Game Over | Video Game Horror | Video Essay Script

Hi, my name is Kishor and this is MOVING IMAGES. Video games have revolutionized storytelling as a medium by making the viewer an active part of the story. By giving the player a way to control how the events unfolds, video games have even changed the way we think about stories. And when we talk about the subject of experiencing a story, it is inevitable that we broach the subject of one genre, horror. Although many types of horror exists, nothing is as effective when it manifests in front of your controller as survival horror.

Like films, video games too have genres and subgenres. It is interesting to see how horror films have largely influenced horror games, with some of them being actual game adaptations of the movies. One of the earliest attempts at the survival horror video game came in 1989 as Capcom’s “Sweet Home” developed by Tokoro Fujiwara. The game was an adaptation of the Japanese horror film of the same name directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa. The film follows a TV crew who are making a documentary about an infamous fresco painter. When they start filming at his old home they come under attack from the ghosts of the painter’s wife. Fujiwara created a loose adaptation of Kurosawa’s film, taking inspiration from the story and the physical film set. But what made the game interesting was the game mechanics. The subgenres of a video game are decided on not only the tone of the story and the events but also the mechanics of the game. A few things that make the survival horror subgenre are an oppressive atmosphere, an overwhelmed protagonist, and limited resources similar to slasher films. Fujiwara was the first to incorporate these mechanics into a horror survival game and created the threat of in-game death. Three years later in 1993, he remade his adaptation with his understudy into a game called BioHazard. But you might know the game by its international name (Resident Evil). Needless to say, the game revolutionized the entire survival horror subgenre in games and gave rise to many such games and even film adaptations of the game itself. We have come full circle. But the films could never capture what made the games so effective at scaring us. These games didn’t get under your skin through gore or jump scares or horrific looking monsters, though there are a few of those, it gets to you by a tense and ominous atmosphere that has the propensity to warp and mutate when you least expect it and above all by making you experience it all as a player. Something films can never achieve, or can they?

Fast-forward to 2019 and the Indian film “Game Over” actually made me rethink about video game films. The film was a psychological thriller which also paid homage to the slasher films of the 80s, with a Jason-like serial killer, the final girl, and of course the isolated house. The homages and the brilliantly written psychological aspect of Swapna, the protagonist, would have been enough to make the film truly terrifying, but the writers went one step beyond by introducing the game element into the mix. Although films of the past have included game like elements, Game Over is unique in how all the setup in the first half of the movie actually help build the mechanics of the game to follow. Remember the mechanics of a survival horror game? We have an oppressive atmosphere in the form of an isolated house. Add to that Swapna’s fear of the dark, an isolated house with no lights is the perfect oppressive atmosphere for her. Next is an overwhelmed protagonist. Swapna is overwhelmed both physically and mentally and this puts her at a great disadvantage against the antagonist. Her fear of the dark, PTSD, and her physical disability all overwhelm her. Finally, limited resources. Now this is where the film really shines with its game like elements. By playing the game multiple times, Swapna is shown to gather whatever resources are available in a sub-urban home to defend herself against the killer. She is shown to be a gamer who improves each time she plays a game, and when she gets to play a game of life or death with three lives, she improves and adapts each time she plays it.

But the biggest challenge for the movie was not introducing the gaming elements but rather give the audience the experience of playing the game along with Swapna. The film achieves this by giving the audience an illusion of choice. At the beginning, we and Swapna are left with no choice but to die easily at the hands of the killer since both of us have very limited knowledge about what is happening. The film only gives us the information Swapna knows. This already puts us in her mind-set. As she continues to play the game, we discover more aspects and twists to the game when she finds it out too. This is a brilliant move, since all the actions Swapna take playing the game are the actions we would take too because those are the only one we could. We want Swapna to explore the game more so that we can learn more information about what is going on. Similar to how we would play a game rather than shouting at the protagonist to (“Don’t go in there”).

Although Game Over had a lot of influences in its storytelling, there is one major influence I’d like to talk about. Back in mid 2014, a little game called PT was released by an unknown studio. The game begins with the character you are playing waking up in a suburban home. We explore the house as the character and the house seems normal at first, until we get the first glimpse of what is wrong. The house goes on an endless loop and each time you pass it it gets weirder and weirder. At the end of the game, it is revealed that PT stands for Playable Teaser and the game is a demo for a new Silent Hills game. Now that by itself was a huge reveal, but what is more interesting is that the game was actually developed by acclaimed filmmaker Guillermo del Toro in collaboration with gaming icon Hideo Kojima. For those who didn’t know, Del Toro is a master of gothic horror and dark fantasy, who is influenced by German Expressionism. His films combine the horrors of real life with the fantastical and the surreal. What is so fascinating about PT is that it is the quintessential case study of what happens when a cinematic mind directs a video game. Game Over owed many of its elements to PT making it a curious case how a video game could be turned into a cinematic experience. Both PT and Game Over begins with the contradiction of waking up in a nightmare. They both establish the thin line between the real and the surreal. “I have what is called lucid dreaming which means that you would dream that you are awake so I literally saw monsters”. The film and the game takes the coziness of a suburban home and quickly challenges the safety we feel inside our homes.

Both PT and Game Over understood the fragile link binding us to reality and how easily that link can be tested when we are confronted with the unknown. This is what makes Game Over so immersive, as we along with Swapna experience vicariously and passively the nightmare we are thrust into. The film overwhelms you with its craftful storytelling and its surreal atmosphere that draws you deeper and deeper relentlessly, keeping you in the dark, until you realise it’s…(Game Over)