Horror Video Games

In this in-depth critical and theoretical analysis of the horror genre in video games, 14 essays explore the cultural underpinnings of horror’s allure for gamers and the evolution of “survival” themes. The techniques and story effects of specific games such as Resident Evil, Call of Cthulhu, and Silent Hill are examined individually.

Bernard Perron is a professor of film and game studies at the University of Montreal. He has edited, co-edited and written many essays and books on film and video game theories as well as on horror films and horror video games.

Edited by Bernard Perron

Foreword by Clive Barker

Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 310
Bibliographic Info: 34 photos, notes, bibliographies, index
Copyright Date: 2009
pISBN: 978-0-7864-4197-6
eISBN: 978-0-7864-5479-2
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments      v
Foreword: A Little Light in the Darkness
CLIVE BARKER      1
Introduction: Gaming After Dark
BERNARD PERRON      3

APPROACHING THE GENRE
Match Made in Hell: The Inevitable Success of the Horror Genre in Video Games
RICHARD ROUSE III      15
Games of Fear: A Multi-Faceted Historical Account of the Horror Genre in Video Games
CARL THERRIEN      26
Gothic Bloodlines in Survival Horror Gaming
LAURIE N. TAYLOR      46
Storytelling in Survival Horror Video Games
EWAN KIRKLAND      62
Shock, Horror: First-Person Gaming, Horror, and the Art of Ludic Manipulation
DAN PINCHBECK      79
Haunting Backgrounds: Transnationality and Intermediality in Japanese Survival Horror Video Games
MARTIN PICARD      95
The Survival Horror: The Extended Body Genre
BERNARD PERRON      121

ENCOUNTERING THE GAMES
Plunged Alone into Darkness: Evolution in the Staging of Fear in the Alone in the Dark Series
GUILLAUME ROUX-GIRARD      145
Patterns of Obscurity: Gothic Setting and Light in Resident Evil 4 and Silent Hill      2
SIMON NIEDENTHAL      168
Hair-Raising Entertainment: Emotions, Sound, and Structure in Silent Hill 2 and Fatal Frame
INGER EKMAN and PETRI LANKOSKI      181
Complete Horror in Fatal Frame
MICHAEL NITSCHE      200
Gaming’s Hauntology: Dead Media in Dead Rising, Siren and Michigan: Report from Hell
CHRISTIAN MCCREA      220
The Rules of Horror: Procedural Adaptation in Clock Tower, Resident Evil, and Dead Rising
MATTHEW WEISE      238
Reanimating H.P. Lovecraft: The Ludic Paradox of Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth
TANYA KRZYWINSKA      267

About the Contributors      289
Index      293