusing on the impact of the physical torture instead of the more emotional hallucinations or flashbacks. It's almost bro-horror in how vehemently it denies the emotional engagement of its own story.
It's also somewhat strange in that the first 40 minutes seems like a totally different movie. So you've got a home invasion plot, then the invader starts to go a little crazy. She kills herself and then the movie sort of meanders for a few minutes before going into some cult/abduction/torture plot. There's a lot to explore in regards to the psychology of what's going on, but the movie kindof glosses over it so it can lovingly shoot and edit the repeated beatings of the protagonist.
Martyrs has an interesting story with the potential for a lot of good depth, but it's squandered because the movie is more interested in kicking the snot out of its characters and drilling things into people's heads. It's a decently well shot movie, and the special effects are really good. One thing that struck me was that even though it is really up front with the torture, it's not done in the typical "LOOK AT THAT, DUDE! THAT'S SICK!" fashion that a lot of these movies tend to do, it's actually somewhat artfully done. It's a pretty good movie that could have been a great movie if it just focused on story and character instead of trying so hard to be gory and shocking. In a lot of ways it's more like Saw than Hostel because it's not actually about the torture.
It's definitely got me interested in Pascal's other features: House of Voices and The Tall Man
UPDATE: I recently rewatched the movie and that has caused me to downgrade my opinion of it. The movie has illusions of profundity but utterly fails to live up to it. It's visually slick, but structurally jumbled. Each question to be explored was actually just answered with "Because MARTYRS, that's why!", or specifically with "Because the cult thinks torturing girls can reveal truth." which doesn't actually lead anywhere as a line of questioning. My original statement remains, this could have been a great movie if it cared about characters instead of just slapping them around, but I have downgraded it from "pretty good" to "...ok"
--PXA
So I knew I was going to have a hard time being objective about Martyrs, the 2008 French horror film directed by Pascal Laugier. Especially after last week's misadventure with The Loved Ones, I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to get into a movie from what is quickly becoming the most trite subgenre of horror. But I felt that if I didn't give it a fair chance I'd feel like a complete hypocrite.
One of my main defenses to the outright damning of any and all remakes is that a film should be allowed to stand or fall by its own merits rather than impossible comparisons. Martyrs sort proves my point in that I should really hate this film since it is literally about torture. However, I actually wound up walking away thinking this was something that provided some food for thought. If I had rejected the movie because it looked like it should be terrible, I would've missed out on this.
The story that unfolds is actually damn interesting. It's one of those narratives that gives you plenty of information but really doesn't like contextualizing anything. There's a tremendous amount of dots strewn about the screen and the movie actually respects me enough to trust that I can connect enough of them myself. It's something I can actually think about after the movie's runtime is over, and almost begs for it since the plot just doesn't make sense so you want to try to explain it.
What I'm not going to say is that Martyrs is the amazing or mindblowing film that scratches every possible horror itch imaginable because it's so multifaceted and amazing. The key problem is that it thinks its most interesting qualities are the visceral: The blood, torture, beatings, skinning, etc. So that's where the movie lays its focus. Even when it tries to slow down to let an emotional impact sink in, it's focusing on the impact of the physical torture instead of the more emotional hallucinations or flashbacks. It's almost bro-horror in how vehemently it denies the emotional engagement of its own story.
It's also somewhat strange in that the first 40 minutes seems like a totally different movie. So you've got a home invasion plot, then the invader starts to go a little crazy. She kills herself and then the movie sort of meanders for a few minutes before going into some cult/abduction/torture plot. There's a lot to explore in regards to the psychology of what's going on, but the movie kindof glosses over it so it can lovingly shoot and edit the repeated beatings of the protagonist.
Martyrs has an interesting story with the potential for a lot of good depth, but it's squandered because the movie is more interested in kicking the snot out of its characters and drilling things into people's heads. It's a decently well shot movie, and the special effects are really good. One thing that struck me was that even though it is really up front with the torture, it's not done in the typical "LOOK AT THAT, DUDE! THAT'S SICK!" fashion that a lot of these movies tend to do, it's actually somewhat artfully done. It's a pretty good movie that could have been a great movie if it just focused on story and character instead of trying so hard to be gory and shocking. In a lot of ways it's more like Saw than Hostel because it's not actually about the torture.
It's definitely got me interested in Pascal's other features: House of Voices and The Tall Man
UPDATE: I recently rewatched the movie and that has caused me to downgrade my opinion of it. The movie has illusions of profundity but utterly fails to live up to it. It's visually slick, but structurally jumbled. Each question to be explored was actually just answered with "Because MARTYRS, that's why!", or specifically with "Because the cult thinks torturing girls can reveal truth." which doesn't actually lead anywhere as a line of questioning. My original statement remains, this could have been a great movie if it cared about characters instead of just slapping them around, but I have downgraded it from "pretty good" to "...ok"
--PXA
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Horror Off-Season: The Loved Ones
What the hell did I just watch? It claims to be a movie called The Loved Ones, an Australian horror film written and directed by Sean Byrne. What I think it actually is, is a prank in some absurd contest between horror directors for who can come up with the most deranged, over-the-top, stupid-bloody, bizarre and senseless crap possible.
I'm sure a lot of this is going to mirror my complaints about Asylum Blackout, but that movie actually had a character or two, a setup, and an ok ending. The Loved Ones exists solely to bombard the viewer with as much twisted violence as possible, delivered by some cute but mentally disturbed girl. Which I'm sure is part of its angle, a sort of "Oooo lookie she wears pink and lobotomizes boys with a power drill while giggling about it" thing.
Well, that jokes gets old pretty quickly and the movie has nothing else that makes any sense to offer. The beginning of the movie is a perfect example: It starts in teen movie mode, with pretty-boy Brent doing school, buying drugs, talking about condoms with his friend. There's a dance coming up and Brent is going with his girlfriend, Holly. This requires him to turn down a sweet, comely girl, named Lola. Brent goes to screw his girlfriend in the car, and after he gets to EXPERIENCE BIJ he goes home and acts depressed. Suddenly, he's decided to go into the wilderness and climb a rock face. After staring at the sun he for a while he's assaulted by an old guy and dragged off to a pickup truck. If that seems jarring and inconsistent, it's because it is. I have no idea why our protagonist went from getting laid, to listening to heavy metal, to mumbling at his mom, to free climbing, except to provide a conveniently isolated location for him to be abducted from.
The rest of the movie plays like a mating of the Mickey Mouse Club and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. With lobotomized cannibal pseudo-zombies. Can't forget those. They're in there, in some secret basement pit with blast-doors under the living room floor. And I think the worst part is that everything that I've mentioned, aside from the heavy metal and the rock climbing, are in the preview. There's nothing this movie has, plot wise, that hasn't already been shown. So the only reason to watch is to see everything that was hinted at get revealed in uncensored glory. It's like they made a trailer and then filled in the blanks.
The Loved Ones also does that high-contrast, slightly desaturated thing that seems pretty popular now in movies like yellowbrickroad, though the scenes in the torture house are sharply lit and over-saturated to make everything look even more screwed up and garish. I was half expecting low-angle shots with a fish-eye lens like a 90s grunge music video.
The one shot I actually enjoyed was right at the end where Lola's in the prom dress, bloody and beaten, crawling down the street with a cleaver in-hand.
Outside of that, this was like...Disney presents iCarly in HOSTEL. I am so sick of torture porn. I'm gonna go watch Absentia again.
--PXA
I'm sure a lot of this is going to mirror my complaints about Asylum Blackout, but that movie actually had a character or two, a setup, and an ok ending. The Loved Ones exists solely to bombard the viewer with as much twisted violence as possible, delivered by some cute but mentally disturbed girl. Which I'm sure is part of its angle, a sort of "Oooo lookie she wears pink and lobotomizes boys with a power drill while giggling about it" thing.
Well, that jokes gets old pretty quickly and the movie has nothing else that makes any sense to offer. The beginning of the movie is a perfect example: It starts in teen movie mode, with pretty-boy Brent doing school, buying drugs, talking about condoms with his friend. There's a dance coming up and Brent is going with his girlfriend, Holly. This requires him to turn down a sweet, comely girl, named Lola. Brent goes to screw his girlfriend in the car, and after he gets to EXPERIENCE BIJ he goes home and acts depressed. Suddenly, he's decided to go into the wilderness and climb a rock face. After staring at the sun he for a while he's assaulted by an old guy and dragged off to a pickup truck. If that seems jarring and inconsistent, it's because it is. I have no idea why our protagonist went from getting laid, to listening to heavy metal, to mumbling at his mom, to free climbing, except to provide a conveniently isolated location for him to be abducted from.
The rest of the movie plays like a mating of the Mickey Mouse Club and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. With lobotomized cannibal pseudo-zombies. Can't forget those. They're in there, in some secret basement pit with blast-doors under the living room floor. And I think the worst part is that everything that I've mentioned, aside from the heavy metal and the rock climbing, are in the preview. There's nothing this movie has, plot wise, that hasn't already been shown. So the only reason to watch is to see everything that was hinted at get revealed in uncensored glory. It's like they made a trailer and then filled in the blanks.
The Loved Ones also does that high-contrast, slightly desaturated thing that seems pretty popular now in movies like yellowbrickroad, though the scenes in the torture house are sharply lit and over-saturated to make everything look even more screwed up and garish. I was half expecting low-angle shots with a fish-eye lens like a 90s grunge music video.
The one shot I actually enjoyed was right at the end where Lola's in the prom dress, bloody and beaten, crawling down the street with a cleaver in-hand.
Outside of that, this was like...Disney presents iCarly in HOSTEL. I am so sick of torture porn. I'm gonna go watch Absentia again.
--PXA
Monday, July 30, 2012
Combat's place in horror games
I got a lot of flack from a few people for disparaging Dead Space as much as I did and engaging in the typical exalting of the early Silent Hill installments last time I talked about games. In the first post, the bit about Dead Space was mainly a footnote so I didn't really explain myself. I never wanted to leave something like that without a good explanation, because that's not fair to the game. But in seeking to flesh out my stance on Dead Space, I started thinking a lot about combat in general since it tends to be such a contentious aspect of horror games.
For the sake of this exercise let's define combat as your single player-character in a direct, weaponized altercation with one-to-n enemy combatants. This should be broad enough to encompass everything I want to talk about while excluding squad-based combat and other non-first person forms of combat.
Combat is obviously the core gameplay mechanic in games like Modern Warfare, Call of Duty, God of War, Prototype, and all their forefathers. Even games like Arkham City and Arkham Asylum where navigation and puzzle-solving often take center stage, combat is a huge mechanic and part of what makes these games notable. And in all these games the purpose of combat is to serve the emotional engagement of making the player feel like a badass (or in the Arkham games: Batman, the ultimate badass). That's what they're for. These games all serve to immerse the player in an environment where they can experience the visceral joy of dominating one's opposition without moral ambiguity.
However, the same sort of combat exists in the survival horror genre in games like Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Dead Space, etc. A lot of these games are about that moral ambiguity, they force the player to make uncomfortable decisions or confront uncomfortable reality. There is no visceral joy to be had here, yet they still involve combat. So in this genre, combat isn't around to make you feel like a badass but why is it around? An easy theory is that combat exists in survival games to place a strain on your resources which forces you to ration instead of simply horde. Without something depleting your supply of ammunition and health restoration items, the game simply doesn't have the stress factor involved with making sure you have enough of everything to make it to the end, which is a significant amount of the point.
While this is true, I think there's deeper engagement. First, the focus on resource maintenance inherent to these games makes each combat situation you survive a Pyrrhic Victory: You live to fight another day, but at what cost? Forcing the player to ask that question in any form keeps them in a state of introspection, and makes sure they don't get too cocky.
The combat also feeds you hope. Survival horror games often have a puzzle solving or key-quest component to go along with their oppressive atmosphere. Unfortunately this can quickly become demoralizing because if your experience of a game is a constant stream of endless puzzles in similar environments it doesn't feel like you're making any progress. But the thrill of combat, of facing down the mutated hellbeast zombie creature and emerging victorious gives a sense of accomplishment. It lifts you up and gives you the feeling that maybe you're capable of making it out of whatever situation you're in alive. Also, the tense and immediate nature of combat raises the pitch of the game briefly making the experience feel more varied, similar to the rising and falling action in the story structure of a book or movie.
Part of the reason combat is so tense is because of how quickly it happens. Decisions have to be made and executed so fast that a wayward second being taken aback by a monster will get you killed. Simply put, you don't have the time to be scared during combat, you just have to react or you probably won't make it out of combat. In an FPS after the post-combat relief you get congratulated, it's a positive payoff because you're told you've done well. In survival horror after combat you have to examine your situation and resources, and get to reflect on whatever unholy face-craving scarecrow you've just seen.
Closing thoughts?
The combat in a horror game serves the same basic purpose of tense action with a feeling of victorious exhilaration when its done, but its use and context within a horror game let it evoke a much wider range of emotions. However, in order for it to evoke the intended emotions it needs to fall into context of a resource-limited survival horror game. Trying to include long combat scenes or waves of enemies doesn't make sense because it becomes too stressful and gives the scene a Contra-like failure rate which prevents it from making the right impact.
--PXA
For the sake of this exercise let's define combat as your single player-character in a direct, weaponized altercation with one-to-n enemy combatants. This should be broad enough to encompass everything I want to talk about while excluding squad-based combat and other non-first person forms of combat.
Combat is obviously the core gameplay mechanic in games like Modern Warfare, Call of Duty, God of War, Prototype, and all their forefathers. Even games like Arkham City and Arkham Asylum where navigation and puzzle-solving often take center stage, combat is a huge mechanic and part of what makes these games notable. And in all these games the purpose of combat is to serve the emotional engagement of making the player feel like a badass (or in the Arkham games: Batman, the ultimate badass). That's what they're for. These games all serve to immerse the player in an environment where they can experience the visceral joy of dominating one's opposition without moral ambiguity.
However, the same sort of combat exists in the survival horror genre in games like Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Dead Space, etc. A lot of these games are about that moral ambiguity, they force the player to make uncomfortable decisions or confront uncomfortable reality. There is no visceral joy to be had here, yet they still involve combat. So in this genre, combat isn't around to make you feel like a badass but why is it around? An easy theory is that combat exists in survival games to place a strain on your resources which forces you to ration instead of simply horde. Without something depleting your supply of ammunition and health restoration items, the game simply doesn't have the stress factor involved with making sure you have enough of everything to make it to the end, which is a significant amount of the point.
While this is true, I think there's deeper engagement. First, the focus on resource maintenance inherent to these games makes each combat situation you survive a Pyrrhic Victory: You live to fight another day, but at what cost? Forcing the player to ask that question in any form keeps them in a state of introspection, and makes sure they don't get too cocky.
The combat also feeds you hope. Survival horror games often have a puzzle solving or key-quest component to go along with their oppressive atmosphere. Unfortunately this can quickly become demoralizing because if your experience of a game is a constant stream of endless puzzles in similar environments it doesn't feel like you're making any progress. But the thrill of combat, of facing down the mutated hellbeast zombie creature and emerging victorious gives a sense of accomplishment. It lifts you up and gives you the feeling that maybe you're capable of making it out of whatever situation you're in alive. Also, the tense and immediate nature of combat raises the pitch of the game briefly making the experience feel more varied, similar to the rising and falling action in the story structure of a book or movie.
Part of the reason combat is so tense is because of how quickly it happens. Decisions have to be made and executed so fast that a wayward second being taken aback by a monster will get you killed. Simply put, you don't have the time to be scared during combat, you just have to react or you probably won't make it out of combat. In an FPS after the post-combat relief you get congratulated, it's a positive payoff because you're told you've done well. In survival horror after combat you have to examine your situation and resources, and get to reflect on whatever unholy face-craving scarecrow you've just seen.
Closing thoughts?
The combat in a horror game serves the same basic purpose of tense action with a feeling of victorious exhilaration when its done, but its use and context within a horror game let it evoke a much wider range of emotions. However, in order for it to evoke the intended emotions it needs to fall into context of a resource-limited survival horror game. Trying to include long combat scenes or waves of enemies doesn't make sense because it becomes too stressful and gives the scene a Contra-like failure rate which prevents it from making the right impact.
--PXA
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
The Beerening: Decoction Mashing, Take 2
Recently, my boss went on a business trip to meet with out clients in Germany and while he was there discovered Kellerbier. Kellerbier, sometimes referred to as Zwicklebier or Zoiglbier, is sort of a German lager version of British cask ale. It's a very young, fresh beer, often served just a few weeks out of primary fermentation with very little carbonation. Unlike cask ale, to which a fining agent like isinglass is added, kellerbier is usually very cloudy due to a lack of extended secondary fermentation. It contains much more proteins and yeast than traditional lager which has been filtered or aged for weeks or months at very low temperatures.
Not much kellerbier is produced commercially and even less of it makes its way to the states, but I did manage to find a bottle of Mönchshof Kellerbier at my local liquor store. After drinking this and reading about the style a little, I set about trying to make my own because I found it an interesting challenge to try to duplicate a traditional style with origins dating back to the middle ages by description alone. Also, trying to impress my boss with a home-grown version of a beer he really liked would probably not go amiss.
What I had tasted was a beer towards the dark side of golden, pretty well balanced without much overt hop character. The beer had a pale malty backbone, evoking buttermilk biscuits. It had a slight aroma of the herbal character European hops are known for as well slightly sulfurous twang of lager yeast. With all this in mind I started to think about a recipe.
Since the unfortunate Wee Heavy incident I've been favoring simple grists and using the process or other means to achieve certain kinds of complexity. This is really similar to Drew Beechum's "Brewing on the 1's" idea from his NHC lecture, see the video here.
When I got to the homebrew supply store I found that at some point during the week a crowd of thirsty brewers intent on making their Marzens for Oktoberfest had descended on the shop and cleared it of Munich malt. So I had to modify my malt bill. So, err...ahem
One thing I should mention, since I didn't know this when I was just reading about decoction mashes. When you pull the thick mash it will be very dry looking, like a porridge without enough water. It will have very deep cracks and seem like it'll scorch long before it bubbles. It's not needed to add more water because as the mash sits on the heat getting stirred it will soften up and liquid will come out of it. It's similar to making egg nog, when you add the sugar to the yolks it's very dry and crackly, but as you mash it it slowly becomes a thick syrupy liquid.
Also, this took me by surprise as well. When you decoction mash, I think because of the protein rest you get this weird film that settles on your grain bed. It looks kindof like break material from the boil, which it sort of is since it's also coagulated proteins and peptides. It's nothing bad, it just looks really weird.
As my punishment for misplaced trust, I was mashing for almost 5 hours. When I finally went to sparge, it was absurdly cloudy. I normally don't recirculate, but I felt like I had to this time. Also, it was draining incredibly slowly. I'm not sure if there is something wedged in my braid/valve or if the sparge was sticking as a result of degrading the grain husk material by boiling it. Eventually I managed to collect just over 6 gallons of 1.049 SG wort, which slightly undershoots the volume I was hoping to collect, but is a slightly higher gravity than what I was predicting. I probably could have drained a little more but it was taking forever.
I've yet to have a problem with DMS from using pilsner malt, but I decided to err on the side of caution and extended my boil to 75 minutes. I hit my boil, waited 15 minutes and started my regular boil schedule adding Northern Brewer, Irish Moss, and Perle at the appropriate times.
When the boil was done I chilled down, but after running for about an hour I was only down into the 70s. By this point I'd been at it for almost 9 hours, so I decided to just rack to the ferment, leave the sediment in the kettle instead of trying to strain it out and call it a day. I wound up pitching a 2L starter of Wyeast Bavarian Lager into 4 gallons of 1.053 OG wort. If I leave the fermenter directly in front of an air conditioning vent I discovered I can get down into the mid 50s, which is perfectly adequate for a primary lager fermentation. Since this is a kellerbier, I won't be doing a long and cold secondary fermentation.
It's taken about 40 hours to start showing signs of life, so I'm going to let it ferment as cold as I can justify keeping my apartment for about 14 days. Then I think I can let it rise to the high 60's, maybe 70 for 2-3 days for something resembling a diacetyl rest before racking it to the keg where I'll probably condition while carbonating under about 8PSI at 45F for a week before starting to serve. Here's hoping it works out.
Drink on!
--PXA
Not much kellerbier is produced commercially and even less of it makes its way to the states, but I did manage to find a bottle of Mönchshof Kellerbier at my local liquor store. After drinking this and reading about the style a little, I set about trying to make my own because I found it an interesting challenge to try to duplicate a traditional style with origins dating back to the middle ages by description alone. Also, trying to impress my boss with a home-grown version of a beer he really liked would probably not go amiss.
What I had tasted was a beer towards the dark side of golden, pretty well balanced without much overt hop character. The beer had a pale malty backbone, evoking buttermilk biscuits. It had a slight aroma of the herbal character European hops are known for as well slightly sulfurous twang of lager yeast. With all this in mind I started to think about a recipe.
Since the unfortunate Wee Heavy incident I've been favoring simple grists and using the process or other means to achieve certain kinds of complexity. This is really similar to Drew Beechum's "Brewing on the 1's" idea from his NHC lecture, see the video here.
Schloss Westtor zweikatzen mit zweimaischverfahren altbier im kellerAs I mentioned in the last post a decoction mash is a mash where you pull an amount of the thick mash and boil it in a separate vessel before adding it back to the main mash to raise the temperature. This is a good way to do a mash with rests at multiple temperatures when you're not able to directly heat your mash, like if you're mashing in a wood vat or...a Rubbermaid cooler. Beersmith's default double decoction schedule includes a 35 minute protein rest at 122F before adding the first decoction, which is why I included the pound of flaked barley. Low protein rests like this can sometimes be detrimental to modern malts, actually breaking down too many proteins and ruining the beer's head and mouthfeel while having the opposite affect on older, less modified malts. A low temp protein rest like this is recommended when working with significant amounts of flaked grains, so I added some. I would use decoction boils to step up to 147F and then 156F before mashing out at 168F. All this would get me an OG of 1.052 with 36 IBUs. Also, I'm using the Bohemian Lager yeast because of the Lager Workarounds episode of Brewing TV, where they fermented that strain at ale temperatures and still had the beer turn out very lager-like. Or at least, that was the plan.
10lbs Munich
1lb Flaked Barley
1oz German Northern Brewer @ 60 minutes
1oz Perle @ 5 minutes
Ferment with Wyeast Bohemian Lager (2124)
When I got to the homebrew supply store I found that at some point during the week a crowd of thirsty brewers intent on making their Marzens for Oktoberfest had descended on the shop and cleared it of Munich malt. So I had to modify my malt bill. So, err...ahem
Schloss Westtor zweikatzen mit zweimaischverfahren altbier im kellerMy mash was a downright disaster. Unfortunately instead of using Dawson's 1qt thick mash/1lb grist formula from the Brewing TV Decoction Day episode, I elected to trust Beersmith's decoction volumes and only pulled 7 quarts for my first decoction instead of 11. I boiled the decoction during the protein rest, but when I added it back in I didn't quite hit 147F. I had to pull a few more quarts and boil again to make up the difference before starting the beta-saccrification rest. My second decoction, which I started just a few minutes later was plagued by similar conditions. So while I've technically performed a viermaischverfahren, I'm going to continue calling this the double decoction it would have been had I listened to Michael Dawson.
2.5lbs Munich
3.75lbs Vienna
3.75lbs Pilsner
1lb Flaked Barley
1oz German Northern Brewer @ 60 minutes
1oz Perle @ 5 minutes
Ferment with Wyeast Bohemian Lager (2124)
One thing I should mention, since I didn't know this when I was just reading about decoction mashes. When you pull the thick mash it will be very dry looking, like a porridge without enough water. It will have very deep cracks and seem like it'll scorch long before it bubbles. It's not needed to add more water because as the mash sits on the heat getting stirred it will soften up and liquid will come out of it. It's similar to making egg nog, when you add the sugar to the yolks it's very dry and crackly, but as you mash it it slowly becomes a thick syrupy liquid.
Also, this took me by surprise as well. When you decoction mash, I think because of the protein rest you get this weird film that settles on your grain bed. It looks kindof like break material from the boil, which it sort of is since it's also coagulated proteins and peptides. It's nothing bad, it just looks really weird.
 |
| Check it. |
As my punishment for misplaced trust, I was mashing for almost 5 hours. When I finally went to sparge, it was absurdly cloudy. I normally don't recirculate, but I felt like I had to this time. Also, it was draining incredibly slowly. I'm not sure if there is something wedged in my braid/valve or if the sparge was sticking as a result of degrading the grain husk material by boiling it. Eventually I managed to collect just over 6 gallons of 1.049 SG wort, which slightly undershoots the volume I was hoping to collect, but is a slightly higher gravity than what I was predicting. I probably could have drained a little more but it was taking forever.
I've yet to have a problem with DMS from using pilsner malt, but I decided to err on the side of caution and extended my boil to 75 minutes. I hit my boil, waited 15 minutes and started my regular boil schedule adding Northern Brewer, Irish Moss, and Perle at the appropriate times.
When the boil was done I chilled down, but after running for about an hour I was only down into the 70s. By this point I'd been at it for almost 9 hours, so I decided to just rack to the ferment, leave the sediment in the kettle instead of trying to strain it out and call it a day. I wound up pitching a 2L starter of Wyeast Bavarian Lager into 4 gallons of 1.053 OG wort. If I leave the fermenter directly in front of an air conditioning vent I discovered I can get down into the mid 50s, which is perfectly adequate for a primary lager fermentation. Since this is a kellerbier, I won't be doing a long and cold secondary fermentation.
It's taken about 40 hours to start showing signs of life, so I'm going to let it ferment as cold as I can justify keeping my apartment for about 14 days. Then I think I can let it rise to the high 60's, maybe 70 for 2-3 days for something resembling a diacetyl rest before racking it to the keg where I'll probably condition while carbonating under about 8PSI at 45F for a week before starting to serve. Here's hoping it works out.
Drink on!
--PXA
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Horror Off-Season: Asylum Blackout
I don't have too much to say here, but since I had put it on the to-do list I should make an entry about it.
The Incident was released in Europe in 2011 and released in the U.S. in 2012 as Asylum Blackout. It was Alexandre Courtès', formerly one half of the music video directing duo Alex and Martin, feature directorial debut. Despite the English script and American cast, this seems to be part of the New Wave of French Horror that has been making quite an impact lately. The movement seems to be characterized by gritty realism, extreme graphic violence, and a left-field psychological twist ending. That last one is mostly just my observation from the few movies I've seen.
Asylum Blackout is set in what looks to be the late 80s in an asylum for the criminally insane. It focuses mostly on the kitchen staff at said asylum, who are also in a band together. Their relationship is oddly antagonistic for people who are supposed to be friends, although they do have some good moments where they show that they really are looking out for each other before the insanity begins.
The inciting event here is that there is a very bad storm raging outside that blows out the power at the asylum, which for some reason has no backup generators and I think like 3 security officers. The lights go out, which for some reason triggers a group of inmates led by Richard Brake (he played the creepy pervert in the Doom movie) to riot. They free all the other inmates who proceed to brutally maim and murder the staff.
Most of the meat of the movie is really dark, with a lot of contrast. It makes everything look really sharp and dangerous which lends to the unsafe atmosphere they seem to be going for, but it also makes it really hard to follow sometimes. I quickly found myself disoriented and lost. I didn't know where we were in the asylum, who people were, or what they were trying to do. I was just watching "things" happen. It led to me losing interest and realizing I missed huge swaths of movie that I would then go back to try to rewatch, only to realize I'd actually seen these parts but couldn't tell the scenes apart.
The gore is really convincing and uncomfortable and the setups for the tortures are really deranged. I was doing a lot of "Oh...no...don't do... oh.. just... ew." But that's about all it was. There's no motivation to the inmates' actions except to be cruel and violent, so the writers may be trying to make some point about the senselessness of violence.
The film seems pretty well put together, narratively, but the low lighting made it hard to follow. The extreme brutality without purpose thing has really become quite boring to me at this point, and while I would call it horrific it's just not what I want out of a horror movie. The very end of the movie is also one of those left-field moments that I don't think anyone saw coming. I guess it's supposed to be showing that George's shattered psyche has trapped him forever in some hellish nightmare version of his workplace because of what happened. It's a bit confusing, but probably my favorite part of the movie because of how surreal it is. It's bizarre and actually creepy, instead of just shocking.
If it's your cup of tea, it's probably a very fun watch...but you've been warned about how weird the ending gets.
--PXA
The Incident was released in Europe in 2011 and released in the U.S. in 2012 as Asylum Blackout. It was Alexandre Courtès', formerly one half of the music video directing duo Alex and Martin, feature directorial debut. Despite the English script and American cast, this seems to be part of the New Wave of French Horror that has been making quite an impact lately. The movement seems to be characterized by gritty realism, extreme graphic violence, and a left-field psychological twist ending. That last one is mostly just my observation from the few movies I've seen.
Asylum Blackout is set in what looks to be the late 80s in an asylum for the criminally insane. It focuses mostly on the kitchen staff at said asylum, who are also in a band together. Their relationship is oddly antagonistic for people who are supposed to be friends, although they do have some good moments where they show that they really are looking out for each other before the insanity begins.
The inciting event here is that there is a very bad storm raging outside that blows out the power at the asylum, which for some reason has no backup generators and I think like 3 security officers. The lights go out, which for some reason triggers a group of inmates led by Richard Brake (he played the creepy pervert in the Doom movie) to riot. They free all the other inmates who proceed to brutally maim and murder the staff.
Most of the meat of the movie is really dark, with a lot of contrast. It makes everything look really sharp and dangerous which lends to the unsafe atmosphere they seem to be going for, but it also makes it really hard to follow sometimes. I quickly found myself disoriented and lost. I didn't know where we were in the asylum, who people were, or what they were trying to do. I was just watching "things" happen. It led to me losing interest and realizing I missed huge swaths of movie that I would then go back to try to rewatch, only to realize I'd actually seen these parts but couldn't tell the scenes apart.
The gore is really convincing and uncomfortable and the setups for the tortures are really deranged. I was doing a lot of "Oh...no...don't do... oh.. just... ew." But that's about all it was. There's no motivation to the inmates' actions except to be cruel and violent, so the writers may be trying to make some point about the senselessness of violence.
The film seems pretty well put together, narratively, but the low lighting made it hard to follow. The extreme brutality without purpose thing has really become quite boring to me at this point, and while I would call it horrific it's just not what I want out of a horror movie. The very end of the movie is also one of those left-field moments that I don't think anyone saw coming. I guess it's supposed to be showing that George's shattered psyche has trapped him forever in some hellish nightmare version of his workplace because of what happened. It's a bit confusing, but probably my favorite part of the movie because of how surreal it is. It's bizarre and actually creepy, instead of just shocking.
If it's your cup of tea, it's probably a very fun watch...but you've been warned about how weird the ending gets.
--PXA
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