Playing with the horror

 

The survival horror games are video games where the player's life is so challenged that the question is just : how to survive in such hostile conditions. These  games are derived from the horror movies. Their narrative is generally as follows: a group of heroes explore an environment that quickly reveals itself as
extremely dangerous. The group is being decimated, and often the less well armed character is the only survivor. Most of the time, it is a woman and the film reaches its climax when the survivor finally meets the aggressor. This theme was spotted by Carol J. Clover in her book Men, Women and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film.  The Wikipedia entry Final Girl summarizes its positions. Check also the blog Final Girl : http://finalgirl.blogspot.com/

 

 

It would be interesting to make a parallel with Vladimir Propp's table structures of tales :

1. An initial phase in which the world order is disturbed; the hero is seeking information. Sometimes he is deceived.

2. A second sequence in which a crime occurs. Someone asks to the hero to put in place the acts of reparation.

3. Following sequence in which the hero defeats of the impostor

 

It is possible now to give some differences between tales and film/survival games

a. The action time is not the same. In storytelling, the disorder is pinpointed in the present, whereas in films / horror video games, it is often dismissed in a very distant past, even in another space and time.

b. Movies/survival games involve the physical and mental integrity of the protagonists. People dis in the most atrocious manner, and there is not a mutilation or a torture cutting, fragmentation, évicération, impaled, fractures, wrenched

c. In the tales, the trouble in the world order is current. It's always happened in the movies / horror video games. While in the tales, the hero settles a problem that is personal, in movies and video games of horror, the hero settles a situation he inherits. It has more to do with ghosts and the ghosts of past generations than with a personal problem. This theme is particularly important : the horror stops when the the ghost finds rest.

d.Psychodyamics is also differents. The tale never does not question the sense of continuity of the existence. Time exerts its effects in a banal way: there is a "before" and an "after", and things take some time to be done. In movies / horror video games, identities mingle and share. A body can be inhabited by several entities. An entity may live in several bodies. The difference between the lively and inanimate is blurred and sometimes disappears.

e. In tales, the narative unity is never broken. It is always the cases in movies/horror games. The hero does not know why he is attacker or even what he has to do. His only concer is survival, ie the maintenance of his/her carnal and psychologial integrity.

f. There is nothing to win in survival horror movies/games. You just avoid to loose your life. Tales are more open and the hero finally gain something : "they were married and had many children"

 g. Contagion - of ideas, disease, death - is central to horror games/films while the transmission - of life, traditions - is at the central of the tales.

 

Playing with horror

But why watch or play with horror ? Firstly, because fear is one of the basic emotions (1). As such, it is an invaluable experience. Then, because the game offers a framework to try live and control particularly strong anxieties . They can be proven safely, because it is just agame. Finally, because the killings that accompany these games are a source of passive and active pleasures.

Loss of the limits, attack of the the sense of continuity of the existence, paroxysmal anguish, loss of the differences between the animated and inanimate, the human and the non-human... that's the kind of anxiety that can be found in horror video games. They allow the player to play again and again deep anguishes that are common to all mankind.

There is one which seems very specific to horror video games: agonistic anxiety. The player is confronted with an environment that constantly harassing him and gives him resources sparingly: care items, ammunition and weapons are rare. The battery of the flashlight flickers, falters, and finally unpack. The gun ran out ouf ammo with a sinister noise. Sometimes it's the radio that becomes unusable. All these elements of gameplay put the player in the situation of an infant whose means of communication and defense are not only low but declining. Thus, the player feels what the psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott called "agonistic experiences" : faces flaws in its environment, the child is unable to give meaning and subjectivity of experience. One of the possible fates of this experiment is that the child cut itself from its life experience. It is then faced with a paradox, since experience has been lived, has ceased, but was not adequate enough to be internalized

 

What Winnicott said about the fear of breakdown is particularly illuminating here: some people constantly fear a breakdow. The therapist is to tell them that the breakdown has already occurred. To Play this kind of video games is a way to work through the primitive agonies : by playing and replaying them the safe  framework offeredby the video game. But, in order to symbolized this experience, they need to be expressed in words in the presence of another one, valorous invested by the player

That is why it is important to let children talk about their video games, and to encourage even those who do not speak to do so so. This applies to all games, whether survival games or games seemingly innocuous: verbalizationincrease the chances to make the experience of video game something living and dynamic. As opposed to the silence which may transform it into something rigid and sclerotic

 

If you were interested by this post, you may read 27th March  Powers of Horror  - Lisa Thatcher

 

(1) Anger, fear, sadness, joy, surprise and disgus are the six basic emotions

 

I warmly thank tami_squeak