Horror And Atmosphere: Condemned: Criminal Origins

One of my favourite horror games of all time has to be Condemned: Criminal Origins. After playing and completing the excellent Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs recently, I realised that I've missed solid horror games and reinstalled it.

Condemned nails (more accurately than the sequel, in my opinion) exactly what is unnerving about really good psychological horror: characters we can identify with, a setting that is plausible yet disturbing and the ability to turn the mundane into something terrifying.

Have you ever been walking the streets of a major city and seen or been approached by someone who clearly isn't "all there" mentally? I have met several people like this just wandering the streets, and often it's a frightening experience that makes one feel rather insecure.

To give but a few examples: I've seen a dishevelled bearded guy just walking around staring at people in the street and lunging about alarmingly. I've been approached by a woman convinced she was "shouted at and assaulted" (though after crying about it she simply walked into an off-license and bought a load of alcohol) and I've even been asked "Do you love Jesus?" by a stranger who reached into his waistcoat while awaiting my response.

The last guy in particular made me genuinely worried that I was about to get stabbed or otherwise attacked, and at the time I remember getting ready to give him a good punching if the hand came out of the coat with anything dangerous. Thank God he walked past after I answered (telling him that I "guessed I did").

Well, Condemned essentially takes these sorts of real-life unnerving experiences and dials them up to 11. Needless to say, such a method of generating horror is very effective.

You play an FBI investigator in the fictional "Metro City", a US city apparently suffering from severe urban decay.

Almost all of the game takes place inside run-down and/or abandoned buildings, which is fitting since you are hunting a serial killer who murders people in such isolated areas. However, as the game progresses, you start to get the sense that the murders you're following are almost irrelevant in the grand scheme of things - the city itself seems to be devolving into a cesspool of mindless violence and chaos all around you.

You are attacked frequently by homeless people and assorted dishevelled thugs who appear to be drugged up or otherwise rendered utterly insane. They spit at you, scream obscenities, stagger around hurling chairs and shelves at you and even try to headbutt and bite you in a frenzy if disarmed.

What makes this really disturbing is that aside from subtle environmental hints, this maelstrom of insanity is never truly explained, and other characters only mention it in passing. That the entire area seems to be filled with violent lunatics and your colleagues neither understand nor attempt to address why suggests that society has practically undergone some kind of complete breakdown without anyone even noticing.

Then you get to thinking...people like this really exist. Psychotic people with nowhere to live, nowhere to turn. Could elements of society one day be overwhelmed by these kinds of people in dense residential areas? How many lurk in the shadows without our knowledge?

For all the screaming madmen (and women) in the game, Condemned has smart layers of creepiness that hint further at this decline into lawlessness. One level, set in an otherwise fairly well-maintained subway station at night, has an official notice in one of the corridors.

"Always travel safely", it advises, "If a train stops anywhere other than a platform, do not leave unless a uniformed Metro Police officer is present. Criminal trespass incidents have been reported, and individuals within tunnels may prove a significant threat to your wellbeing. Authorities are working on resolving this on-going issue."

I honestly hope they make a Condemned 3. Condemned 2 unfortunately increased the violence and went far too supernatural, turning the protagonist into a thug no better than the maniacs around him while also ruining the mysteries of the original.

So if a sequel ever comes around, I hope the developers take a good look at what makes the original so horrifying (an ambiguous but very real threat, the natural terror of serious mental illness, breakdown of social order in a "civilised" area) and cut the silly sci-fi present in the sequel out.

Movie Review: Orphan

*This review contains spoilers*

"There's something wrong with Esther." is the tagline for this film, and it certainly isn't lying.

Unfortunately though, Orphan is one of the most frustrating films I've watched in recent times. It's a textbook example of how needless cheap scares and shoehorned cliches can derail a decent thriller.

Peter Sarsgaad and Vera Farmiga play a kind and well-off couple who have a nice house and lovable kids. Their life is shaken when they lose their third child before birth. They decide, after much deliberation, to adopt a child. That child is Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman).

Esther is something of a child prodigy. She's polite, mature, intelligent and is very good at art. She also has some rather bizarre personality traits, and her history is dogged by a series of tragic accidents.

I found the first half or so of Orphan very watchable. It was surprisingly smart for a "horror" film, and reminded me more of a thriller. The characters were likable and believable. As the story progresses, we learn things about them not easily guessed (Farmiga's character used to have an alcohol problem, for example).

Interesting characters who develop? A dubious antagonist? Unreliable viewpoints? Good film so far.

Sadly though, the film is filled with these little nuggets that seem forced in from the scripts of other, lesser films.

It's kind of like someone in Hollywood watched the film, then said "Nah, this won't appeal to the market enough. Throw some cheap-ass scares in and change the ending."

So, the character building and interesting build-up is then interspersed with some of the most ludicrous "make-u-jump" scenes I've seen in a film. Think of it, and it's in the film. Kids laughing suddenly (at deafening volume), things banging, sudden unusually aggressive hugs, that sort of crap.

It just feels so unneccesary and cheapens the whole movie. It's like eating lobster and having a guy run up and bellow in your ear at random intervals.

Even worse, I didn't actually jump at any of the "sudden" bits (and I haven't done in any film for some time now). That makes it feel even more redundant.

Then I mentioned it felt like the ending was changed. Well, yeah. The film does well to avoid cliches until about 50-75% of the way through, and then they start sprouting like ugly mushrooms.

Cops taking a millenia to arrive when needed? Check. Main character dying through very dubious judgement? Check. Antagonist refusing to be killed off? Check

It really is sad to see what felt like such a promising film take a nosedive, and all because it tries to up the "horror" side of things while ditching what made it interesting in the first place.

Final Word:

Orphan oozes a kind of sneaky, devious charm until around halfway through. Then it tries to escalate things higher and higher until it has nowhere to go but cheesy horror film territory. Disappointing.


3/5.

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Review: The Hills Have Eyes

So nothing else was on TV last night and I watched this from around halfway to the end.

Unfortunately the film had two things that always drive me crazy in horror films - psycho mutant hillbillies and utterly dumb characters.

Mutant hillbillies actually rank lower on my originality scale than zombies. At least zombies are menacing and their origins are generally not explained. Their properties and actions can be changed to suit a different type of story.

Mutant hillbillies are even more predictable - you just know that they'll live in some crappy shack, and they'll eat tourists, etc. etc.What's worse is they seem to be in about a third of all recent horror films.

Now, at about halfway in the film looked like it had some promise. Then the characters suddenly went into full-on idiot mode.

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Let me pose some questions and see what you would pick in a mutant hillbilly situation, compared to the characters in this film.

Question 1: A group of mutants have kidnapped your baby and killed most of your family. You eventually find the kid, guarded by a bald, nasty looking woman in a chair. You have a baseball bat. Do you:

A: Sneak up behind the murderous kidnapper and beat her to death before sneaking out with the baby?
B: Sneak to the baby, pick her up (leaving you unable to use the bat), and then try to sneak out?

Question 2: You have a pistol with one magazine left. An unarmed crazy bloke is running towards you. Do you:

A: Take careful aim and shoot the guy dead?
B: Run away screaming while firing all of your bullets inaccurately over your shoulder?

Question 3: You are fighting a huge guy with a big axe. Eventually you stab him with the broken remains of your bat. Do you:

A: Keep hitting him with anything nearby until he's dead?
B: Stare for thirty seconds while he slowly pulls the splinters out and then starts walking towards you?

Question 4: A hillbilly comes very close to killing you in a fist fight, leaving you badly injured. You grab a shotgun when he's distracted, hit him three times in the face, and then shoot him twice in the chest. Do you:

A: Walk over to the body, pump the rest of your shells into it, and then throw it off of the nearby cliff for good measure?

B: Walk over to the body, smile, drop the loaded shotgun next to it, and then act horrified when he gets up and grabs it?

C: Wish someone in Hollywood could come up with a single original idea and stop watching shit like this?

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If you answered A to the questions you're a normal, sensible human being. If you answered B you've got a guaranteed place in the movie making business, and would be a great infuriating horror protaganist.

If you answered A to all of them and then C on Q4 as well, I am very much in agreement with you.

Final Rating:

I'm giving this film 1/5 for descending into the land of extremely lame cliche.
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