Once you go beyond the pure mechanics of creating games, a lot of they 'why are things done this way' revolve around psychology. Understanding it. Understanding what drives different people and how to make that work for you as a developer.
1:36 this was actually pulled off pretty well in John Carpenter's "The Thing". As soon as they saw the threat, they began preparing for it, but they didn't really understand what they were preparing for
That's why the best response to any horror situation is not "that doesn't make sense" it's "there is something I do not understand here, and I must conquer it."
or "Fuck this I'm out.", "Hand me more ammo", and many other much smarter responses. seriously this and jumpscares are why I don't like most horror. either the characters are idiotic and/or inept, or the writers resort to cheap scares as opposed to proper horror. I think the best horror movie would be one where we expect a scare feel like it is coming and then it doesn't. where we know something is there but it never reveals itself something truly beyond reason and our perceptions. horror isn't seeing the monster it is knowing it is there but that you can't see it. I ran a D&D adventure where they went to a town that had suddenly gone silent, they explored expecting something to jump them. as they moved between buildings occasionally one of them thought he saw something move in the edge of his vision and he would try to react, but it was already gone. eventually they do manage to get a good look at what it is, a toy doll running between buildings like it is following them. now even though this is the most they have seen they are freaking out wondering why and how a DOLL is following them. they formed a circle so that it couldn't follow without being seen and continued their search. when they reached the tavern they started to really lose it. tables had card games left mid hand with the hands having fallen to the floor, and the drinks either were still on the table or spilled on the floor. the worst part was the ledger where a guest's name had just been written and the pen was sitting there like it had been dropped in the ledger. it started to dawn on them what had happened when they went outside and caught a glimpse of dozens of the dolls waiting and watching from the alleys. without ever actually threatening them and without any actual danger these dolls scared them more than being trapped in a cemetery full of undead would. so yeah good horror doesn't need anything actually malicious something curious but weird will do just fine. (the dolls were the villagers but they lacked their memories so they were scared of the giants who wandered into the place they woke up. no actual threat but still scary) also Dan's podium is a Mimic. you'd think after playing dark souls he wouldn't be fooled by them anymore.
funny I have never seen One Piece, I just thought it would make a good slightly unsettling adventure. I didn't expect them to be as freaked out as they were. they became more fearful of tiny harmless dolls than a pair of gryphons catching them off guard. I took what I learned there and have been working on an actual horror adventure. needless to say they have been avoiding any and all supposedly haunted locations because they don't want an actual horror encounter. but when I finish it I will be posting it somewhere, so if you DM D&D 3.5 I recommend watching common places for fan adventures because I plan to make it even more unsettling. (hint this one has a timer for them to deal with to avoid the fate of the others, and non euclidean geometry). I can be a real bastard when I want to be :)
Tell that to people getting shot for performing a jump-scare. To be clear i'm not saying your approach is always wrong. (though outside of the fictional, it usually is, which is where we hit the point) Merely pointing out how it's not as safe an approach as you make it out to be. See also [spoiler territory?] Walking Dead: Carol: With the age of 'more than twice the length of the series thusfar': still having 'the normal human is.... human'-idea as a well established world but 'length of the series' experience with 'the average human is ... a zombie and clusters of 'actual' humans are pretending otherwise', resulting in: Having a hard time distinguishing between human and zombie...... If she had acted (in any way, even more so if she had acted on the goal to conquer it)in the last confrontation she was involved in, she would have without a doubt only make the situation worse.
Yes but DOOM is not a horror game. It's main focus is bloody over the top nonsense action. However one could say that DOOM Guy is a great horror villain. Slaughtering and having no realization that what he's doing is horrific. Being so senseless and split from reality that nothing matters.
Ever played Unloved? It's a pretty neat custom .wad for GzDoom and Zandronum and the like. It really nails the creeping fear that you don't usually associate with Doom, switching between the protagonist's home at night and some nightmarish versions of it that you don't quite know if they're "real" or just in the protag's head. I haven't finished it yet as it's pretty damn hard, but I highly recommend it, especially paired with Brutal Doom.
guys, awesome episode as usual. I guess that is nothing I have to point out anymore, but hey. I have seen every video on this channel and I have enjoyed everyone of them. And I can`t help but notice a tendency towards very specific aspects of design in your more recent videos. It is not like those were bad or didn`t succeed at delivering the content, but compared to your older episodes, were you talked about vast areas of gaming and game design I have to say that I prefer your old style. I know that you can`t just do an episode a week on a huge philosophical question, but it would be nice to have a really huge problem of game design discussed on this channel a little more often. Even if that means that you just reuse an old topic and give an updated opinion. But anyway, great stuff you are doing on this channel, thank you for it!
This does raise a good debate about the reactions of people. Why do few people act, if almost by instinct, against fearsome and almost impossible odds but most are frozen by fear and indecisiveness? Why many will refuse and deny what is happening but a few will rush in regardless of how dangerous the situation might be?
Yeah, it makes sense for the character to act like that in such a situation, disbelieving what they just saw as the truth is far too scary to comprehend. But... since we are talking about the game media itself, wouldn't it be better if the game itself makes you act like that, to disbelieve what you just saw or have done. This episode was focused on how an ingame character should react to it, instead of how a game can make a player feel like that. And whether or not going horror that deep on such a level of involvement since we aren't just viewing it, but interacting with it. Just speaking my mind is all. I still love every episode you guys and gals make.
I always assumed it's because Horror films love making us (the audience) tear our hair out in frustration as we're forced to watch characters do dumb things like split up while exploring a dungeon or something *:)*
Writing smart characters is a lot harder than writing idiots. This is one of the reasons why a film like Carpenter's The Thing holds up. For the most part the character's do the smart thing (once they kinda' figure out what's going on), but everything still goes to sh#@t. Hollywood is simply full of lazy screenwriters.
No, hollywood is full of economical producers. Horror is cheap, precisely because you can make a good horror story without much writing at all. The lowest-budget movies of every year are always horror films
Guys, don't take this post too seriously: this was me simply stating my own dumb, oversimplified belief as to why Horror film characters act the way they do *:)*
If you want to play our "Guess the Costume" game, here are the people to identify and the order in which they appear! Dan (Narrator) - 0:20 Dean (Musician) - 0:24 Lil (Artist) - 0:27 Scott (Artist) - 0:33 Smol Dev (EC Character) - 0:37 James (Writer) - 1:25 Soraya (Media Director) - 1:28 Carrie (Editor) - 1:40 Dan Jones (Artist) - 2:50 Sean (Musician) - 2:57 David (Artist) - 3:11
OK...Dean is either Dante or Virgil (can never tell), Lil is Velma from "Scooby Doo", Scott is King Dedede, Smol looks like a Villager from "Animal Crossing" (prolly wrong), Dan Jones is "Alien" (duh) and Dave is Grunkle Stan from "Gravity Falls". The rest...no clue.
James is Captain Harlock I guess (?) Edit: Best guess I have for Carrie so far is eleven from Stranger Things (yellow shirt from beginning and wig from later = prbly wrong) Edit 2: It was, apparently, Seventeen from the Webcomic 'Camp Wedonwantcha' (not my finding)
It always frustrated me when a character went into denial. I always felt that I would do things differently, that I would not only accept what I saw, but reach for the nearest weapon and give it what for, but that feels easy to say sitting on a couch in the safety of my home. Maybe it would be different if I was in that scenario, but I have no way to test it.
Jay Ell Except that's because we already know going in the rules of this world, far better than they do. We understand when put the game in that things will become weird, so we already know to act accordingly. If it happened in real life, how would we be able to know?
Shadowreeper213 its sad but its true, I think the best horror movies I've seen are the ones where you don't know the rules of the world, and you as viewer is as lost as the character. I would say stephen king's the mist does that pretty well, the way it set up its setting with a pretty obvious danger, but it keeps the unknown with character that act as sane people would, but when you think you understand what is happening it scales the insanity until you have no ideia what to expect anymore
Yeah, the "I've been conditioned my whole life to believe that what I'm seeing is impossible" thing is often treated in a very dumb way. Like Doctor Strange, who is supposed to be super smart and, you know, a scientist, who immediately dismisses the mystical monks as unscientific, even though by this point he clearly had very strong evidence they at least had some kind of useful ability. I liked the French "fantastique" genre, where authors usually tried to make it ambiguous whether the protagonist is going insane, or the world is. The protagonist being presented with evidence of a mystical presence, evidence that is just strong enough for both options to be plausible.
Shadowreeper213 Unless you are purposefully invoking some kind of dramatic irony. Playing with audience knowledge vs character knowledge can lead to some fun stuff when done well.
I recently got done reading Uzumaki, and one of my favorite things about it is a character that is totally aware of whats going on but at no point tries to rationalize it but instead goes insane when he realizes theres no way to for them to run away from the situation he's in.
Justin8e8(Just A Cardboard Box) now that you mention it, yeah, your character definitely isn't actually going insane, everything's actually happening, but when he sees ghosts and other unearthly monsters, he *thinks* he's going insane, so he slowly *does* go insane.
TheArchsage74 Amnesia does it, Darkest Dungeon kinda does it, Call of Cthulhu does it. It's mostly Lovecraftian horror games. It's a fairly recent sorta convention.
Yeah... What if you see a demon in your friends face and go berserk when there was nothing there? I think there are situations where it's probably good to question your sanity.
"Sanity" is just the concept in which we judge our perception of reality, but due the fact that everyone perceives reality in a different way its really difficult to come to a truely universal definition since everyone can possibly be perceiving our world true a different light.
I basically judge whether or not I imagined the monster in the closet by using the rule of three. - Did I see it? - Did I hear it? - Did I smell it? If one is present: Hallucination If two are present: Investigate further If all three are present: RUUUUUUN BIIIIIIIIITCH RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN!!!
So the podium was a mimic the whole time!? Dan must have his whole house filled with Lloyds' talismans to be able to come back to that podium and it never eating him.
Wonder when the small set of generic 'person' people (eg. Red haired dude with beard) are going to get names. We've seen the same ones often enough now. ;)
As a season 1 follower of Extra Credits and someone struggling with this same exact issue (of "going insane" while perceiving this fall) I must say that this is an extraordinary road into a dread and despair. Loved the video.
The little Dan Jones alien was hilarious. Also, perhaps it is just me, but I find the logical belief that you must be going insane as opposed to the world going insane is a bit odd, at least to a degree. Sure, that is the probable explanation, but are you really not going to take precautions against this fact, just in case, until proven otherwise? You most likely are just seeing things when you saw a face in the window, but if I were out in the woods in a log cabin and I saw that, I would still make sure to have a weapon nearby, just in case I _wasn't_ just seeing things.
Never played Undertale, but it's on my evergrowing todo list. I heard the theme and immediately thought: "What a weird 'inspector gadget' theme remix!" Compare them yourself, they're very similar!
Just play it man, its relatevely short. And the more you wait the more the possibility someone spoils it for you. Talking from personal experience btw.
You are one of the channels that surprises me with the amount of videos dedicated to horror. I love horror and would love to do an animated horror short for my degree .. but its hard to find good guidelines on how to create visual horror effectively and not in a cheap way. I thank you for videos like this.
Oh, and while you're going back and looking at horror games and movies with this explanation in mind, make sure to check for the flipside; characters who DO take the horror at face value and spring to action... only for it to ACTUALLY be all in their heads.
Thank you Extra Credits for this late birthday gift..! All these horror focused videos makes me want to go back and continue on my horror project... Thank you!
Great episode guys!I've been subscribed for around a year and a half or perhaps more, I've watched every single Extra Credits episode! Always quality content, I'm no game designer or nor do I intend to but it's always interesting how you guys analyse each aspect of games, which can be applied to other arts, or even society itself.
I love this idea, because I'm not sure how i would react to seeing something that challenges my vision of reality. I think I would embrace it and try to revise my understanding of the world to account for it, but I also do have a fear of losing my mind, so that could go either way...
I thought it was about causing the player themselves to have that experience that makes for great horror. If the player is doubting there own reality/ the game's reality then any and all things (including and especially the viscerally scary) are true. The player doesn't know and therefore is anxious and uncomfortable for the whole time when only a small fraction of the playtime actually contains scary things. Isn't that exactly what Lovecraft plays on in his stuff?
I don't see how the element of chance improves Minesweeper, though. In poker, you have control over the randomness, but in Minesweeper, the randomness controls you. There's always either a numerically best solution, or it comes down to a 50/50.
one reason I really love Pan's Labyrinth is because the whole time not only does the protagonist face self doubt, the audience is doubting whether or not the fantastic things are real. Great episode, guys! Happy late Halloween!
Thus are the foundations of true horror... the horror we trap ourselves with by determining it as our own fantasy... these are the reflections of one who crosses paths... with the Twilight Zone. (Dun dun dun dun duuuuuuuuun!)
wow, thank you for this episode ! I have been wanting to write an interactive horror short story, but really struggled with where to start, or what angle to approach it with. This episode helped me find a good place to start ! :)
I have a friend of mine who happened to experience all nightmares of schizophrenia, but saved all the intellect and perception of a normal person. From his point of view, the world we know is already a matter of doubt, as well as he knows perfectly all the reason behind such doubts (as he is veeery smart). Once he told me one interesting thing - that is actually not really frightening to think of a "rational" world as an illusion. After all the stress human brain just settles that statement "there is more" and "we can't sense it", and keeps functioning. In fact the most unsettling thing about all this is the moment when we begin to wonder around that hudge variety of possibilities we can come up with and all "bad ends", as he calls them, emerges and begin to threat our very existence. Right now he is somehow ok, so don't worry.
I have a question about this. Just the other night, I watched the 1982 The Thing for the first time, and I'm not sure if it was really excluding this idea or playing around with it. After one glimpse at the monster, (hell after the first weird noise that might have possibly been some kind of monster) everyone immediately springs into action to fight it as hard as they can, but the Thing itself keeps finding unexpected ways to survive and kill them. Most of the distrust is directed at each other, wondering who's been infected. No one is necessarily doubting their sanity, but they just aren't anticipating what the thing is capable of. and it was a FANTASTIC movie. Honestly, 10/10, I just can't place this kind of moment anywhere in the film.
This is an explanation of humanity that shows us how we experience and reject things that do not fit into our world view. It shows us how progress is limited by our own pre-conditioned world view.
To know horror is to know -- with certainty -- that what you thought you knew, was in fact wrong. I get the sense that betrayal is very akin to horror as well, only what we trusted to be true was the nature of our friends/loved ones rather than the world around us.
Thank you for explaining the horror genre. I never did understand why these characters and some people react they way they do towards the unfamiliar or unknown. It really is because of this faith that the world is logical and comprehensible. Nice.
cthulhu mythos is my favorite because you could do so many things with it and make the world so insane but make a character feel like they're the one who's going mad because it is inside their head, but it's all happening to just them, so they're going mad over something that's actually happening to them but the world still presents itself as sane
Thank you, whoever from the cast you are! :) I was never into horror (love thriller), but now I'm getting a little taste for it, bit by bit. I'm sure it was partly inspired with you talking about it in interested and calm fashion. ;)
My favourite kind of monster is the kind that makes you just want to pull the covers over your head and never look at it rather than do something to fight or escape it. The kind of monster that is so disturbing in how it differs from reality, you'd rather die than accept that anything like that could be real.
As someone who wrote Halloween specials this past month, I can truthfully say that I didn't exactly delve as far as I could have into Horror like you described it. In fact, only my first special, at a measly 3,000 words, could be described as a descent into insanity as the world around the main characters warped in a drug-induced hallucination they were unaware of. The other two specials I wrote were merely Halloween-themed. But now that I have a better understanding of what horror truly is, I'm more prepared than ever to make next year's Spook-fest all the more spooky. Thanks.
Yeah. The things discussed in this video don't apply to stories like 'Silence of the lambs'. If we don't have rational horror, then fantasy horror loses it's edge because of overexposure.
Martin Wright Shows like csi don't really try to develop much of a horror atmosphere. Any horrific elements are usually incidental because they focus more on presenting a puzzle to the viewers. If you did add actual horror to csi, you would get something more like Hannibal, which is a pretty good example of a forensic horror. Although I wouldn't consider Hannibal to be entirely non fantasy, as it stretches it's realism quite a bit. Non fantasy horror stories aren't necessarily forensic though.
I think that, maybe, developers see monstrous horror as slightly easier to make than rational horror. Think back to a game with rational horror, and you find there are few. Heavy Rain being one. The main flaw with rational horror is that you need to get the character, and in a sense the player, fear something they normally wouldn't, mainly a human being. While it's not easy painting a horrific monster, it can at least hold itself up, in a sense, from attacks the player inflicts. A human however, is much more fragile. When the evil in a horror game is just a human, something that usually can be killed in a few shots/hits, it needs a lot of buildup to why the player and the character should fear something that is not specifically stronger than them. That's my view on it at least.
Leorlev C I think you're right. It's kinda the same reason that most video games are focused on combat gameplay. Certain genres are just more prevalent do to the nature of the medium.
Some of the best horror is when it makes you doubt what is real, if it's in a character's mind or actually happening in the story. Higurashi does this pretty well, your understanding of the first arc shifts dramatically with later revelations.
Evil Dead uses this a bit. One of the Deadites favorite tricks is seeming to suddenly withdraw control over Ashley's friends. Making it seem like the nightmare's over, or like it never happened in the first place.
This is just one of may ways to create fear and horror inside a protagonists mind. I could write an essay about that. And also i feel, that there are more easy ways to do this, that trying to imply to a person, that he is slowly growing insane. But still a nice video. Happy Hollydays.
"The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses" by Jesse Schell is a renowned and comprehensive textbook on the intersection of psychology with almost every aspect of game design, including level design, art, narrative, and even marketing/publishing! You can't go wrong starting with that book. --Belinda
Awesome! Well... in that case, a particularly super niche one I personally enjoy is The Medium of the Video Game (edited by Mark J.P. Wolf). It's a collection of academic essays from way back in the '80s/early '90s when academic people were still trying to make sense of games by analyzing them as "interactive art" more than anything else. It's definitely not everyone's cup of tea, but it really opened my mind up. --Belinda
Check out 'Challenges for Game Designers' - Braithwait and Schreir, 'Game Design Workshop' - Tracy Fullerton, Raph Kosters 'A Theory of Fun' and finally 'Rules of Play' - Tekinbas and Zimmerman is an absolute must have. Get that before any of the others, it's exceptionally comprehensive.
My personal favorite Horror game is a little known title, Theresia: Dear Emile. As you were describing this I realized that it serves a near perfect parallel to this lesson. The story involves an amnesiatic young woman waking up in a trap filled underground dungeon. Her slow realization in the first 30 minutes of the game of her coming to realize just how bleak her situation is, or even more how every time you think you've seen to worst the game has to offer or that you think you know the truth, only to have all expectations destroyed... I think it fits snugly into this discussion.
This was a really good video! The whole time I was thinking about The Evil Within; Sebastian thinks he's going insane when, lo and behold, the world is insane
"It could look like someone you know or it could be a stranger in a crowd. Whatever helps it get close to you. I almost think it takes the form of loved ones just to hurt you. Never go anywhere with just one exit!"
You know what I've always wanted to see in a horror movie? The protagonist sees something... weird, rationally knows that such a thing is impossible and they were likely just seeing things that weren't there... but takes precautions anyway because of that little voice in the back of their head that whispers 'But what if you're wrong?' Someone who is already generally paranoid to begin with.
Interesting that my favourite horror movie eschews this completely: in John Carpenter's The Thing the characters are confused as to what is going on but say 'let's kill it'. No denial, no thought of insanity just a drive to kill the creature. The fear comes from an inability to discern who is the thing and the fact that they are so hideously vulnerable to it. It's similar to the alien franchise.
And the worst part is, despite knowing the consequences of believing in a rational world in these settings, you couldn't opt out of doubting what you saw like them, because the overwhelming majority of these cases in real life warrant that.
Rosemary's Baby is a great example of this; the idea that the protagonist is making assumptions about what may be a series of coincidences is just as plausible as the horror she feels, up until the very end when the film reveals which of the two possibilities is reality.
An experience that I had recently while playing Fallout 4 shows this in full. I was walking in an abandoned building and as I turned to walk through a door I thought that I saw a man in a suit but all black, like a silhouette of a man. It terrified me because when I went back he wasn't there, but I didn't know if I had imagined that or if I could be murdered at any moment. I spent five minutes wondering if I had seen something or a man in black was watching me. Truly terrifying.
This is one of the reasons I love John Carpenter's The Thing so much. They acknowledge something is happening but can't piece it all together just yet. When they finally figure out what they're up against, that's where the dawning realization comes in. It also puts into play another thing you have talked about before: The protagonist of horror fits into one of 3 main archetypes. The one who defeats the monster, the one who loses to the monster, and the one who they themselves are the monster. In The Thing, the protagonists are all 3 of them. It may not be the best alien movie or the best horror movie, but it is specifically the best monster movie ever made.
The bartender laughted, the party laughed, the table laughed. We killed the table. Good times.
I thought the exact same thing when I saw it. XD
And slowly but surely Extra Credits became a psychology channel instead of a game design channel.
Loving it guys.
A lot of game design _is_ psychology, so it makes sense why they delve into it so much.
Once you go beyond the pure mechanics of creating games, a lot of they 'why are things done this way' revolve around psychology. Understanding it. Understanding what drives different people and how to make that work for you as a developer.
Pony OC fighting game?! What?! Pony, I heard pony! Must go to channel!
Viva Reverie
V-viva?
VIVA?
...
Love you man
Viva Reverie OMG! It's a horse famous.
SIGN MY OC!!!
1:36 this was actually pulled off pretty well in John Carpenter's "The Thing". As soon as they saw the threat, they began preparing for it, but they didn't really understand what they were preparing for
2:57 on that note, also reminds me of "In the Mouth of Madness"
john carpenter man he nicknamed the porn of horror
That's why the best response to any horror situation is not "that doesn't make sense" it's "there is something I do not understand here, and I must conquer it."
or "Fuck this I'm out.", "Hand me more ammo", and many other much smarter responses. seriously this and jumpscares are why I don't like most horror. either the characters are idiotic and/or inept, or the writers resort to cheap scares as opposed to proper horror. I think the best horror movie would be one where we expect a scare feel like it is coming and then it doesn't. where we know something is there but it never reveals itself something truly beyond reason and our perceptions. horror isn't seeing the monster it is knowing it is there but that you can't see it.
I ran a D&D adventure where they went to a town that had suddenly gone silent, they explored expecting something to jump them. as they moved between buildings occasionally one of them thought he saw something move in the edge of his vision and he would try to react, but it was already gone. eventually they do manage to get a good look at what it is, a toy doll running between buildings like it is following them. now even though this is the most they have seen they are freaking out wondering why and how a DOLL is following them. they formed a circle so that it couldn't follow without being seen and continued their search. when they reached the tavern they started to really lose it. tables had card games left mid hand with the hands having fallen to the floor, and the drinks either were still on the table or spilled on the floor. the worst part was the ledger where a guest's name had just been written and the pen was sitting there like it had been dropped in the ledger. it started to dawn on them what had happened when they went outside and caught a glimpse of dozens of the dolls waiting and watching from the alleys.
without ever actually threatening them and without any actual danger these dolls scared them more than being trapped in a cemetery full of undead would. so yeah good horror doesn't need anything actually malicious something curious but weird will do just fine. (the dolls were the villagers but they lacked their memories so they were scared of the giants who wandered into the place they woke up. no actual threat but still scary)
also Dan's podium is a Mimic. you'd think after playing dark souls he wouldn't be fooled by them anymore.
gdesign95 This adventure sounds a bit like One Piece's Dressrossa Arc
funny I have never seen One Piece, I just thought it would make a good
slightly unsettling adventure. I didn't expect them to be as freaked out
as they were. they became more fearful of tiny harmless dolls than a
pair of gryphons catching them off guard. I took what I learned there
and have been working on an actual horror adventure. needless to say
they have been avoiding any and all supposedly haunted locations because
they don't want an actual horror encounter. but when I finish it I will
be posting it somewhere, so if you DM D&D 3.5 I recommend watching
common places for fan adventures because I plan to make it even more
unsettling. (hint this one has a timer for them to deal with to avoid
the fate of the others, and non euclidean geometry). I can be a real
bastard when I want to be :)
Tell that to people getting shot for performing a jump-scare.
To be clear i'm not saying your approach is always wrong. (though outside of the fictional, it usually is, which is where we hit the point)
Merely pointing out how it's not as safe an approach as you make it out to be.
See also [spoiler territory?]
Walking Dead: Carol:
With the age of 'more than twice the length of the series thusfar': still having 'the normal human is.... human'-idea as a well established world
but 'length of the series' experience with 'the average human is ... a zombie and clusters of 'actual' humans are pretending otherwise', resulting in:
Having a hard time distinguishing between human and zombie......
If she had acted (in any way, even more so if she had acted on the goal to conquer it)in the last confrontation she was involved in, she would have without a doubt only make the situation worse.
gdesign95 You are an incredible DM
Doom guy don't understand that feeling. What Doom guy see, Domm guy kill it (in the bloodiest manner possible).
Yes but DOOM is not a horror game. It's main focus is bloody over the top nonsense action. However one could say that DOOM Guy is a great horror villain. Slaughtering and having no realization that what he's doing is horrific. Being so senseless and split from reality that nothing matters.
What if what Doom Guy sees is unkillable? What if it just crawls back together and builds itself again, over and over?
Ever played Unloved? It's a pretty neat custom .wad for GzDoom and Zandronum and the like.
It really nails the creeping fear that you don't usually associate with Doom, switching between the protagonist's home at night and some nightmarish versions of it that you don't quite know if they're "real" or just in the protag's head.
I haven't finished it yet as it's pretty damn hard, but I highly recommend it, especially paired with Brutal Doom.
Doom guy is the guy who is at the end of the horror movie, who accepts that the world is insane and not him. His solution is: All demons must die.
Yes... but can Doom guy KILL THE GRUDGE?!?!? BUM BUM BUUUMMM!!!!!!
Ever wonder why characters in horror stories take so long to realize that the danger they're facing is real - and deadly?
guys, awesome episode as usual. I guess that is nothing I have to point out anymore, but hey.
I have seen every video on this channel and I have enjoyed everyone of them. And I can`t help but notice a tendency towards very specific aspects of design in your more recent videos. It is not like those were bad or didn`t succeed at delivering the content, but compared to your older episodes, were you talked about vast areas of gaming and game design I have to say that I prefer your old style. I know that you can`t just do an episode a week on a huge philosophical question, but it would be nice to have a really huge problem of game design discussed on this channel a little more often. Even if that means that you just reuse an old topic and give an updated opinion.
But anyway, great stuff you are doing on this channel, thank you for it!
This does raise a good debate about the reactions of people. Why do few people act, if almost by instinct, against fearsome and almost impossible odds but most are frozen by fear and indecisiveness? Why many will refuse and deny what is happening but a few will rush in regardless of how dangerous the situation might be?
5:14 I see what you did there with the podium. Thank god for the angle bracket keys.
Yeah, it makes sense for the character to act like that in such a situation, disbelieving what they just saw as the truth is far too scary to comprehend. But... since we are talking about the game media itself, wouldn't it be better if the game itself makes you act like that, to disbelieve what you just saw or have done. This episode was focused on how an ingame character should react to it, instead of how a game can make a player feel like that. And whether or not going horror that deep on such a level of involvement since we aren't just viewing it, but interacting with it.
Just speaking my mind is all. I still love every episode you guys and gals make.
it looks a lot like theyre directly drawing into Adobe Flash.
Don't forget to feed your podium, Dan.
I always assumed it's because Horror films love making us (the audience) tear our hair out in frustration as we're forced to watch characters do dumb things like split up while exploring a dungeon or something *:)*
Writing smart characters is a lot harder than writing idiots. This is one of the reasons why a film like Carpenter's The Thing holds up. For the most part the character's do the smart thing (once they kinda' figure out what's going on), but everything still goes to sh#@t.
Hollywood is simply full of lazy screenwriters.
Undertale: It makes you question why you did that (doing this thing in the first area) (1st playthrough)
No, hollywood is full of economical producers. Horror is cheap, precisely because you can make a good horror story without much writing at all. The lowest-budget movies of every year are always horror films
Guys, don't take this post too seriously: this was me simply stating my own dumb, oversimplified belief as to why Horror film characters act the way they do *:)*
Well, to be fair, not everyone in the movies have the same information as the viewer. :P
If you want to play our "Guess the Costume" game, here are the people to identify and the order in which they appear!
Dan (Narrator) - 0:20
Dean (Musician) - 0:24
Lil (Artist) - 0:27
Scott (Artist) - 0:33
Smol Dev (EC Character) - 0:37
James (Writer) - 1:25
Soraya (Media Director) - 1:28
Carrie (Editor) - 1:40
Dan Jones (Artist) - 2:50
Sean (Musician) - 2:57
David (Artist) - 3:11
OK...Dean is either Dante or Virgil (can never tell), Lil is Velma from "Scooby Doo", Scott is King Dedede, Smol looks like a Villager from "Animal Crossing" (prolly wrong), Dan Jones is "Alien" (duh) and Dave is Grunkle Stan from "Gravity Falls". The rest...no clue.
Squeaky Dan is Tina from Bob's Burgers.
Narrator Dan is Tina Belcher.
James is Captain Harlock I guess (?)
Edit: Best guess I have for Carrie so far is eleven from Stranger Things (yellow shirt from beginning and wig from later = prbly wrong)
Edit 2: It was, apparently, Seventeen from the Webcomic 'Camp Wedonwantcha' (not my finding)
Dean: Dante
Lil: Velma
Scott: King Dedede
Smol Dev: Isabelle
Dan Jones: Alien
Those are the ones I got. Dan 1's costume is really puzzling me.
2:26 - That is easily the second most insane flower I have ever seen.
I'm Very Angry It's Not Butter I see you everywhere.
+Colm Ryan He's probably a demon then.
ooh awesome! You guys always cover the psychology of horror so well. You taught me about the uncanny valley too :)
Hey, thanks for the praise! We aim to please!
+PhantomStrider
WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!?!?!
Wow phantom I did not know you liked ec
It always frustrated me when a character went into denial. I always felt that I would do things differently, that I would not only accept what I saw, but reach for the nearest weapon and give it what for, but that feels easy to say sitting on a couch in the safety of my home. Maybe it would be different if I was in that scenario, but I have no way to test it.
I think we should both hope we never have the opportunity to test it.
Jay Ell
Except that's because we already know going in the rules of this world, far better than they do. We understand when put the game in that things will become weird, so we already know to act accordingly. If it happened in real life, how would we be able to know?
Shadowreeper213 its sad but its true, I think the best horror movies I've seen are the ones where you don't know the rules of the world, and you as viewer is as lost as the character. I would say stephen king's the mist does that pretty well, the way it set up its setting with a pretty obvious danger, but it keeps the unknown with character that act as sane people would, but when you think you understand what is happening it scales the insanity until you have no ideia what to expect anymore
Yeah, the "I've been conditioned my whole life to believe that what I'm seeing is impossible" thing is often treated in a very dumb way. Like Doctor Strange, who is supposed to be super smart and, you know, a scientist, who immediately dismisses the mystical monks as unscientific, even though by this point he clearly had very strong evidence they at least had some kind of useful ability.
I liked the French "fantastique" genre, where authors usually tried to make it ambiguous whether the protagonist is going insane, or the world is. The protagonist being presented with evidence of a mystical presence, evidence that is just strong enough for both options to be plausible.
Shadowreeper213
Unless you are purposefully invoking some kind of dramatic irony. Playing with audience knowledge vs character knowledge can lead to some fun stuff when done well.
I recently got done reading Uzumaki, and one of my favorite things about it is a character that is totally aware of whats going on but at no point tries to rationalize it but instead goes insane when he realizes theres no way to for them to run away from the situation he's in.
Tbh, this video reminds me alot about Don't starve's sanity system
Justin8e8(Just A Cardboard Box) now that you mention it, yeah, your character definitely isn't actually going insane, everything's actually happening, but when he sees ghosts and other unearthly monsters, he *thinks* he's going insane, so he slowly *does* go insane.
Don't Starve's sanity system is the same as every other sanity system in horror/psuedo-horror games of the past decade.
+Revolver Ocelot What other games do this? The first I've seen was Eternal Darkness.
TheArchsage74
Amnesia does it, Darkest Dungeon kinda does it, Call of Cthulhu does it. It's mostly Lovecraftian horror games. It's a fairly recent sorta convention.
Revolver Ocelot Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem for the GameCube has a really good Sanity Meter.
this is why it's best to always trust your senses on the off-chance that shit is really going down
hOI!
DEMON
Yeah... What if you see a demon in your friends face and go berserk when there was nothing there? I think there are situations where it's probably good to question your sanity.
"Sanity" is just the concept in which we judge our perception of reality, but due the fact that everyone perceives reality in a different way its really difficult to come to a truely universal definition since everyone can possibly be perceiving our world true a different light.
I basically judge whether or not I imagined the monster in the closet by using the rule of three.
- Did I see it?
- Did I hear it?
- Did I smell it?
If one is present: Hallucination
If two are present: Investigate further
If all three are present: RUUUUUUN BIIIIIIIIITCH RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN!!!
Wow. That is actually my biggest fear. I've never been able to describe it, but you did perfectly.
More of y'all need to watch Bob's Burgers, people.
Holy shit you were doing this for eight years?
Yep! First video in 2008.
I thought I recognized the costume, even though I don't watch the show. It's a good fit. No I don't know the character's name.
Daniel Floyd Suuuuure, Daniel.
uuuuuugghhhhhhhhhhhhh
So the podium was a mimic the whole time!? Dan must have his whole house filled with Lloyds' talismans to be able to come back to that podium and it never eating him.
Wonder when the small set of generic 'person' people (eg. Red haired dude with beard) are going to get names.
We've seen the same ones often enough now. ;)
His name is actually "Social Type Guy" :p
what about pink hair girl from this episode?
Some things are better left open.
As a season 1 follower of Extra Credits and someone struggling with this same exact issue (of "going insane" while perceiving this fall) I must say that this is an extraordinary road into a dread and despair. Loved the video.
The little Dan Jones alien was hilarious.
Also, perhaps it is just me, but I find the logical belief that you must be going insane as opposed to the world going insane is a bit odd, at least to a degree. Sure, that is the probable explanation, but are you really not going to take precautions against this fact, just in case, until proven otherwise? You most likely are just seeing things when you saw a face in the window, but if I were out in the woods in a log cabin and I saw that, I would still make sure to have a weapon nearby, just in case I _wasn't_ just seeing things.
Immediately recognized that Spooktune remix
gnhtd1 Napstablook got a gig!
Never played Undertale, but it's on my evergrowing todo list. I heard the theme and immediately thought: "What a weird 'inspector gadget' theme remix!" Compare them yourself, they're very similar!
Just play it man, its relatevely short. And the more you wait the more the possibility someone spoils it for you. Talking from personal experience btw.
Nikolay Manev Relatively short if you don't count every path.
same here
Dan as Tina Belchor is the best thing ever
You are one of the channels that surprises me with the amount of videos dedicated to horror. I love horror and would love to do an animated horror short for my degree .. but its hard to find good guidelines on how to create visual horror effectively and not in a cheap way. I thank you for videos like this.
Oh, and while you're going back and looking at horror games and movies with this explanation in mind, make sure to check for the flipside; characters who DO take the horror at face value and spring to action... only for it to ACTUALLY be all in their heads.
TriggerfingerTeddy Army of Darkness?
They Live?
David Sooley Ash does.
Thank you Extra Credits for this late birthday gift..! All these horror focused videos makes me want to go back and continue on my horror project... Thank you!
"They are more ready to believe that *they* are insane than that the world itself is insane."
>.>
Welcome to the 2016 election.
Thank you for writing this comment so I didn't have to.
Needs a horror story based off that.
Not only the election, but look who's in the World Series ..... spooky
Well this didn't age well.
Welcome to the 2020 -election.-
Great episode guys!I've been subscribed for around a year and a half or perhaps more, I've watched every single Extra Credits episode! Always quality content, I'm no game designer or nor do I intend to but it's always interesting how you guys analyse each aspect of games, which can be applied to other arts, or even society itself.
I love this idea, because I'm not sure how i would react to seeing something that challenges my vision of reality. I think I would embrace it and try to revise my understanding of the world to account for it, but I also do have a fear of losing my mind, so that could go either way...
is this guy really dressed as Tina from Bob's burgers? lmao 😂
I thought it was about causing the player themselves to have that experience that makes for great horror. If the player is doubting there own reality/ the game's reality then any and all things (including and especially the viscerally scary) are true. The player doesn't know and therefore is anxious and uncomfortable for the whole time when only a small fraction of the playtime actually contains scary things.
Isn't that exactly what Lovecraft plays on in his stuff?
is it wierd to say that i learn more about how people and entertainment as a whole works than i do actual games on this channel?
i love it so much
please do an episode about minesweeper.
Like how to eliminate luck?
Seriously, I hate how many games I lost when it came down to a 50-50 choice
I don't see how the element of chance improves Minesweeper, though. In poker, you have control over the randomness, but in Minesweeper, the randomness controls you. There's always either a numerically best solution, or it comes down to a 50/50.
one reason I really love Pan's Labyrinth is because the whole time not only does the protagonist face self doubt, the audience is doubting whether or not the fantastic things are real. Great episode, guys! Happy late Halloween!
@ExtraCredit This is some really Lovecraftian view on horror. great job guys. keep it up.
I actually feel like a lot of gamers have been trained to believe in an irrational world as well.
Why is that piece of grass just floating?!
-Minecraft Steve
yes. it is too late. it's Christmas now.
I agree with what you say about the fear associated with not being able to trust your senses.
Thus are the foundations of true horror... the horror we trap ourselves with by determining it as our own fantasy... these are the reflections of one who crosses paths... with the Twilight Zone.
(Dun dun dun dun duuuuuuuuun!)
Tohab don't you mean "dun dun duuuuuun"?
X) I was trying to make it sound like the little musical trill that plays after he says "The Twilight Zone". :P
Read in Rod Serling's voice. got a chubby.
The way you describe horror in just that first minute alone reinforces why I found The Last of Us such an emotionally difficult game to get through.
Thumbs up to those Dante, Vergil and Shizue costumes.
Good eye dude
wow, thank you for this episode !
I have been wanting to write an interactive horror short story, but really struggled with where to start, or what angle to approach it with. This episode helped me find a good place to start ! :)
Ooh it's a classic, they don't make music like this anymore...
Kudos to whoever did all the art this week. Holy cow. So many costumes.
my teacher used one of your vids at school today
Which one?
this should be on the discussion page of their channel, or sent as a message to the channel
the one about rome
I have a friend of mine who happened to experience all nightmares of schizophrenia, but saved all the intellect and perception of a normal person. From his point of view, the world we know is already a matter of doubt, as well as he knows perfectly all the reason behind such doubts (as he is veeery smart). Once he told me one interesting thing - that is actually not really frightening to think of a "rational" world as an illusion. After all the stress human brain just settles that statement "there is more" and "we can't sense it", and keeps functioning. In fact the most unsettling thing about all this is the moment when we begin to wonder around that hudge variety of possibilities we can come up with and all "bad ends", as he calls them, emerges and begin to threat our very existence.
Right now he is somehow ok, so don't worry.
The podium is alive! ( 'A')
The Podium, coming to theaters near you.
I have a question about this. Just the other night, I watched the 1982 The Thing for the first time, and I'm not sure if it was really excluding this idea or playing around with it. After one glimpse at the monster, (hell after the first weird noise that might have possibly been some kind of monster) everyone immediately springs into action to fight it as hard as they can, but the Thing itself keeps finding unexpected ways to survive and kill them. Most of the distrust is directed at each other, wondering who's been infected. No one is necessarily doubting their sanity, but they just aren't anticipating what the thing is capable of.
and it was a FANTASTIC movie. Honestly, 10/10, I just can't place this kind of moment anywhere in the film.
James as Captain Harlock!
I sqweed like a girl when I saw James dressed as Harlock. 😍😍😍
I wonder if there is anything related to Captain Harlock coming out recently? Speaking of which, what made you come across this anime?
This is an explanation of humanity that shows us how we experience and reject things that do not fit into our world view. It shows us how progress is limited by our own pre-conditioned world view.
1:05 Velma from Scooby-Doo.
That one frame at 5:15 with the desk having a mouth with huge teeth. Nicely done! I had to go back and check to see if that was real.
No wonder those particular stories don't scare me, I don't care about my sanity at all.
To know horror is to know -- with certainty -- that what you thought you knew, was in fact wrong. I get the sense that betrayal is very akin to horror as well, only what we trusted to be true was the nature of our friends/loved ones rather than the world around us.
Thank you for explaining the horror genre. I never did understand why these characters and some people react they way they do towards the unfamiliar or unknown. It really is because of this faith that the world is logical and comprehensible. Nice.
I don't watch Bob's Burgers, but I do know that Dan is in fact Tina.
cthulhu mythos is my favorite because you could do so many things with it and make the world so insane but make a character feel like they're the one who's going mad because it is inside their head, but it's all happening to just them, so they're going mad over something that's actually happening to them but the world still presents itself as sane
Higurashi no naku koro ni
Umineko no naku koro ni
Wow, this totally change my understanding of The Horla,now the madness in which the character falls totally make sense.
What's a screenshot at 02:32? On a word "impossible".
I'm not familiar with it but very curious.
It's from the movie Cloverfield (2008).
Not that I've seen the movie, but it looks like the monster from Cloverfield.
Thank you, whoever from the cast you are! :)
I was never into horror (love thriller), but now I'm getting a little taste for it, bit by bit.
I'm sure it was partly inspired with you talking about it in interested and calm fashion. ;)
My favourite kind of monster is the kind that makes you just want to pull the covers over your head and never look at it rather than do something to fight or escape it. The kind of monster that is so disturbing in how it differs from reality, you'd rather die than accept that anything like that could be real.
Dan is tina from bob's burgers.
As someone who wrote Halloween specials this past month, I can truthfully say that I didn't exactly delve as far as I could have into Horror like you described it. In fact, only my first special, at a measly 3,000 words, could be described as a descent into insanity as the world around the main characters warped in a drug-induced hallucination they were unaware of. The other two specials I wrote were merely Halloween-themed.
But now that I have a better understanding of what horror truly is, I'm more prepared than ever to make next year's Spook-fest all the more spooky. Thanks.
But why aren't there more rational horror games? Always having monsters is kinda boring imo.
Yeah. The things discussed in this video don't apply to stories like 'Silence of the lambs'. If we don't have rational horror, then fantasy horror loses it's edge because of overexposure.
Martin Wright Shows like csi don't really try to develop much of a horror atmosphere. Any horrific elements are usually incidental because they focus more on presenting a puzzle to the viewers. If you did add actual horror to csi, you would get something more like Hannibal, which is a pretty good example of a forensic horror. Although I wouldn't consider Hannibal to be entirely non fantasy, as it stretches it's realism quite a bit. Non fantasy horror stories aren't necessarily forensic though.
I think that, maybe, developers see monstrous horror as slightly easier to make than rational horror. Think back to a game with rational horror, and you find there are few. Heavy Rain being one. The main flaw with rational horror is that you need to get the character, and in a sense the player, fear something they normally wouldn't, mainly a human being.
While it's not easy painting a horrific monster, it can at least hold itself up, in a sense, from attacks the player inflicts. A human however, is much more fragile. When the evil in a horror game is just a human, something that usually can be killed in a few shots/hits, it needs a lot of buildup to why the player and the character should fear something that is not specifically stronger than them.
That's my view on it at least.
Leorlev C I think you're right. It's kinda the same reason that most video games are focused on combat gameplay. Certain genres are just more prevalent do to the nature of the medium.
dude you should read J-horror, it's fucking nightmarish how powerful the writing is
Some of the best horror is when it makes you doubt what is real, if it's in a character's mind or actually happening in the story.
Higurashi does this pretty well, your understanding of the first arc shifts dramatically with later revelations.
Though most of this, I though you were talking about the 2016 elections
1:23 キャプテンハーロック Thank you, James!
huh, I knew mimics were real, it's everyone else who's crazy, not me I swear...
Evil Dead uses this a bit. One of the Deadites favorite tricks is seeming to suddenly withdraw control over Ashley's friends. Making it seem like the nightmare's over, or like it never happened in the first place.
Who is he dressed as?? I feel like I recognize the character but I can't pin it down
Phabel Greene tina from bobs burgers
brandonebanks86 No way. It honestly seems like the hair is a little understated for that .-.
This is just one of may ways to create fear and horror inside a protagonists mind. I could write an essay about that. And also i feel, that there are more easy ways to do this, that trying to imply to a person, that he is slowly growing insane. But still a nice video. Happy Hollydays.
Anyone who can suggest me some books on game design? Such as psychology and game design, level design, monetization etc
"The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses" by Jesse Schell is a renowned and comprehensive textbook on the intersection of psychology with almost every aspect of game design, including level design, art, narrative, and even marketing/publishing! You can't go wrong starting with that book. --Belinda
Extra Credits I am reading that one right now! it is a good book
Awesome! Well... in that case, a particularly super niche one I personally enjoy is The Medium of the Video Game (edited by Mark J.P. Wolf). It's a collection of academic essays from way back in the '80s/early '90s when academic people were still trying to make sense of games by analyzing them as "interactive art" more than anything else. It's definitely not everyone's cup of tea, but it really opened my mind up. --Belinda
Thanks! I'll start reading them while creating some games :)
Check out 'Challenges for Game Designers' - Braithwait and Schreir, 'Game Design Workshop' - Tracy Fullerton, Raph Kosters 'A Theory of Fun' and finally 'Rules of Play' - Tekinbas and Zimmerman is an absolute must have. Get that before any of the others, it's exceptionally comprehensive.
One of your best episodes ever, true horror is true immersion of the gamers, viewers or readers perception of reality.
podium is my monster girl waifu you can't have her
the going mad symbol at 3:22 soooomehooow reminds me of darkest dungeon, well played ^^
Is this video about the election?
that last bit was so good, way to prove your point!
Why did Dan cross-dress?
The real question is: Why don't you?
Because spooky month, and also Teena Belcher is voiced by a guy so it's kind'ove meta.
LforLight You're Dan's son?
I know what Halloween is, but why is he dressed up like a girl, and not as something spooky? It that girl costume supposed to be recognizable?
+LforLight it's Tina from the show Bob's Burgers.
This is really good writing, James. So many impressive ideas!
so you like dressing up as a girl?
Kind of looks like Tina from Bob's Burgers
+Thom Cote That's because it is.
My personal favorite Horror game is a little known title, Theresia: Dear Emile. As you were describing this I realized that it serves a near perfect parallel to this lesson. The story involves an amnesiatic young woman waking up in a trap filled underground dungeon. Her slow realization in the first 30 minutes of the game of her coming to realize just how bleak her situation is, or even more how every time you think you've seen to worst the game has to offer or that you think you know the truth, only to have all expectations destroyed... I think it fits snugly into this discussion.
This was a really good video! The whole time I was thinking about The Evil Within; Sebastian thinks he's going insane when, lo and behold, the world is insane
The Babadook is a great example of this, it's a great way to make a horror movie without using jump scares as a way to get your audience uneasy
"It was just the wind" Is pretty much the prime example for this.
"It could look like someone you know or it could be a stranger in a crowd. Whatever helps it get close to you. I almost think it takes the form of loved ones just to hurt you. Never go anywhere with just one exit!"
I said no, nooooooo, ffs... its like he cant even hear me.
You know what I've always wanted to see in a horror movie? The protagonist sees something... weird, rationally knows that such a thing is impossible and they were likely just seeing things that weren't there... but takes precautions anyway because of that little voice in the back of their head that whispers 'But what if you're wrong?' Someone who is already generally paranoid to begin with.
Interesting that my favourite horror movie eschews this completely: in John Carpenter's The Thing the characters are confused as to what is going on but say 'let's kill it'. No denial, no thought of insanity just a drive to kill the creature. The fear comes from an inability to discern who is the thing and the fact that they are so hideously vulnerable to it. It's similar to the alien franchise.
This is why Eternal Darkness is one of my favorite horror games.
Rationality v Reality in horror games was interestingly explored to some extent in the newest season of Black Mirror.
And the worst part is, despite knowing the consequences of believing in a rational world in these settings, you couldn't opt out of doubting what you saw like them, because the overwhelming majority of these cases in real life warrant that.
Rosemary's Baby is a great example of this; the idea that the protagonist is making assumptions about what may be a series of coincidences is just as plausible as the horror she feels, up until the very end when the film reveals which of the two possibilities is reality.
Oh man, that Sabriel costume hit me right in the nostalgia. I may have to reread those books now!
I'd also be running scared if I saw a tongue like that at 2:50
I really had to laugh there. Very nice idea! :)
I hate how horror related episodes only come this time of year I love horror and wanna hear about it all year lol
An experience that I had recently while playing Fallout 4 shows this in full. I was walking in an abandoned building and as I turned to walk through a door I thought that I saw a man in a suit but all black, like a silhouette of a man. It terrified me because when I went back he wasn't there, but I didn't know if I had imagined that or if I could be murdered at any moment. I spent five minutes wondering if I had seen something or a man in black was watching me. Truly terrifying.
This is one of the reasons I love John Carpenter's The Thing so much. They acknowledge something is happening but can't piece it all together just yet. When they finally figure out what they're up against, that's where the dawning realization comes in. It also puts into play another thing you have talked about before: The protagonist of horror fits into one of 3 main archetypes. The one who defeats the monster, the one who loses to the monster, and the one who they themselves are the monster. In The Thing, the protagonists are all 3 of them. It may not be the best alien movie or the best horror movie, but it is specifically the best monster movie ever made.
Excellent, incredible discussion, you guys. Thank you! :)
5:14
*DANG MIMICS!*
[Throws Lloyd's talismans everywhere]
I actually screamed in delight to see James dressed up as Captain Harlock and the old 1977 version so less!