Resident Evil 7 Demo: A Quick Look

Resident Evil 7: Demo
Rating: Holy shit that's cool

Resident Evil, it's been a long time since you've been considered a true horror.  Much like the Dead Space series, you jumped the horror ship straight into the waters of action-based gameplay and, admittedly, probably lost quite a few fans in the process.  The horror fans, at least.  While I admit I'm still fairly new to a lot of games and hadn't played anything worth mentioning until relatively recently, I've made up for a lot of lost time pretty quickly.  But if there's one thing I'm sure of, it's that fans of the original horror-centric games are getting a breath of fresh air with a lot of upcoming releases.

Among those are Capcom's Resident Evil 7 and Kojima's Death Stranding.  And while we're still wracked with pain and anger (mostly anger) over the loss of Silent Hills, (fuck you, Konami) it looks like Capcom's giving us this badass looking Resident Evil game. It probably won't beat out my hype for Death Stranding because RE doesn't have Norman Reedus or Sink Baby, but that's a focus for another review.  For now, let's see what's going on in the RE world.

The demo starts out in the best possible way, throwing you right into it with no explanations and no time to understand before throwing you into the actual gameplay section, where it only gives you one mission and then leaves you to wander.  How better to set an atmosphere for spine-tingling than with next to no instruction and a sudden need to escape your immediate surroundings?  With slow movements and questionable noises, of course!  And we have plenty of that to go around!  The way the game starts out with a preset low controller sensitivity instantly throws you into a slow, cautious, 'there is obviously something right around this corner' air, which puts most people off right off the bat.  While it could just be seen as a weirdly inconvenient presetting, it honestly adds more to the atmosphere than you'd normally expect, especially since most people change it up as soon as they realize they can.

On top of the slow movements, the demo is filled with both subtle and sudden noises all around the player, an extremely vital factor in any game.  Without the right sounds, or lack thereof in some cases, it's almost impossible to correctly set a tone.  These noises keep you on your tones and checking your back at all times, keeping you consistently tensed without there even being anything there.  You're not going to find much throughout that house for most of the game, except for key moments, but you're always going to waiting for it, and that's the important part.

Not much of the bigger story can be really been seen through this quick, terrifying demo, but it certainly does a great job of setting it up to keep you guessing and wanting to know more.  Best of all, you can keep looking for more hints and tips towards the story of the unfortunate victims and the family that used to inhabit the house by replaying the demo and searching new areas, trying new things, and unveiling pieces you may not have seen before.  While on your first playthrough of it you may just want to hurry and get on out of there as quickly and painlessly as possible and miss several details, but you may also be inclined to play through a second, third, even fourth time, each time with new information you've gathered from the last to try new situations.  Pull the lever right from the get-go, open the drawer first-hand so you can get what's in there later on, figure out where that mannequin finger goes... each time finding something new and unravelling more mysteries about your situation.

It's not a huge demo, but it gives a lot to discover, explore, test, and theorize about... all while being scared out of your wits the entire time.  It's certainly the first time in a long time I've been on-edge just watching someone play, let alone playing it myself, so I'm excited for the full release.  I just hope they're able to deliver on this hefty promise of tantalizing horror.  I'd hate to see a repeat of the disappointment from Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs (a decent game that just couldn't live up to Amnesia: The Dark Descent)..... or worse, Silent Hills. (fuck you again, Konami)

We're excited, Capcom, don't betray us.

This demo is amazing and I can't recommend it enough, I just hope the full game lives up to its blazing potential.  I'm skeptical, it's hard to go from action to horror, but it looks like they've got a good handle back on it.

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge Review

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

By Ambrose Bierce

Rating: Chills

Themes/Genres:    Psychological, Short Story, Horror; Death, Nature of Time, Illusions

Main Characters:   Peyton Farquhar

Overview:

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is a tale of a Southern man in the time of the Civil War, pining for a soldier's life he can't have, and sacrificing his life to assist his side of the war.  Taking the subtle advice from a passing Confederate soldier, he goes to burn a bridge the Union is trying to rebuild only to be caught and hung in the early morning hours on Owl Creek Bridge.

During the process, the rope broken and he's plunged into the river below, giving him the opportunity to escape and return to the family that filled his final thoughts.  Through much trial he finally makes it home to his wife, who is waiting with open arms, before reality returns and his life ends on the end of a rope on Owl Creek Bridge.

Main Review:

A short story written in 1890, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge has had several adaptations, inspired many works of art such as songs, albums, plays, and many more stories, and is another work of fiction that helped shaped the written world.  It’s been directly and indirectly noted in everything from heavy metal songs like “The Hanging Soldier” to an episode of the Simpsons where the class is putting on a play of the story, itself. Over 100 years after its publication, this classic story is still reaching audiences.

And it certainly deserves to be.

While in today’s era of horror the ending of “he was actually dead, after all” isn’t the most shocking revelation in the world and has been done countless times, it’s oftentimes done incorrectly.  Either it’s made far too obvious with no subtlety whatsoever, or it comes completely out of left-field with no indication that it’s even an option.  Owl Creek Bridge doesn’t have that problem.

There are recurring themes and hints throughout the story that, if paid attention to, indicate the twist ending the entire time and keeps the story connected to itself, without becoming too belligerently obvious.  One of the examples of this is the repeated appearance of the color grey.  The grey suit on the Confederate soldier, the grey eyes in both him and one of the sentinels, and the grey sky under which he escapes, they all convey the idea of a clouded sense of reality, misleading illusions and obsessions.

Another is the driftwood that appears under the bridge, distracting Peyton from his thoughts of his wife and children as he comments on how incredibly slow it seems to be moving despite the seemingly rushing water of the river.  It’s a parallel to the slowing and fluidity of time, often described by those on the verge of death.  It becomes an extension of himself, floating down the river to freedom.

A final note is the disproportionately acute senses Peyton acquires after his escape from the rope and yet the strangely detached view of his own body.  It shows the increased gap between him and reality, as his physical body remains in place at the end of the rope, his raw senses have to make up for the detachment by going into an inaccurate overload.  It allows him to slip into his full fantasy of escape.

All of these are consistent enough that they can be pointed out and connected, especially after a second or third read through, but are also written well enough that on a first read-through it still accomplishes the point of a twist, the brief shock.  While this isn’t necessarily the most ‘horror’ of stories, it’s certainly a well-written piece of work and deserves the read.  Just maybe not so much if you’re looking for a nightmare-fueled night.  While the idea that anything you could be experiencing right now could potentially only be a pre-death illusion is a scary enough thought, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is far less nightmare and far more time slows down and the world melts away in the most poetic, fashion.

It’s an English teacher’s wet dream with its brilliant placed and thought-out metaphors, but maybe not the scariest story on the block.

A Nightmare On Elm Street Review

A Nightmare on Elm Street

Rating: Instant fav

Themes/Genres: Horror, Human vs Supernatural, Gore/Slasher

Main Characters: Nancy Thompson, Freddy Krueger

Ah the 80’s, a great period for music, fashion, and especially… slasher movies.  Some of the best classics came from the 80’s, including my lifetime favorite, A Nightmare on Elm Street.  A movie that came out before I was even born but, just like Guns n’ Roses and leg warmers, still had a huge impact on my life.  So why don’t we take a look at what made it the instant-classic it is?

Right from its initial release, A Nightmare on Elm Street was a box office hit.  Not only was it credited with completely revitalizing the horror genre, with huge impacts on the slasher genre specifically, it was an instant success, spawning several sequels, a TV series, a crossover with the other horror giant at the time Friday the 13^th, and a remake in 2010.  Even with some very 80’s campiness that certainly didn’t hold up over time, the movie still holds a 7.5/10 on IMDb and remains a favorite among many.

It’s certainly mine.  Until The Ring came out, Freddy was my personal, unchallenged horror movie favorite and will always hold the title of childhood favorite.

In A Nightmare on Elm Street, Nancy Thompson and a group of friends are hanging out one evening after they have a particularly frightening, and similar, dream one night.  What starts out as a normal night of 80's teen shenanigans, turns into a blood-soaked nightmare by the early hours of the morning when one of the girls is slaughtered mercilessly by an invisible man in front of her horrified boyfriend.  By morning, the police are after the boyfriend but it's clear to Nancy that there's more to the story, especially when she falls asleep in class and, following the bloody body of her dead friend, she meets the killer herself.

Nancy then has to try to solve the mysteries of the burned dream killer and find a way to defeat him before she and her remaining friends meet the same fate.  The line between reality and dreams becomes blurred but Nancy is determined to find the answers… because one, two, Freddy’s coming for you and if she doesn’t wake up screaming, she won’t wake up at all.

The music and sound effects in this movie are enough to send chills down people’s spines every time they hear for years to come, even coming with its own kid’s jump rope song for an extra little addition that you won’t realize the significance of until later on in the movie.  The theme song, itself, is beautifully crafted and the opening scene of the movie is a grand setup for the overall atmosphere of the movie.  It sets a movie that knows how to create suspense, something horror movie directors are still struggling to do even nowadays.

(Though the goat still confuses me.  Why goat?)

Then you meet the unfortunate victims of this setting.  Just an unsuspecting group of teenagers, one being the heroine of our story, Nancy Thompson.  She’s a relatively level-headed girl who just wants to help a friend feel better, but turns into a survivalist badass by the end of the movie, set on destroying the thing hunting her friends, even if she has to face down her own parents to do it.  Three, four, better lock your door.  When it becomes clear that her parents know a lot more than they’re letting on about the killer, she demands answers and looks for them however she can.  Even when she’s the only one of her friends left and everyone’s pegged her as crazy, she still keeps an eye on what has to be done and does it.

On the other hand of the situation there’s Fred Krueger, a serial killer turned supernatural dream killer.  A fucked up individual to start with only made stronger in death where sleep is his playground.  Those long, sharp claws will forever haunt the nightmares of the residents of Springwood, Ohio as well as the audience in front of the screen.  Five, six, grab your crucifix.

The film does its absolute best to blur the lines between reality and the dreams Freddy resides in to keep you guessing which is which.  It creates seamless transitions from reality to dream by keeping environments the same and the cuts natural, it isn’t until that dark figure in the distance shows up, stretching his clawed arms out that you realize it’s a dream.  Once the realization is made, though, the movie replaces your suspense with horrifying images of Freddy slicing his own body, no shortage of disgusting bugs none of us want to be near, and bloodied, talking corpses in clear body bags.  It’s a true nightmare that’s kept plenty up at night,  good thing that’s where you’ll want to be if you want to avoid Freddy in the first place.  Seven, eight, better stay up late.

In the end, Nancy finally confronts Freddy on her own turf after pulling him into the real world, facing the true reality of the situation and seems to come off on the winning side of it.  With Freddy’s defeat, she gets her friends and her mother back and life returns to normal… except for that weird fog.  The movie leads you to believe Nancy won, that Freddy’s been defeated, simply by the power of belief, an honestly lame ending if you ask me… but it psyches you out one last time in the best possible way.  You can’t kill Freddy.  He only lets you play longer.

A Nightmare on Elm Street lives up to its title and is a truly nightmare-inducing creation, I can’t recommend it enough to anyone who hasn’t seen it yet… somehow… it’s always going to be worth the few extra nights of lost sleep.

Nine, Ten… Never sleep again.