Video games are big business. In the last ten years, the industry has grown up. Games receive Hollywood film budgets and make Hollywood film profits. Halo 3, GTA IV and Modern Warfare 2 are just three examples of releases that rival films in terms of profit and marketing hype.
Video games are also prime fodder for film adaptations. Just ask the devil himself Uwe Boll (pictured above) whose responsible for such ‘cinematic’ ‘gold’ as Alone in the Dark, House of the Dead and many, many, many more. But for every film by The Master of Error (thanks Imdb), there’s something like Silent Hill, which despite its flaws and Sean Bean’s ‘American’ accent, managed to capture the atmosphere of what makes the Silent Hill games so unnerving to play. Resident Evil is another good example. It blew the game’s fiction out of the water but it gave people what they wanted, lots of zombies in confined spaces and Michelle Rodriguez dying (can’t just be me!)
Now since this is Grimm I’ve tried to keep it topical and pick out a few horror films that would make excellent if not questionable video games.
My first pitch is for Final Destination the Video Game!
Imagine: Mouse Trap (the board game) and The Sims.
As the omnipotent Grim Reaper your mission is to kill people through increasingly bizarre and elaborate methods. Like The Sims, you’ll have a house and you have set up an array of domino-style ‘accidents’ that ultimately end up with someone getting killed in a humorous and gruesome way. Take the action outside and play with the freeway from Final Destination 2 or the theme park from 3. The fun never ends because you can never escape death!
Would you buy it? No? Then how about....
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Stylish Adventures of Leatherface.
Imagine: Being the most stylish serial killer in Texas!
Playing the often misunderstood titular hero and armed with a chainsaw, you travel around Texas looking for people to chop up. The aim of the game is not to cause terror and bloodshed but to collect peoples’ faces to graft together the best human mask possible. Go online and share your mask with your friends. Use in the in-depth character customisation to create the most stylish Leatherface possible. Exclusive to the Wii and compatible with Wii Motion Plus for 1:1 chainsaw precision!
I have presented two terrible ideas for video games but my final idea is actually something tangible, something I could see working.
The Descent: The Video Game
Imagine: Resident Evil meets Alan Wake.
Survival horror at its best. Dive head first into the claustrophobic, dark and ominous caves of the Appalachian Mountains. Armed with only a pickaxe and a flare you have to navigate caves and escape from the vicious and deadly crawlers.
Now I’m no Uwe Boll but I could see some of those ideas working, or is it just me?
JD Douglas-Walton
www.grimmfest.com
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