John Carpenters The Thing got it’s own game. So did Gremlins 2, and The City of Lost Children. Evil Dead got two of its own games, and neither of them very good. Actually, none of the movie-to-game adaptations I’ve named so far have been very good; but they all could have been. I believe there is an untapped potential for a unity between horror films and videogames, as the two have more in common than some realize.
Fear is what scary movies are all about, and fear is most intensely felt when you think you’re going to die. Videogames, from Asteroids to Space Invaders, have always been better than movies at capturing that feeling for me. Almost all videogames end when you die, where most movies — even the scariest ones — end with at least one main character surviving. Like horror movies, videogames have always been more about fending off attacks and escaping doom than anything else; more about action and atmosphere than dialog and character development.
For these reasons (and I guess because it’s Halloween), Destructoid presents the top ten scary movies that should get the videogame adaptation treatment. Hit the jump for the full list, with text and video to accompany each entry.
[Thanks to YouTube and the Internet for making this all possible]
10) Cube
Cube is the story of some shiny losers who get stuck in a giant mechanical cube puzzle that kills them … frequently. It already sounds more like a premise for a videogame than a movie, so taking the puzzles found in the film and extrapolating on them is all a game developer would have to do to make this one happen. Just imagine Echochrome minus the perspective-based gameplay — and with realistic looking environments, characters, and eviscerations — and you’ve got Cube: The Game.
9) Interview with a Vampire
Assasin’s Creed proved that a sandbox game could also be a period-piece and still strike a chord with hardcore gamers. Take Assassin’s Creed, but give Altair the powers of a vampire, the need to kill to survive, and a dysfunctional family dynamic with Tom Cruise and a young Kirsten Dunst, and you have Interview with a Vampire: The Game. Making new vampires, fighting rival vampires, and getting your ass in bed before the sun comes up would all be a part of the gameplay, but the real draw would be wandering the streets of New Orleans and just doing whatever the hell you want.
Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt already looked like they were on the wrong side of the Uncanny Valley in this movie, so for them to make the jump to the world of videogames wouldn’t be such a stretch.
8) The Toxic Avenger
OK, so the Toxic Avenger already had his own game. Forget that ever happened (if you hadn’t already) and just imagine an AO-rated, ultra-violent, 3D beat ’em up in the style of Devil May Cry, except with one hundred percent more toxic-frialator-inflicted mutilations. Now put the Toxic Avenger in the title role, pit him against all of his known enemies (jocks, perverts, Ron Jeremy, the fat and corrupt), and you’ll begin to see why The Toxic Avenger: The Game could become a modern-day classic.
7) Zombi 2
Videogames starring zombies aren’t new. Videogames starring zombies who go toe-to-toe, chomper-to-chomper with a live (non-zombie) sharks? That’s something that I’ve never seen in a game before, and I’m willing to bet folks would pay top dollar for the experience.
Zombi 2 is a movie about zombies. There are people in it too, but they are mostly there so the zombies had something entertaining to eat. The sharks are the only real competition the zombies have in this pursuit of human flesh, so it would make sense for Zombi 2: The game to be based around that premise.
A game where zombies eat people, sharks eat people, zombies eat sharks, and sharks eat zombies.
Who wouldn’t pre-order it?
6) Pan’s Labyrinth
Say what you will about Eternity Child’s Luc Bernard, but he’s got some damn good ideas for videogames. One of those good ideas was Imagination is The Only Escape, a game about a young boy whose fantasies are his only way to deal with the fear and oppression of Nazi occupation.
The only criticism I have of the game is that it sounds almost exactly like Pan’s Labyrinth, a movie about a little girl who may or may not be imagining a variety of freaky-ass creatures as a way of dealing with her mother’s engagement to a psuedo-Nazi scumbag.
Play as a defenseless child caught between a military occupation and attacks from scary-as-fuck monsters? Sign me up. The scariest part of Resident Evil 2 for me is always the short sequence where you have to play as Sherry Birkin. Make a whole game out of that, and use the story and creature design from Pan’s Labyrinth, and you have yourself a game worth playing.
5) Hotel Hell
There aren’t many survival-horror games where you play as the bad guy, which would make Hotel Hell: The Game even more special. Playing as hotel manager and chef Vincent, in this cooking-sim-survival horror title would work to make the player feel disgusted with themselves in a way that the Grand Theft Auto series only dreams of doing.
Flirt with your sweet and chubby sidekick; set traps; catch people; plant them in your garden; cook them for dinner; stick your noggin in a pig’s head for the occasional chainsaw duel with your no-good sheriff brother … you’ve got gameplay that’s heaven-sent. As for downloadable content, wiggling burlap sacks have already proven to be worth almost any price (just ask Sony).
4) Audition
If you’ve seen any of those “Top 100 Horror Movie of All Time” shows on TV, then you’ve probably heard of this movie. One could say it’s story about a lot of things, but at its core, it’s about being a middle-aged man so desperate for love that he’s willing to do anything for his girlfriend, including losing some limbs.
Dating sim plus survival horror equals win. First, you seek the love. Then, you get badly dismembered. Then, you seek more love. Then, you get badly dismembered again. That’s a pattern that probably sounds more like real life to people than it should, which is all the more reason that this game could be great.
3) The Mist
Poor The Mist. Based on its name, everyone thought it was going to be like The Fog (which is why no one saw it). It’s shame, because The Mist is one of the most psychologically tense and riveting horror films of the last ten years, and it could make an amazing game.
It could be like Silent Hill but less avante garde, more realistic, and packed with even more terrifing creature encounters. Dealing with fellow human survivors, making your way through the mist, and just trying to keep yourself emotionally and phyiscally secure would be more than enough to keep things entertaining. Add some Metal Gear Solid 4-style integration of cinemas with gameplay, and an ending that forces you to do some stuff that really couldn’t be much more awful, and you have the ultimate feel-bad game of the year.
2) The Descent
Another movie more people should have seen, this film makes you feel like crap from beginning to end. The game adaptation could make you feel even worse, with a prolonged decent into the sickening world of woman-on-woman bickering, dark enclosed spaces, and flesh nibbling cave trolls.
In the game, you’d be forced to control a team of relatively defenseless ladies in their efforts to escape what is effectively Hell on Earth. The trolls on your case use sound to track their prey, so staying silent in an environment rife with hazards and unreliable lighting, and few avenues of escape, would make for a unique gameplay experience; one part Metal Gear Solid, one part Dead Space (but in a cave). Mix in some crazed teammates turning against you, and you have survival-horror gold just waiting to be mined.
1) They Live
This is the movie, “scary” or otherwise, that needs to be made into a videogame. They Live is about a down-on-his-luck contruction worker who ends up getting some sunglasses that show that his world is populated by aliens, aliens who are controlling our minds with advertising, sitcoms, and politics.
With Metroid Prime‘s visor system, a GTA style open world, Dead Rising‘s combat and experience point system, unique social commentary, endless threat from the aliens, and endless potential to for violence, this game is a guaranteed success. It would fill a gap in the action/comedy/horror/satire genre that I’ve yet to see any other game take on. Like Saint’s Row 2, the game could be more than just a GTA clone, and instead suck in gamers that are normally turned off by GTA‘s harsh reality.
The main things keeping some people from getting into GTA is the fact that the gameplay stays pretty much the same from beginning to end, and the game requires you to be terrible to other people, which believe it or not, is still a turn-off for some. They Live: the game would do away with both of those problems. As the game progresses, you could end up doing battle with more and more dangerous types of aliens, so the action would never get stale. More importantly, you could still steal cars, rob banks, and do various other crimes, but in this game you’d be doing them against people who are secretly aliens, which makes it more like a public service.
Or, the game could consist of nothing but a ten minute fist-fight against Keith David. Either way, we win.
So, what did you think? Any movies I miss?
