How to Please a Goth (Without Using a Choke Chain and Leather Flogger) - Part One

(The following post is in collaboration with Fiona of Scenes From the Cutting Room Floor; check her out some time, she's a'ight)

Good evening, fine readers, apologies for the late post. Seeing as tomorrow is Halloween, the one with all the spooky stuff and such, and my good friend Fiona is one of those weird Goth-types (super-effective against Fairy) I thought it might be a nice idea to amalgamate my ambivalence towards the two and collect them under a more interesting topic: video games.

Nothing brings people together like a healthy dose of asthenopia and passive aggression.

It's always interesting to see how outside parties view our favourite pastime (behind binge eating and masturbation) so I sat down with Fiona and we skimmed through the rich history of video games to find a collection of gaming gems that, through their design choices, gameplay, story or atmosphere, speak not only to our own scaly, pale, cloudy-eyed race, but theirs too.

Heck, we're only one zombie bite apart in the family tree.

This little ode to all things spooky will be split into two posts; the first focussing on the games of old, here meaning anything made before LucasArts ceased to exist, and the second on newer additions to the gaming world. Before we begin, here is a little message from our sponsor:

Fiona:

"Boo."

N’yello, folks! I mean, ‘darkest greetings’ and all that. This is Fiona/Fee/that weirdo with the bats and stuff, author of Scenes from the Cutting Room Floor and arch frenemy of Ben. I'm a 5’5” Glasweigan Medic studying in Dundee, who likes Pina Coladas and getting caught in the rain if you replace pina coladas with skulls and unsuspecting showers with morbid songs about peeing in sweet shops. I blog mainly about gothic lifestyle, fashion and feminist issues (so virtually nothing like this one), and to commemorate the grand auld day that is All Hallow’s Eve (as well as being my favourite day of the year, it was a rainy Halloween that I first met Benjamin here) I thought I would team up with boy blunder and combine our two passions – goth and gaming.

Not like this though.

This was partially as an exercise to educate him on what Goth is (a music based subculture originating in the eighties post punk scene [Ben: blah, blah (Fiona: you cheeky shit!)] featuring dark and melancholic themes, I’ll have you know), which he seems to be woefully confused about, and also because, sadly, I am not a gamer. I've tried, and I have what can only be classified as some kind of motor neurone problem that means my limbs don’t do what I want them to, explains a lot of my dancing and makes gaming fantastically difficult. However, there is a significant crossover between goths and nerds, which means that games which appreciate the dark beauty and moody atmosphere of the gothic mind set can only be appreciated, and are all the more likely to get me in front of a console.

So without further ado, onwards with the post!

Castlevania - NES (1987)

Fiona:

In Ben’s words when he suggested this to me, "game, set, match. Go pack up your things and go home". Other than if someone actually does a Bauhaus inspired game where you have to help Peter Murphy find his clothes (the difficulty level would be insane, considering the singer seems to own so few), the Castlevania series is the spookiest goddamn action-adventure you can get for your consoles. 

Whilst the format varies from game to game, typically you as the gamer have to battle werewolves, vampires and other beasties in your attempt to find and kill Dracula (usually I have a problem with projects that have the name Dracula slapped on without much relevance to the original book, but I’ll make an exception for this). Whilst the original is in true 8-bit format, there has clearly been dedication in it’s attempt to create a classic horror aesthetic, and even in the lesser graphics of the early games it achieves it. The series has a wide variety of different formats, from the platforms of the early games to the action-adventure of the newer ones. With glorious ruined castles, classic horror monsters and sneaky wee references to horror actors such as Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi and others in the credits, it’s everything I could hope for in a game franchise, distilled.

Ben:

First of all, I have to make a confession. The ROM I downloaded for us to play the original Castlevania (I’m poor - I’ll buy it eventually) turned out to be in Portuguese so I’ve no idea what’s going on, all the boss characters seem to be called Chefe so I assume the game is something to do with satanic medieval kitchen staff.

Whatever's going on, this Ponto guy seems to be full of Vida.

If you're my age or younger and don’t have a fascination with things older than you that look like they were scribbled on the back of a cereal box, play the 2010 reboot Lords of Shadow instead. It’s awesome in its own right with some lovely hack-and-slash combo fighting and even RPG elements what with upgradeable weapons and such. Plus my Japanese man-crush, Hideo “ninety-minute cutscene” Kojima, produced it so, yeah, that. But I’ll focus on the original because that’s what’s in front of me right now.

I’ll be honest, it hasn't aged well. I've rattled through the first two boss fights (on turbo controller settings, granted) in an easy fifteen minutes, so the challenge is only there if you’re not familiar with a platforming game like this already. As this is also featured on Fiona's blog I’ll assume half of you, the readers, are not. I hate to make assumptions, but life is a hell of a lot easier that way.

An artist's conception of the common goth.

As I said, from a gaming stand-point the original iteration of the series has fallen behind a little in their old age, and even compared to other titles of a similar age it doesn't quite stand up. The game doesn't feel quite as empowering as the wonderfully brutal Ninja Gaiden, but there’s still fun to be had whacking suits of armour, giant bats, mummies and a variety of other baddies with your giant chain of justice or whatever its called. Plus, the ageing is both expected and allowed for a game that literally lends half of its name to the genre it gave birth to. 

Frankly there's no reason not to have a go; if you're literate and have an internet connection you can try a piece of gaming history for free with an emulator and a foreign ROM, like me. So be like your good old uncle Ben and whoop some gothic-themed ass.

Spoiler: The final boss is Dracula.

Or, as my version calls him, Head Chefe.

Fester's Quest - NES (1989)

Fiona:

So I lied about Castlevania. It doesn’t have the Addam’s Family in it, and therefore is imperfect.

What’s more goth than the original creepy kooky family? Fester’s Quest is a less well known Addam’s Family game for the NES console of the eighties, and is one of only five games released under the franchise’s name (apparently the rest aren’t fabulous, so we’ll gloss over them). In it, you play as Uncle Fester, as you attempt to save the local town from alien invasion - the actual setting design isn’t terribly spooky, with lots of hot dog stands and generic paths and fences (though there are rat infested sewers and strange amorphous blobs throughout).

Ben actually ordered this as a surprise when I was struck down with the plague mutation of the flu (by which I mean he played it for an entire weekend whilst I was couch bound and occasionally offered me the controller between bouts of hacking up my lungs), and having played it it’s a lot of fun; it’s a simple game for those who aren’t super-mega-pro-gamers - though infuriating in it’s confusing layout and how it sends you back to the start if you die - and there are lots of tender nods to the sixties TV series that it’s based on (including nooses that summon Lurch to destroy all on-screen enemies, which is a touch of genius). It’s a fairly standard NES game otherwise, and whilst I’m not sure why you would own a NES in the first place if you aren’t Ben, I would froth at the mouth for a dead chicken if it had Morticia's face scribbled on a post-it and stuck to it, so I’ll leave the actual evaluation up to the nerd in the corner.

Ben:

Now that we've gained a worryingly accurate insight into how to take all of Fiona's money, shall we see if Fester’s Quest is the proverbial dead chicken in our Addam's Family collection (in a good way)? Well, from the opening sequence I can assure you that the game has captured the madness of the TV show.

I. Um. Yeah, that.

This one I actually own, so bye-bye crappy ROMs (except for taking screenshots) and hello jiggling the bloody cartridge for ten minutes before I can get the NES to start up. Now it appears that the supposed notorious difficulty of this game predominantly arises from the complete inability to hit enemies while firing along the X-axis. I can only get any modicum of accuracy when firing my green splurge blunderbuss [citation needed] downwards. On top of that, you start with a measly two bars of health and every time you die, you start right back at the beginning of the game again, meaning you'd better enjoy traipsing more familiar ground than that infuriating sniper rifle fetch quest in Metal Gear Solid.

Overall it’s pretty fun, despite not making one ounce of sense. Don’t ask what the enemies are meant to be and you’ll be able to sleep at night. And the moment I learn why there are hot dog stands all over the place I will die a happy man.

If someone can tell me why I'm fighting giant raspberries, I'll have an aneurism.

The game mixes top down shooter with the collectyness of an RPG and even has some wonderfully migraine-inducing 3D mazes before each of the 5 boss fights. That said, despite it's little quirks, this is very much typical fare, just follow the path and blast the enemies, picking up what they drop to upgrade your weapons, jobs a goodun. I’ll be honest, I don’t really see what's exactly “goth” about this excluding the brand name attached to it, but what the hey; gaming doesn't really lend itself to being specifically for certain subcultures other than angry pre-pubescent children and perverts, so we’ll keep the arbitrary stipulations for the sake of making our hobby less depressingly unwelcoming.

Moving on...

Grim Fandango - PC (1998)

Fiona:

Dear god, this is a beautiful game. Heavily inspired by Film Noir, Art Deco, the Mexican Dia de los Muertos and Aztec imagery and beliefs, this nineties computer game has the gamer play as Manuel "Manny" Calavera, a travel agent-esque Grim Reaper, as he assists souls in crossing the underworld and uncovers conspiracies in the Land of the Dead. As a big fan of puzzle games I’m desperate to have another go at this one beyond a brief snippet before Ben couldn’t bear my fumbling with the keyboard any longer (plus I need something to distract me from studying this year), but, obviously, the attention to detail put into this game is one of its crowning glories.

The humour and the scripting is glorious, and the bright and creepy aesthetics will appeal to Tim Burton fans whilst the mix of different inspirations the designers drew from keeps each of them fresh. Unfortunately, having tried to play this game I ended smashing my head into a wall out of frustration at the confusing means of movement which results in the limitation of only being able to press one key at any one time, but the actual puzzles are fun to solve, and simply looking at the design concepts I can conclude that it’s very well written and a delight to play. 

The only things I have to say about this game other than the above is just wordless whining and wishing I could download myself into the game setting.

Ben:

She did not just relate Grim Fandango to Burton, oh no she di'n'! *black sass finger snap* 

The glory of Tim Schafer and Lucas Arts shall not be sullied by the inferior likes of him! Maybe I could accept such claims if we were living in a world where Burton stopped making films before Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but alas, some sins can not be forgiven.

Wow. You just keep on digging don't you, Tim?

On the subject of Fiona's comments on this, Grim Fandango is less inspired by Film Noir, and more a love letter to it. From the dark mystery style plot of old to the voice-over narration from the main character, this thing oozes noir; all it’s missing is a cameo from Humphrey Bogart’s ghost (Fiona: You mean this doesn't happen? MY DREAM IS RUINED). Just imagine the puns! “The last time we met was La Belle Au-gore”.

"I stick my neck out for no-boo-dy."

As far as I’m aware, no such thing exists in this game, although the beautiful humour makes up for it in spades. If you’ve ever played another Lucas Arts game, be it The Secret of Monkey Island or my favourite, Day of the Tentacle, you will agree when I say that these games are funnier and better written than pretty much any film, book or toilet stall graffiti. They are a joy to play and Grim is no different, brimming with character, sharp humour and mind bending puzzles that keep you thinking but are never The Longest Journey levels of rubber-ducky-impossible absurdity.

The biggest downfall of the game is frankly it's control scheme, which discards the then done-to-death point and click style of adventure gaming, replacing it with some ludicrously awkward stumbling about using the keyboard. Imagine the controls for Heavy Rain (point your character with one key, then accelerate unceremoniously forward in a perfectly straight line with another) but without the luxury of being able to turn while walking, leading to gameplay akin to driving a remote control car with your thumbs cut off. The whole thing just becomes a farce when you reach levels that refuse to even acknowledge the concept of depth perception and challenge comes mainly from trying to squeeze round various objects while hammering the "look at" button to see what's actually useful.

Tim Schafer, you are a glorious, glorious dickhead.

American McGee's Alice/Alice: Madness Returns - PC (2000/2011)

Fiona:

This is perhaps surprising, but I hate Alice in Wonderland adaptations. Whilst I'm very fond of the original books and Carrol's back catalogue of nonsense poetry, the exhaustive quantity of repetitive ‘updated’ Wonderland based creative projects really irritates me, and with each successive new adaptation the original story at the heart of it loses its charm. 

Nonetheless, I will make an exception for the 2000 PC game American McGee’s Alice, due to it being one of the forerunners of this movement, and one of the best examples of macabre/creepy Wonderlands. In it, you play as an older Alice, who lost her parents in a house fire and is now confined to an asylum, as she proceeds through a darker and warped version of Wonderland to defeat the Red Queen. I will be honest and say that, although the concept is great, the game itself is a little dated. The graphics are from the early days of 3D gaming and thus have some very strange textures and appearances; you can tell it’s also very early in the platform gaming front as well, as there’s a lack of explanation on how to move, attack and what you’re supposed to do - which can be picked up quickly, but it’s disorienting for new or inexperienced gamers. 

i.e. Me.

However, the sequel 2011 game Alice: Madness Returns is a whole other story; with the benefit of time, virtually everything in the game has improved. The graphics are better, the art style has further improved and the story has been explained far better than before, with darker undertones and genuine disturbing creepiness. As a gamer, there’s improvements to the actual game play as well, with a proper tutorial period, collectibles to upgrade your weapons (though if anyone can explain why it’s teeth, I will give you my front two) and better combat, making it a joy to play. For me, this is a successful adaptation of the series, with well thought out designs and attention to detail in every tiny aspect of the game that really makes a difference. And yes, this is the only variant of Alice in Wonderland I would consider dressing up as.

Ben:

I think I might have to agree with Fiona here. I'm a big fan of gimbling toves and oyster murder but the rather tedious saturation of a large chunk of art in recent years (particularly if said art is made by someone with a tumblr or DeviantArt account) with Wonderland imagery dilutes the source material and detracts from what is one of the most well realised and interesting fictional universes put onto paper. Even the likes of cinema and other video games aren't safe from the icy grip of this trend; do you want to portray a sense of mystery and curiosity whilst also instilling dread and a fear of the unknown? Get a character to talk about discovering the depth of leporid holes by squeezing into them. Want the audience to know a character is important to the protagonist’s journey? More rabbit imagery.

The sunglasses represent all of our lost unbirthdays.

However, the ever so modest American McGee with his game American McGee’s Alice does very well in creating a Wonderland twisted by a tortured mind into something very alien and yet disturbingly familiar. The scripting captures the enigmatic musings of the book’s dialogue perfectly and enjoys poking fun at the player, video games and it’s own inspiration, making for some chuckles amongst the slightly unnerving word play and riddling. That said, Fiona has hit the raven on the writing desk with her critique of the original game. It’s getting a little auld. The game was released in that awkward era of gaming where PCs hadn't quite worked out how to comfortably manoeuvre in a 3D space, making the platforming sections frustratingly difficult (not in a good way) and the combat mechanics squidgy at best.

The silly putty to Street Fighter's adamantium.

Then there’s Alice: Madness Returns, the spiritual-successor-but-really-a-remake of the original, and lordy, is it better! It could just be the jarring change between playing one immediately after the other but this game feels a whole lot more well rounded. With an extremely morbid and disturbing storyline (you’re welcome, children of the night), a more rigid combat mechanic and all of the sharp wit of the original packaged with better visuals, this is obviously the vision McGee had over ten years ago. That said, the voice acting is laughably bad and the game still clings a little to a somewhat outdated game mechanic, but I dare you to complain about any of that as you bounce between mushrooms on a cloud of blue petals, shooting down flying pig snouts with a pepper grinder machine gun.

Go on, see what happens...

That, good friends, is the end of the first leg of our journey into the dark, seedy underbelly of video gaming and I think we've started off pretty well with a geek slightly more aware of what the hell a goth actually is and a goth with a little more insight into a usually impenetrable pastime. If you think we've missed out a game that we absolutely shouldn't have missed out, then keep your opinions to your self and off my immaculate comments section. And wipe your feet next time, there's mud everywhere. Were you raised in a barn?

Tsk, really...

Wake Up Alan, Someone's Reviewing Your Game

I like movies, so I review them from time to time (yes, I just hyperlinked my own blog on my blog. Blogception!). So, in a rather dangerously creative train of thought I told myself, "Ben, you also like video games. Why don't you review them?". But surely a blog entirely about reviewing stuff is boring, Ben, is there not another way to talk about my hobbies? "No!" I replied, before slapping myself in the face and throwing myself into a glass table, classic Durden-style.

Internal Sudoku disputes can get decidedly heated.

Reviewing it is then! But I'm lazy and playing a whole video game before talking about it requires a mind-boggling amount of effort on par with what it must feel like to revise for things, so instead I shall play a game until something funny and/or interesting to say about it dribbles out of my mouth and I can collect it from my spittle cup.

A rare photo of Salvador Dali creating The Persistence of Memory.

As is the long-standing tradition here on my blog, the thing I am reviewing is, shock-horror, horror. Hmm, when you have two of the same word together in a sentence it never sounds quite right, right? Ah well, but yes, horror, that's where I was. Survival horror to be exact.

Thanks to the wonderfully enticing Steam summer sale, I have ended up with a lot of new games to play and very little money. One of said games is Alan Wake, the Stephen King novel-cum-Twin Peaks episode of a game that came out back in good old 2010. I started playing it this very evening of writing and it has somewhat piqued my interest, so lets put on our gaming socks and give it a wee gander, eh?

Pictured: No gamer, ever. Where does that position even come from? A zoo keeper dodging monkey shit?

Firstly, I need to get this off my chest: the fuck, Alan?! You are shamelessly ripping off pretty much every aspect of one of the best TV shows ever and passing it off as your own work. Whereas Deadly Premonition is constantly hailed as the spiritual equivalent of a Twin Peaks video game due to its crazy story line (because if you don't understand it, it's apparently Lynch-esque) and obsession with coffee, Alan Wake is like the guy who steals your lunch and convinces everyone it was always his in the first place.

If you have no lunch, he takes your wife and children instead.

If there were some kind of nod to Twin Peaks at any point in the game, even if it were just in the form of one of the clever little QR codes the developers have slipped in at a couple of points, I might forgive them. Actually, no, I wouldn't. I love that show too much and it hurts me to see such blatant plagiarism.

Ready for the list? Cause I've made a list. We've got a remote American logging town (we'll let them off, that's quite King-y too), strange supernatural disturbances, a crazy character with an eye-patch, the small-town doctor whom we first meet in the police station conference room, the squeaky-voiced police station receptionist, a creepy bespectacled woman completely aware of the town's dark secrets, always desperately clutching an inanimate object, and a trademark vehicle used as a repeating image throughout the game/show; hell, there's even a creepy cabin that doesn't exist in the real world. That's so many parallels that, by law, these two shouldn't be allowed to meet lest the universe fold into itself and implode.

Thank god for backwards-talking midgets and red curtains to help tell the two apart.

You know how I mentioned Deadly Premonition's coffee addiction? That's actually in this too, in the form of 100 coffee thermos' scattered around the game for you to hunt down. And, granted, after a quick Google I have found one reference in-game to Twin Peaks, in the form of the name of the achievement you get after collecting every last one of said flasks of liquid hyper. That's it. That's like stealing you research partner's notes on how to give animals superpowers, taking all the credit, then naming your grandkid's laser-spewing goldfish after him. A reference so obscure and difficult to notice that it's actually more insulting with it being there.

It would have been kinder just to kill him with it.

Now that we've swiftly got that out of the way, shall we have a look at the game itself?

The core mechanics of the game are very simple; light is good, dark is bad. The titular Alan must fight off evil monster thingys that have possessed the townsfolk by shining his torch at them then nailing them down with a couple of nice heavy bullets. Light also has the added advantage of stunning enemies, so combat usually entails juggling between keeping each baddie a safe distance away using a quick blast of the torch and filling those who's defensive darkness shield thingys have been broken down with a healthy dose of lead. But seeing as this is a survival horror game, it's not quite that easy: your torch runs out of juice faster than your sexually frustrated grandmother's vibrator so you're tasked with constantly hoarding shitty batteries, a fact which leads to the most hilariously misguided use of product placement ever in a video game.

Energizer: It keeps going and going...for ten seconds. Then it doesn't.

I'll give credit where credit is due, this light/dark thing is used very well in pretty much every aspects of the game. Standing under a street light restores Alan's health faster than normal, like some weird man/plant; enemy health is shown on screen as the lens glare from your torch; and the flicker of a light in the darkness often acts as the only real guide to the player's next destination, other than a thankfully minimalist mini-map in the top corner, as you stumble through the forest. The distance between these "safe havens" can be pretty large at points, meaning you feel real relief on stumbling across a lit cabin with some supplies in it, making venturing back out into the abyss all the more unsettling.

"It's fine, I'll just stay here and watch terribad Twilight Zone episodes until morning."

Although this definitely isn't one of the scariest games I've ever played, it does have its moments. As I said above, you start to form quite an attachment to your veritable smorgasbord of light sources, and when that generator runs out or you realise you have no batteries left and only one bullet in your revolver (you have to repeatedly tap the reload button to reload, a nice touch) with three axe-wielding monsters charging you, it is one of the few occasions in video gaming where you feel genuinely vulnerable and alone. Plus, unlike some games which insist on forcing jumpy bits on you, often accompanied by a tell-tale titbit of creepy music, Alan Wake just throws them in and hopes you'll spot them. 

There was a moment early on in the game where I went to check out a cabin off the beaten path and, upon finding the light switch and some ammo, thought I'd take a moment to listen to the radio. While doing so I started pissing about, shining my torch at stuff and jumping on the bed, when I happened to turn towards the window and OH MY HOLY SHIT A GUY JUST WALKED PAST.

After voiding myself and having a little cry, I restarted the checkpoint to take a screenshot.

So it's pretty creepy and there's a nice gimmick. But the same could be said of some portions of the 2008 version of Alone in the Dark. And this is the worrying thing, if you've ever played that interactive bleach-enema of a game you will start to notice a couple of similarities between the two. Both had a nice idea as their central concept (light and fire as weapons, respectively), sure, and some relatively pretty graphics.

Both were also marred by terrible cameras, however. In Alone in the Dark, trying to solve one of the many cumbersome puzzles was like trying to remove a kidney stone with nothing but your bare hands and a car jack, unnecessarily difficult and uncomfortable due to a terrible choice of equipment. In Alan Wake, your own body is always in the way and you spend half your time wiggling all over the place; I don't know how it manages it, but no matter what you're doing, whatever you want to point at is always undoubtedly hiding behind one of your bloody elbow patches. This is most obvious when fighting, there have been numerous occasions where I've started attacking one enemy and all of a sudden I've got some other guy who's used my own meat sack for cover getting all up in my grill, messing up my shit.

So not rad, dude.

And that's not all. Although I agree with the choice to remove any crosshairs to aid immersion and such, the developer has opted to use the torch instead. For those of you unaware with how light works, it spreads over distance. If you're using a laser pointer, no biggie; with a torch, it spreads quite a bit, and when you're trying to use an area the size of a dinner plate to pinpoint a head shot, it's ruddy annoying. It's just lucky then that the common survival horror trope of painfully scarce ammo is rarely an issue here, and it's more than acceptable to take the safe route and unload into a torso for the sake of safe, swift deadification. 

"It looks like my bullets have taken a shine to you." Zing.

So should you play it? Yes, why not. It's fun, scary, has plenty of character, even if half of it is stolen, and the awkward camera and aiming system are by no means game-breaking; if anything you could argue that it adds to the atmosphere, your character inexperienced with firearms and ever wary of someone sneaking up behind him. And although I can't say anything about the overarching story, I'm only halfway through as of writing this post, I imagine the finale will be the expected horror fare at worst. And that's a compliment.

What You Could Do Instead

Drink 100 Cups of Coffee and Wander Around Town at Night -

The coffee will take care of the erratic movement, hallucinations and bad aim, and being in a public place gives you plenty of people to terrify while you pee in the middle street, screaming the lyrics to Sugar, Sugar by the Archies.

Stay Awake While I Talk About Stay Alive

You may or may not have noticed, but I kind of like horror movies. Of the staggering 4 reviews I've done, a mind-blowing 50% of them have been on horror films. That's like at least half of all the movies I've watched for this blog. Dafuq!?

You. Right now.

And if there's any type of horror movie that will draw me in like a celluloid siren (totally the name of my punk rock band) with it's mesmerising promises of audio-visual wonder, its the cheesily bad budget flick with a spectacularly over the top name and a usually too-good-to-be-true premise. That's why I've sat through such classic masterpieces as My Super Psycho Sweet 16 and the slightly more upper class Wrong Turn slasher movies. Although, that said, up until I just googled that link I didn't realise there were five of them... Someone's got their weekend entertainment lined up!

When I become a parent, these films will be my babysitters.

Oh yeah, um... Gore warning for this post in case some of you are squeamish. If you aren't but happen to recommend this to any friends who are, it might be a good idea to direct them to this helpful advice before they read any further. Say its just underneath the eyeball kebab.

So, any guesses as to what this review might be on, class? No, Timmy, it's not Beauty and the Beast. Or Brokeback Mountain. Or The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Timmy, have your parents taken the time to measure your Kinsey rating, or activate your Netflix's parental control settings for that matter? Anyone else got a suggestion?

"Shut the fuck up, Timmy."

Yup, it's a horror flick, this one to be precise. Stay Alive is my kind of movie. Horror, video gaming, low budget, an IMDb rating below 5 and a unique(ish) gimmick; in this case it is a mysterious video game that kills you if your character dies in-game, essentially like an interactive rip-off of The Ring.

To celebrate the occasion, lets shake things up a little. I'm straying from the usual style of reviewing through the process of screaming retrospectively at the computer until words come out in a random order and I shall instead attempt to write my critique on the fly as the film plays out so you may experience the full onslaught of my undiluted wrath. For you safety I suggest you change into clothing that does not contain nylon and ensure you have adequate birth control measures in place for your pets. When you are ready, we may begin.

This is not adequate birth control. However nor is it animal cruelty, and thus the world is balanced again.

Ok, got my cuppa and a Dip Dab. Lets do this shit. Opening credits, nothing special here apart from the tell-tale sign of a low-budget movie: the title of the movie is also the name of the production company. This is going to be good, I can feel it.

Holy shit, they really pulled out all the stops here, that CGI is just...ooft. Oh, wait, its meant to look crappy, its a video game! One which appears to have borrowed very heavily from the grandparents of survival horror: Resident Evil and Silent Hill. A big creaky mansion (former) and nothing but a torch to guide you (latter). This is actually slightly creepy, and despite the pasted textures the graphics are on par with what you'd get on a PS2 game, so not too bad. I'm going to assume this is the murderous game that we'll be seeing a lot of in the next 90 minutes, where you apparently die in the same way that your character dies in the game. At least it has the courtesy to make little polygonal versions of each of the main characters so we know which one is about to die horribly.

They should have made it GTA IV, I want to see what happens when you glitch to death.

Although on a game design stand point this thing must be boring as hell. There only seems to be one type of enemy in the whole game, a horde of expressionless zombie children who enjoy being shot at. The variety of enemies on show here makes Call of Duty look as accommodating as a gay pride rally on free anal lube day. You'd be lucky to actually hit any of the enemies anyway thanks to the lack of a crosshair and the slowest camera turning speed this side of a Katamari. It's almost like this game wasn't designed to be played, but to be watched... A scathing remark on the state of modern video games as they become too cinematic, maybe? 

These identical rotten children represent the collective imagination of the film's writers.

Was that a very poorly executed nod to The Shining pig mask scene I just saw there? You people are just trying to cram this thing with as many pop culture references as possible, aren't you? From Fatal Frame to Q*bert, there's even an entire scene based around a Silent Hill 4 reference; it's just too bad you evidently got mixed up with which game you were meant to be talking about, cause not one of the things you mention in this scene is possible in that game, but they totally are in the first one. Ten for effort, two for accuracy.

You are the Eddie the Eagle of the referencing world.

So the premise is set and that whiny guy from Heroes is killed off in one fell swoop; efficiently done, Stay Alive. Ah, here comes some plot development in the form of the token funeral where our protagonist will undoubtedly find out about the evil killer game from another guest who has a complete disregard for the feelings of those present. 

Wow. The sister of the recently deceased teenager has her priorities so skewed that she thought it necessary to bring her dead brother's video games to his funeral to give to his friend? It's good to see that this guy's closest friends and family have the integrity to bounce back from his sudden, violent death like a hunk of ripe halloumi, but it's a little insensitive to be sifting through his belongings the afternoon of his funeral. Who does that?! If I die I do not want my family and friends starting to sort through my DVD collection before I'm even in the ground!

"Stop the funeral! I forgot to take his watch!"

There's some really original characters being introduced here. We've got the hunky protagonist with tacked-on childhood trauma issues, the annoying best friend whom we'll enjoy watching get dismembered, that geeky guy (Malcolm in the Middle appears to be taking his place here) who will be the first to inform the other characters of why they keep on dying before promptly sacrificing himself for the good of the group, some other character who'll be the first to die because we have absolutely no emotional attachment to him, hot goth chick cannon fodder and the blonde girl who will almost definitely survive. And breathe!

Sadly those are the well developed characters in the bunch. We are also exposed to some truly memorable police work from the movie's resident investigating officer. You receive your first clue on a case from a witness who voluntarily gave you the information including an alibi verifiable by four other people and the first thing you choose to do is accuse him of committing the murder. Bravo. And you don't even have the courtesy to obstruct the view of the body from the general public. Or to get acting lessons. This guy waddles around the set like a large, brown, human-shaped seal and acts with about the same amount of enthusiasm as a old lady shopping for new compression stockings. Hell, she'd probably make a better cop than all of the guys in this movie combined; chubby's deputy is so eager to get killed by the game that he pretty much trips over himself to get to it.

"You. Throw yourself on the enemy until he tires out his stabbing hand. I'll be awkwardly shuffling round furniture."

Boring characters and bad acting aside, it looks like we're getting to some proper gore now. Sure, deaths one and two were pretty tame, a hanging and some very shiny garden shears to the neck respectively, but it looks like victim number three will be getting smooshed good and proper by the EVIL HORSE-DRAWN CARRIAGE OF DOOM! *spooky ghost noises*

The fuck? The camera just cut away, and now he's lying on the ground with what appears to be a small graze on his forehead. Where's the being run down by angry horses? Where's the horseshoe imprint on the face and body sliced in two by carriage wheels? This sucks...

And now you burn a NES controller for no reason, you blasphemers!

You're actively trying to make me hate you, aren't you?

I think I'm losing faith here. So all of a sudden the video game is actually the incarnation of the undead soul of some evil woman and blah blah something something there's been nowhere near enough focus on the game or on people dying horribly. Shut up with the crazy witch lady mumbo jumbo and get back to murdering, we're more than halfway through and only three people are dead.

My bad. This incidental shot of a sheet of paper says she's a vampire from Transylvania.  And you have to exorcise her.
Make your mind up on which monster you want to pretend a real life serial killer totally wasn't, for chrissake!

At least one character acknowledges the ridiculous concept of a murderous video game and attempts to debunk it for approximately eight seconds. Luckily goth chick jumps in to make a very convincing argument for the crazy murderous game camp by essentially spelling out the entirety of the completely inconsequential and horrifically inaccurate lore surrounding our main antagonist along with everything we already knew thanks to the posters and movie tagline. I missed most of it because I just got a Plants vs. Zombies update and now seemed like as good a time as any to check my Zen Garden.

Why would a person go outside to smoke and just casually wander into a construction site miles away from the house they were in? Is the whole street a no smoking area? Plus it is extremely irresponsible to light up in a place most likely packed with dust and flammable materials. You're just asking to be burnt to a crisp, goth girl. Nope, just a good old throat cutting? Fine then. Sigh.

The deaths here are approximately 80% more imaginative and entertaining.

No! You do not suddenly change your own rules during the finale, that completely destroys the point of the film. That is like a horror movie number one no-no! I'm afraid that is the final straw. Nope, there's no point trying to redeem yourself now, you've muffed it good and proper. I've had enough. My critique has become angry and disjointed and I don't know what to do any more. Cue conclusion.

The story is clichéd, the characters have been torn straight from a TV Tropes page (minus the crippling number of in-jokes), the script tries too hard to force pop culture references out like a constipated Tarantino and the special effects are appropriately video-gamey, even in the real world. This is exactly what I was expecting when I sat down but I'm still disappointed. Every time I watch one of these I really hope from the bottom of my heart that I'll be surprised and somehow, against all odds, the film will dazzle me with a rich story and conservative scares that are all but lost in the big-budget, gore-tastic, Hollywood-ized, hyphen-riddled affairs we're used to. Alas, I will continue my search with earnest, for there is no such film here. Stay Alive, go sit on the naughty step and think about what you've done.

Just shove Timmy's corpse over. Rigor mortis has stuck him like that.

Overall Ben Equivalence Rating

Making Your Own Halloween Costume at the Age of Seven -

There's always so much promise and enthusiasm, but you're inexperienced, can't make head nor tail of the source material and lack adequate resources for the job. Eventually it just ends up awkward and you're the laughing stock of everyone involved. 

Wait. It's actually more like my first sexual encounter...close enough.