October is my favourite month of the year. Nights are getting longer and the days getting colder. For once you appreciate the warmth of your duvet cover. But what makes this month special to me is Halloween.
A time when the veil between worlds is thin and the spirits roam free. People embrace the darkness creating a frightful atmosphere. Simply put it is a time when fear is fun.
As always the horror genre emerges from the darkness to flood our homes, cinemas and consoles. Of all genres only two provoke the biggest reaction – horror and porn. While the latter is the sexual thrill the former builds on this sense of fear and mystery. Deep down everyone enjoys a good scare making this the perfect time to indulge in the dark.
Yet there is a problem. As I type this, the original Saw is on in the background. It is the best film out of the franchise but it still is not a good horror film. While it may provide gore in unique ways it lacks the element of fear. Of course it is not the only one of its kind.
The horror genre over the last century has mutated numerous different times to reflect the fears of each era. In the 50s aliens and other foreign supernatural creatures featured heavily in film to reflect the fears over the Cold War. In the late 60s/ early 70s horror became more violent mirroring the real life violence of the Vietnam War. Now it seems the trend is ‘torture porn’, a major emphasis on the gore in an attempt to exploit peoples fears.
Reasons for this recent trend could due to a number of things. It could be argued that media violence saturation through both news and TV has cultivated a generation where it takes a lot of violence to have an emotional impact on them. Likewise it could be argued that the horror genre is simply exhausted and turns to violence to provide cheap scares.
You may say all this has nothing to do with gaming yet it is this medium which has the potential to have an impact on the horror genre as a whole. Games are perfect for the reintroduction of fear in horror but only if the developers understand the genre.
All of this is just a taster of what’s to come. Between now and Halloween there will be a range of posts covering different aspects of the horror genre from favourite scares to old school reviews. Keep an eye out.
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