The horror genre is an extremely nuanced literary, cinematic, and electronic game genre that has evolved incredibly quickly, literally before our eyes, in the last 40 or so years. The more recent works of horror are often categorized as postmodern, or late-postmodern horror, and can be defined by a few key characteristics as described by many academics and critics. Isabel Pinedo, one such academic, lists some of these characteristics in her work, Recreational Terror: Postmodern Elements of the Contemporary Horror Film. Her work functions based on five notable points, including “violent disruption[s] of the everyday world…” and “transgression[s]… of boundaries,” (Pinedo, 20). I will borrow these two, as well as focusing on the role of technology and the implementation of media to analyze and compare two works. First, I will take a look at Dying Light, a survival horror video game released in 2014 by Techland in conjunction with Warner Bros. After providing some introductory information, I will detail some examples in which Dying Light can be seen to clearly fit the category of postmodern horror. Next, I will do the same for Black Mirror, season 3, episode 5, Men Against Fire, available on Netflix. Finally, I will compare and contrast some of the major aspects of each ‘text.’ We will come to see how these two ‘texts’ intersect, overlap, and fit the same genre, despite their obvious differences.
Dying Light, published in 2014, in some ways rides the coattails of some very influential works in the survival horror video game arena, including classics like Resident Evil and Silent Hill, but no doubt holds a light of its own. The game is played in first person perspective, and opens to your character, named Kyle Crane, booting up some augmented reality heads-up-display in the back of a military aircraft. You are informed that there is a virus outbreak in the fictional city of Harran, and that an agency called the GRE has hired you to extract some information about the toxin, ostensibly in order to engineer a cure. The virus outbreak, you quickly learn, has turned most of the population of the city into zombies. One of the very first things you hear is that your GRE-provided radio is “your lifeline, do not lose it,” else face isolation in this apocalyptic city. This is the first instance we see of technology being equivalent to safety, to an advantage that is too valuable to lose. This trope will be continued, as we will see later on.
When you parachute into the city, your parachute gets caught on an awning and a group of thugs finds you, injuring you badly and leaving you to the zombies. This opening scene violently disrupts whatever expectations either the player or the character had of typical opening sequences in video games, as well as the orderly, tactical, composed feeling you get from the military aircraft and careful parachute ride down to the ground.
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Being immediately attacked by groups of both “normal” humans and zombies right off the bat “violates our assumption that we live in a predictable, routinized world by demonstrating that we live in a minefield” (Pinedo, 21). Lucky for Crane, he is saved by a group of survivors that happen upon him just at the right time. However, to reinforce this violent upheaval of the norms of the civilized world, the creators of the game remind us quite vividly that no one is safe in this world- though the zombies don’t kill Crane, we see one of his rescuers tackled and eaten by three zombies as Crane and the other survivors narrowly escape out a back door. Right from the beginning, Dying Light pulls no punches whatsoever. It is important that the player be shocked as they are thrown into the thick of things with very little warning, as this contributes greatly to both the horror and survival aspects of the game.
Eventually, Crane makes it back to the headquarters of this group of survivors, a place called The Tower. In The Tower, people feel safe. The doors, windows, and walls are all barricaded and the fortress can only be accessed by a series of acrobatic jumps and climbing that the zombies are incapable of. Unfortunately for the group, there are infected left in the building, and we are reminded once again of the fragility of safety in such a world when several more survivors are infected within the walls of The Tower itself. Not only do we see the borders of one of the few remaining sanctuaries being literally and metaphorically torn down, we get to watch characters conversion from human to zombie. The newly infected are aware of their fate, which necessitates some difficult actions on the part of Crane, including killing his new friends before they have fully transformed into the zombies that plague them all. The psychological aspect of being forced to kill something that is not entirely your enemy, and that you remember only as an ally in your struggle to survive is a significant factor in the horror and drama players experience. Zombies, being the monsters, “violate the boundaries of the body through the use of violence against other bodies and through the disruptive qualities of [their] own bodies” (Pinedo, 21). Further, to see this disruption of the human and the natural only builds upon this violation and transgression of boundaries, “dissolv[ing] binary differences” (Pinedo, 21) between the proverbial ‘us’ and ‘them.’
Now that we know how we are hunted and haunted by these zombies that fill the streets, there must be a way to combat them. Indeed there is, but the suggested strategy in Dying Light is not to fight your way through endless hordes, beating them back or gunning them down by the dozens or hundreds. Instead the game focuses more on the survival, scavenging, and crafting side of things. Rather than finding a machine gun with a thousand bullets in every building, Crane is forced to loot the world for materials to build more tactical weapons with.
As the game progresses, Crane uses his intellect, military training, and tips from other survivors to combat the zombies with various technologies, from electric spike traps to toxic knives. Furthermore, the zombies are significantly slowed and weakened by ultraviolet light, including from the sun. Crane uses this knowledge as well as his technological prowess to make use of powerful lights to slow the zombies that are inside buildings or out at night. Here we see again the role of technology as a savior, as a weapon against the darkness to help the hero complete his quest. Technology, as demonstrated in Dying Light is an important part of postmodern horror, but can take very different forms as we will see in Black Mirror.
Last but not least in Dying Light is the implementation of the medium itself: video games. The game is presented in first person, and offers the player lots of choice and freedom, as the game is open world and guided only by markers on a map as well as voices over the phone. The inherent nature of such open world, first person games is that they use immediacy to help the audience participate in the horror of the game. Everything you see, you see through Crane’s eyes. Not only are you controlling Crane’s actions and choices, he is also controlling the bounds of your perspective and experience of this open world. By removing the lens of a camera floating over Cranes shoulder, the game employs immediacy and “dictates that the medium itself should disappear and leave us in the presence of the thing represented: sitting in the racing car or standing on a mountaintop” (Bolter, 64). In this way the player is dragged further into the game, immersing him or her in this violent and strange world, and enhancing their experience of fear and horror.
Black Mirror more often than not toys with these same principles of violent disruption, the role of technology, transgressions of boundaries, and immediacy to more fully captivate the audience with horror. In Men Against Fire, we follow Stripe, a soldier in a semi-dystopian future. Stripe and his fellow soldiers are all equipped with a neural implant, called MASS, that provides augmented reality and facilitates communication amongst the military. Early on, we see Stripe and his squad hunting for “roaches,” which are said to be mutated humans with diseases, disfigured genes, and monstrous appearances.
Furthermore, the military is far better equipped, with high-tech guns, drones, and other tech such as “the boomer” which uses sound to quickly map the house they plan to infiltrate. Technology is presented at first as equivalent to power, control, and superiority in this battle between the established and funded military and the underprivileged roaches.
In his first encounter, Stripe kills two roaches, one with a quick, cold shot to the head, and another in a much more intimate fight which ends with a knife in the chest of the roach. However, in this struggle, the roach is able to produce his own technological weapon, one that uses light and sound to apparently disorient the soldiers, and Stripe clearly is affected by this device. It turns out that this device actually impairs the function of the MASS implants, which has massive implications. Stripe’s orderly, military world in which he follows orders and gets his job done is violently disrupted when he encounters more roaches. At first, Stripe sees the roaches as he did before: disfigured, unable to speak, and enraged. However, Stripe feels the effects of the device from earlier and the roaches transform into normal looking humans right before his eyes. This makes Stripe hesitate, as the boundaries between ally and enemy, between right and wrong dissolve. No longer is Stripe set out to systematically kill an enemy he cannot relate to. Instead, he is faced with helpless civilians, scared and wanting nothing other than to be left alone. It’s revealed to Stripe that his MASS implant is abusing its augmented reality capabilities, that roaches are not in fact monsters, but are instead targets of genocide following a world war that broke out ten years ago. All of a sudden, right becomes wrong, wrong becomes right, and Stripe’s entire world is flipped on its head.
One of the most effective ways this episode immerses the audience in the story is immediacy. Similarly to how video games are often inherently immediate (first person perspective, agency of action, etc.) Men Against Fire employs first person perspective and intimate shots of tense scenes to remove the filter of the media itself between the story and the audience. Stripe’s dreams are seen through his eyes; we never get a glimpse of him or anything else, and are equally rudely removed from these dream states alongside him. When Stripe is fighting his first roaches, we see most of the encounter, and most importantly both deaths through his eyes. As Stripe’s MASS implant begins to glitch, we get to experience the visual and auditory errors that he does. Throughout the episode, we, the audience, are very intentionally shown this world and its events through the main character’s eyes in order to bring the story more directly to us and to help us empathize more deeply with Stripe’s confusion and disorientation.
As time progresses, new technologies allow for expressions of common literary themes to be developed upon and introduced to the consumer in fascinating new ways. Video games, being one of the newest forms of media available, is a fascinating avenue down which to assess and analyze the employment of defining characteristics of genres, especially as they compare to more conventional media such as television. Postmodern Horror relies on shock value, psychological terror, and immersion into the story to scare the audience, to make them think, and to make commentary about the world we live in. Both Dying Light and Men Against Fire share many of these commonalities, and yet utilize them in differing ways. In Dying Light, technology serves as a connection to allies and especially as a tool for survival. However, technology also serves as a reminder of the constant struggle and conflict Crane finds himself in: nothing and nowhere is safe, but technology can be employed to at least diminish dangers. On the flip side, In Men Against Fire, technology is the deceiver, altering reality and hiding the ugly truth, helping soldiers avoid the ethical dilemma of murdering innocent civilians based on their genetic makeup. Though these two ‘texts’ make use of technology in nearly opposite ways, they reinforce the danger and abnormality of the horrific world in which the audience finds itself. Finally, immediacy is crucial in both works. Without the implementation of first person perspectives and intimate portrayal of violent and life-threatening situations, the audience might feel more of a disconnect between them and the characters, diminishing the sense of fear so central to these narratives. While video games afford much more autonomy and thereby greater connection to the character, Black Mirror surely doesn’t miss their opportunities to achieve “a similar effect: the impression of an encounter with the real” (Kirkland, 117). Both of these works conform with many of the typical characteristics of great postmodern horror texts in their own ways to create thrilling, immersive experiences of terror within a compelling narrative, and both deserve to be played and watched long into the future.
References:
“Accelerated Ideas.” Accelerated Ideas, 2014, www.accelerated-ideas.com/news/dying-light–crafting-and-blueprints-guide.aspx.
Bolter, Jay David. “Remediation and the Desire for Immediacy.” Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, vol. 6, no. 1, 2000, pp. 62–71., doi:10.1177/135485650000600107.
Booker, Charlie. “Men Against Fire.” Black Mirror, season 3, episode 5, Netflix, 21 Oct. 2016.
Kirkland, E. “Resident Evil’s Typewriter: Survival Horror and Its Remediations.” Games and Culture, vol. 4, no. 2, 2008, pp. 115–126., doi:10.1177/1555412008325483.
Pinedo, Isabel. “Recreational Terror: Postmodern Elements of the Contemporary Horror Film.” Journal of Film and Video, vol. 48, no. 1/2, 1996, pp. 17–31., www.jstor.org/stable/20688091?seq=5#metadata_info_tab_contents.
TheRadBrad, producer. YouTube. YouTube, YouTube, 10 Dec. 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLHR5smxbsc.