Can TV Comedies be Scarier Than Horror Shows?

If you don't find this terrifying then there is something wrong with you.

I have been a massive fan of horror movies for a long time now. I can't quite say that this has been true since I was born however. When I was a small child I was too easily scared to really enjoy horror movies, even some action movies were too much for me. One of my biggest fears was the relatively tame movie 'Jurassic Park', a movie I now have a childlike fondness for as an adult.

Despite this I have grown into an aficionado of horror movies, with a collection containing some of the best in mainstream horror, classic horror and awful, awful B-movies. As such I have watched a large amount of horror movies, from found footage to supernatural to serial killer thrillers, I've probably watched at least one film from each sub-genre of horror. As such I have developed, like so many other horror fans, a certain level of resistance to being scared. Being scared by a horror movie is now a pretty rare treat for me, and is something that really makes a movie stand out  too.

Having said all of that, I have been scared by TV shows before, a fair few times. Obviously growing up it was really easy to scare me, hell I couldn't even watch a movie with dinosaurs in it without having nightmares for weeks. But even as I got older and was finding it hard to truly be scared by a horror movie there were moments in my life were I would have trouble sleeping because of a TV show I had caught just before bed. The odd thing about them? They were usually comedy shows.

Some of you might think it is totally ridiculous for me to claim that a comedy show actually managed to scare me, but hear me out on this one. The best example I can find is the British comedy show 'Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps'. Say what you want about the shows actual quality (There is an entire debate to be had there about weather the show is good or now, but that's not why were here) but it is quite easy to see that it is a quite silly simple, comedy series.

It tells the story of 5 friends living in Runcorn, a town in the north of England, and their exploits as they usually spend their lives acting stupid and getting drunk together. It's basically a sitcom about 20 something northerners and what they get up to on a daily basis, usually something to do with alcohol, sex and occasionally an abject fear of sheep.

So why did this show scare me? Well they once did a horror special for Halloween. `It was the end of series 6, and just around the point that the show was starting to wind down, with most of it's principle cast members getting prepared to leave the show. The episode tells the story of the cast breaking into their local pub which has been closed down, despite hearing stories that it is cursed, killing anyone who enters with the thing that they love the most.

Obviously there are comedy shows out there which have Halloween themed specials, but this episode was produced during April of 2006, and sort of came out of no where. Obviously there are plenty of silly moments, like Johnny having his head replaced by a giant Jammie Dodger and Kelly being taken over by evil crisp packets being obvious stand-outs. However there are also some genuinely horrible moments, such as Donna being smashed through a glass ceiling and Louise sawing her own legs off until she bleeds out all over the floor.

Some of you out there might be thinking "Oh, but there are much worse scenes out there in horror movies? Why would this stuff be so bad?". Well I think that the answer to that can separated into 2 headings: 1. No Laugh Track, 2. No preparation.




1.No Laugh Track

This heading is pretty obvious to understand. As many other sitcoms tend to, 2 Pints has a laugh track through-out most of the series. Obviously the main purpose of a laugh track is that it makes the audience more likely to laugh, if they hear the studio audience doing the same thing. This is part of what makes the series funny in the first place (although how funny you find it is certainly just as subjective as it is with all comedy), and also what helps to give it a certain identity.

If you've ever watched an episode of Friends, or hell just a few scenes of the show, without a laugh track, you know that it can make the show come across as awkward and stilted.

So as you can now tell it is a weird and jilting experience to have a laugh track suddenly removed when you're used to hearing one. 

2. No Prep

The other reason that this episode freaked me the fuck out was because I just wasn't prepared to be scared by a show about people who drink to much and don't have two brain cells to rub together between them. When I watched the show it was late and night and I was just getting ready to turn in. I was thinking I could catch something silly before I went upstairs to bed. 

I was obviously expecting it to be an episode about something silly like Johnny being shot by a sniper rifle, or Louise whining. Instead I was presented with a story which featured a woman's friends all dying horribly, then raising from the dead to come and murder her as well. Then just as it ends and you think it was all a dream, her boyfriend turns into a Jammie Dodger headed monster and tries to eat her alive. 

I think that this is the main reason that some comedy shows have more power to scare than horror shows do. I remember a lot of stories of kids being completely unsettled by The Simpsons, and some of their more 'out-there' Treehouse of Horrors episodes. Obviously no one has been deeply scared by these shows, but honestly I would find it hard to remember a movie which has had me as freaked out as that episode of '2 Pints of Lager'. 

Why I hate Dead Space 3

Anyone who knows me will be able to tell you that I am a tad partial to the horror genre no matter which medium it comes in. I have enjoyed horror books for a long time particularly Poe and Lovecraft, and have seen more than my fair share of horror films particularly the hammer horror films.

The third medium I tend to think of when thinking of horror happens to be video games (I am not discounting audio based horror either to be honest. The midwich cuckoos with Bill Nighy is an amazing radio play and terreffied me as a child) I have in my time played through most of what is usually considered 'the classics' of the form, things like the first two silent hill games and the resident evil games, and I have also tried more contemporary survival horror in it's many flavours (for anyone who didn't think pixels could be scary you need to play lone survivor) 

Having said all of this I have also played the three games in the Dead Space series and I thoroughly enjoyed most of them. To elaborate what I mean is that I own and have played extensivly the first two games in the series, and while I am the first to admit that they weren't ever really scary they did have the atmosphere of horror games for the most part and a large part of why I enjoy horror is the atmosphere that surrounds it.

You may have noticed that I left out the most recent game in the trilogy from my list of dead space games that I have played and enjoyed. This is because I recently got the chance to play Dead Space 3 for free (For anyone who doesn't already know this Playstation Plus is awesome) and found myself thoroughly hating almost every single minute of it.

So sit back and strap in as I use this blog to once more vent my frustrated rage on a game I hate...or explain why I think the games bad whichever sounds better.


1. Co-Op features

For anyone who is not familiar with Dead Space it's really been a single player experience up until now. There may have been some multi-player features involved (I actually don't know I own both the first two on XBOX360 and never pay for gold because my desire for online play is so infrequent that it doesn't warrant a £5 a month subscription) but the main campaigns were always reserved for a single player experience only. This is primarily because a feeling of isolation can create a lot of the horror that one usually feels. The feeling like you are totally alone being overwhelmed by a titanic amount of gutteral horrors is a large part of the enjoyable atmosphere that surrounded dead space in particular.

This has totally been ruined in the third game by having the inclusion of Co-Op features. Apparently the developers felt that the games where going to get stale and tired if they didn't do something to change up the style of the gameplay, so here comes the Co-Op (just so everyone knows you cannot do this crap split-screen, it's on-line only folks) 

Other than the destruction of the atmosphere, which admittedly is only  a problem if you play the co op campaign instead of the solo one, is the changes to the gameplay that effect single player even if you don't want them to. The most noticable is the inclusion of elements and missions that you cannot use if you are on your own, this just serves to make you feel like you're missing out on something when you play the game in single player.

They also waaaaaaay scaled back the power of all your weapons so that it'd be more necessary for you to have two players. In dead space the enemies of the series are already dead and can only be put down permanently by removing most of there limbs, usually you are given engineering tools (your character is an engineer) which are designed for cutting through things meaning that you can slice and dice all you like. In DS3 your weapons don't even make the bad guys flinch half the time.

The lack of power beind the weapons coupled with upgrades that are specifically only useful if you're in Co-Op even if you happen to be playing in single player just make it seem like EA and Visceral the people behind the game didn't give a crap. They slapped together a single player campaign without changing anything and it just makes the game feel like it wasn't designed to be played alone at all.

speaking of guns...

2. Micro-Transactions

If anyone is unaware of the term micro-transactions it basically means that instead of paying full price for something you have the option of buying in really small amounts for lower prices more often, that way the developers get a more steady income stream and those who don't want to pay for the micro-transaction products don't have to. These are usually in free to play games like Farmville or The Tribez so that the devs can support themselves without having to charge for the main game itself.

So why the hell does a full price game need these?

That's right despite being a game that you will have to pay full price for (unless you're me and you've got Playstation Plus) there are still micro-transactions in the game. These come in the form of 'resource packs' which you can use to help build parts to upgrade your weapons or armour, and if you don't pay for them they're usually found lying around on the ground as you play the game. So why would anyone actually pay for the resources?

Well if you remember in single player your guns have been so scaled down in power that if you don't pay for the micro-transactions you're probably going to have a hard time getting through the entire game. I mean I suppose it's arguable that I only think that because I am terrible at the game but I would ask you to remember a few things:

   . I am playing on the easiest difficulty
   . I have been playing games for nearly two decades now

Bearing this in mind shouldn't I be having an easy time of it on this difficulty setting? I mean I could be wrong and the micro-transactions having nothing to do with the scaling down of the weapons but it just smacks a little too much of bullcrap to me.

3. Cliche around every corner 

I know I shouldn't really expect too much from a video game storyline that isn't produced by Bioware but the story of the first two games was at least passable. In the first you're sent to a space ship that's gone quiet to investigate and to see if it can be fixed. I don't remember much about the second games story other than it involved the main character havign his brain probed so that the government can make copies of the evil thing that made people turn into zombie (thanks obamacare. jk) 

In the third game the 'evil' religion of Unitology (careful game devs!) has decided that they want everyone to be evil mindless undead zombies so they try to kill the protagonist because he has a history of destroying the markers. Apart from that not making much sense (1 guy has a history of destroying something meaning he is the ONLY GUY WHO CAN! so much sense) it just comes across as something a blockbuster hollywood film should be doing and not a horror film at that. The game coems across the same as any Sci-Fi action film and even has the cliched characters to match.

The guy who has stolen main characters girlfriend, who is obviously going to be a jerk so that the protagonist can get back together with his girlfriend

The big breasted Ex-Girlfriend of the main character who exists for cheap sex appeal, so she can get back together with the main man and so she can die at some point (Seriously she went from having an almost beleivable human being character design in DS2 to being pointless eye candy with clevage a mile long. For shame Dead Space 3, for shame) 

The nerdy scientist who is just likeable enough that when she dies you feel sort of bad for her

The gruff old man who's seen his fair share of adventure/space travel/engineering etc

The 'oorah' commando block who is clearly there just to be teamed up with the protagonist so they can have a disagreement at the beginning and become friends at the end. (this is made worse by the fact that if you play single player he's not there throughout the game so they've had zero time to have this change in relationship) 

Evil english dude...I shouldn't even have to mention why that's cliched

So there you have, the three main reasons that I am angry at dead space 3. Of course there are many, many MAAAAANY more reasons why this game is terrible and if I were to try and bring them all up on one blog post it would probably be about 5000 pages long and would cause several different types of coma (yes there are types) so I have restrained myself for now in reference to the slagging off of dead space 3.

See you next time I have sheathing to complain about.

The 'World War Z' movie wan't good, even if you liked it.

Okay so for anyone who isn't an avid reader/a huge zombie fan World War Z is a book that was written by Max Brooks (Son of famous comedian Mel Brooks just FYI) that concerns the world being overrun with zombies (ya don't say)

You might be saying to yourself 'so what? zombie apocalypse stories are a dime a dozen' well the difference here is how it was presented to the reader. Most zombie stories are captured in a more visual medium, partially because a zombie apocalypse isn't usually very interesting to just read about and partially because most of the people involved with zombie based media tend to work in the visual areas of the entertainment spectrum.

Most literature surrounding zombies usually goes one of a few ways, the comedy route a'la 'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies' or a record style a'la '2012: A record of the year of infection' but with World War Z we are presented with a full record of the events surrounding the build up to the zombie world war, the fighting for survival that occurred in it's darkest days and the eventual push back towards a zombie free(-ish) world.

The book presents all of the information from the point of view of an investigative reporter going around the world to get stories about the apocalypse from the people who where in the center of it. This is firstly unusual because you'd imagine the knowledge that the world survived (As made apparent by the fact that the reporter writing the book is still alive) would remove a lot of the tension in a zombie apocalypse story but it's still surprisingly tense in a lot of places.

As the book goes on the point of view bounces between a few different interviewees in different places throughout the world as they recount their particular experiences in each section of the war and ends with some quite jarring revelations in the last chapter (which I won't ruin for you here) 

So now that I've explained to you who do not know why the book was such an amazing work of literature, despite the stigma usually surrounding zombie based stories, I can really dig into telling you why the movie is god awful.

Okay so before I go on I should probably bring something up:

SPOILER WARNING!!! IF YOU KEEP READING AND HAVE NOT SEEN WORLD WAR Z YET YOU WILL HAVE SOME PARTS OF THE STORY RUINED FOR YOU. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED !!!SPOILER WARNING

Ah, there we are, don't you just feel better with that out of the way?

So the movie in question is an adaptation (in the loosest sense of the word) of the Max Brooks novel in question starring Brad Pitt in the role of... erm, well he works for the U.N I think, or at least he used to and then he does again or... you know what it's just Brad Pitt, let's call him that.

So the film opens with Brad and his saccharin sweet family having a wonderful breakfast of pancakes together while they dump exposition about Pitt's old job on the audience. They then drive off for some sort of weekend away together and this is when all hell breaks loose.

As they cross the city they live in the inevitable hoard of zombies (preceded by an equally inevitable hoard of panicked civilians) appears to wreck their family picnic with a lot of running, snarling and for some odd reason running flying headbutts...seriously.

So other than the obvious absurdity of the whole flying headbutt thing what is actually wrong with this? I mean lots of films have taken the sort of speedier approach to zombies and although I may not look it I am not a 'shufflers only' sort of zombie purist. The reason that the running zombie is a problem at least in the context of the film is the fact that Max Brooks took an inordinate amount of time and effort to outline his 'zombie mythos' (in fact he took an entire other book to do this 'The Zombie Survival Guide') and that involved a lot of logic that is usually left out when people think about creating zombies.

Firstly Brooks' zombies do start out able to run when they first turn, and have the strength that they where capable before they turned. This coupled with their lack of need for rest and there never ending stamina means that you might think the movie had the zombies down, but not quite. As Brooks' points out human muscles get stronger when they rip during use and reform themselves stronger, (this is grossly over simplified, please don't assume I'm an idiot) zombies however do not have this advantage because they are dead therefore every time they use their muscles they deteriorate and don't repair *BREATH*

In very basic terms this means that almost straight away physical exertion rips the muscles of zombies apart and makes them less and less capable of agile movement. This means that although they may be capable of swift movement at first within a few minutes they will functionally be reduced to the shambolic, shuffling rabble seen in the old Romero movies. Obviously this means that the running and jumping is out of the question, let alone the full on flying bloody tackling.

That is just a microcosm of what is wrong with the film, the introduction of numerous support characters who are swiftly killed off to make room for new ones (worst offending moment being when the young 'sidekick' introduced at the beginning, seemingly for the duration, is killed off within a few minutes when he trips and accidentally caps himself in the head. Lethal ineptitude at its finest) The constant breaking of physical laws so that Hollywood style 'tense' scenes can be levered into the film (At one point a fortified city is over run when the dead make a giant tower of zombies to scale the walls in a matter of moments....what the actual hell) and for the love of god the terrible, terrible twist that was pulled completely out of the films fat sweaty arse (Would say I won't spoil it for you but it was spoilt before it was written. Basically the zombies don't even notice people who suffer from sever illness....and no one but Brad Pitt noticed this) 

As a zombie movie it's just okay, it's not going to be genre changing or earth shattering but hell if you're looking for a zombie film to watch you could probably do a lot worse (try La Horde, best terrible zombie movie with the best terrible dubbing) but as an adaption it could have been something much more than it was, a truly different zombie film that could have brought some much needed refreshment to the stale genre.

Having said that Brad Pitts performance is pretty solid, and the film is at least competently made (from a technical perspective) so despite the fact that I will personally never be seeing the film again, if you're not a fan of the book then you might wanna check out the movie, at least to see that guy trip and cap himself.