Which Medium?

Back when I was a videogames journalist (contributing to a number of games magazines, but also the likes of Sci-Fi Now) I seemed to be one of the favoured “Go To Guys” to cover horror-related stuff. That fits well, given that I’m an absolute horror hound and always have been.

Since as far back as I can remember, horror has always been my favourite genre. I still remember the first time I saw Evil Dead II, at my friend Dean Blackwood’s house when, one afternoon, he told me I absolutely had to check out this demented film he had seen. That night I watched it with him and his brother, and it’s one of my fondest experiences – discovering Sam Raimi right there for the very first time. I also remember being wide awake late one night and popping the TV on to see if there was anything to gently send me off to sleep. Instead, it’s BBC2 and I’m presented with a slew of images of people in a shopping mall carving the walking dead up. The film, of course, was Dawn Of The Dead.

Hell, I even remember renting Scream for the very first time – lying to the video store that I was 18, when I was really about 10. I hurried home with the videotape and, seeing as we only had one VCR in the house at that point, ended up watching it at point blank range, the sound low but enough to hear, with my mother asleep on the couch behind me.

But I digress. The point is that I’ve always been into horror, so it makes sense that I feel I was always one of the best people to cover horror for the various magazines. And I did – satisfying both mediums. If I wasn’t extolling how much Dad Island looks like a giant love letter to Lucio Fulci in GamesTM, I was instead writing an 8-page feature on The Evil Dead Trilogy for Sci-Fi Now. Likewise, getting to wax lyrical on the amazing emergence of great, great horror films from France in the same magazine and why I love Alexandre Aja felt like great release.

But given how much I love horror movies, having practically been raised by them, I must admit that I see videogames as the perfect medium for exploiting fear. I’ve rationalised this many times in articles I've written. Basically, I see videogames as the perfect marriage for horror purely because of the interactivity.

The most effective horror movies have countless times been compared to a roller coaster experience. Sit down, strap yourself in, ride it out, then leave for safety. I think that’s true in a way – not necessarily for all horror types, but many. I’d expand that, however. When you’re watching a horror film, deeply immersed in the theatre or in the safety of your home, you’re vicariously experiencing something. You’re watching as some idiot goes down into the cellar to investigate a noise, silently cursing them for doing so, perhaps safe in the knowledge that you’d never be so stupid enough to do that yourself.

But with videogames, the player is essentially the idiot. Sure, you have complete control about whether you want to progress forwards or not, essentially controlling the very pace of something by standing absolutely still. Refusing to move. But to see a story through to its end, to gain answers, you have to push forwards. There is no subconscious safety barrier that sees the images on the screen terrifying you to the marrow, but with a tiny voice reminding you that you wouldn’t do that and more fool them. With games, you /have/ to go and investigate exactly what’s making that damn noise.

And with videogames, and the ability they have to fully immerse us growing at a rate far quicker than film ever evolved, developers are finding ways to present even more terrifying material. While horror cinema currently has little pockets of brilliance showing up in different territories around the world, horror games are on a plateau. Even the most basic ones subscribe to the theory I present: that as much as you may laugh at that stupid idiot for not knowing there was an unspeakable horror waiting in the shadows, with games, you aren’t just aware of that horror... you're actively going to meet it.

The Cottage Vs. Cult Horror

So I finally watched The Cottage... On the whole, it was okay. The story of two brothers who kidnap the daughter of a wealthy nightclub owner and stash her out in a cottage in the countryside. A comedy caper much in the vain of the Coen’s ensues for the first half of the movie before it does a total From Dusk Till Dawn and jumps completely into bloodsoaked horror. To be honest, I only really started enjoying the film when it finally got its hands dirty, which unfortunately covers only half of its relativity short run time.

More importantly, however, I was watching The Cottage to see how it racked up against the screenplay I was writing, and how similar the two were. The answer, unfortunately, is quite a bit. My screenplay, Cult Horror, is also cut into two halves, though I’m not dealing with the same subject matter in each section as The Cottage. But in terms of location, using a limited cast of characters, the tonal shift, and the gore, they’re very alike. I’d say it’s about 50% in the same territory, actually.

That means I can still salvage many of the ideas I had… I just have to work on the context a little bit more. That isn’t a problem for me at all, but it’s not something I’m in a rush to do. You see, another story I had always wanted to write has crept back into my mind – and it did so after seeing the extraordinary Hellboy 2: The Golden Army.

Unlike The Cottage and my screenplay, Cult Horror, this other story is in no way similar to Hellboy and the world Guillermo del Toro and Mike Mignola created. But in terms of sheer artistry and imagination, it suddenly propelled the story right back into my head.

It’s worth pointing out that this new story, which I’m not even confident enough to reveal the title for yet, is very much a family film. But it’s also horror. And it may or may not involve my favourite horror-related subject: zombies. Suffice it to say, this is a story I’ve been wanting to tell for ages. Originally I was going to write it as 40-odd page original graphic novel. But now I see how well it lends itself to film. And after del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy 2, I think his genius has opened up the floodgates for this kind of movie.

So while Cult Horror has been shelved for now, work on another screenplay has started. I’m only in the most preliminary of stages, having already jotted down three A4 pages worth of notes this evening – most of which was defining the Acts, and digging up stuff I originally wanted to put in. It’ll be a nice challenge for me, writing a horror story that is aimed at a much broader demographic than I’ve reached for in previous work.

A challenge, but a bloody fun one.

(Completely unrelated to my new screenplay, but... if Platinum Dunes is absolutely serious about pursuing A Nightmare On Elm Street for its remake block, after watching The Cottage I'm totally convinced that Andy Serkis could be a fucking stunning Freddy. I love Englund but if they really want to shake things up and re-present Nightmare for a new age, Serkis could be a wonderful replacement. He absolutely gets my vote)

Cult Horror

Thanks to my recent career change, which saw me leaping from the world of lowly videogames journalist into PR, I have a lot of free time on my hands during evenings and at weekends. No more freelance to keep me entertained and annoyed in equal measure. Now, from the time I leave work around 6:30 and all through the weekends, the world is my oyster. I have carte blanche to do whatever I want.

So I started writing a screenplay.

Anyone who’s known me a considerable time also knows that I love to write. Not just in the journalistic sense, but comics and screenplays too. I studied Film and TV for two years at college, own both Robert McKee’s Story and Syd Field’s Screenplay (the book and DVD), as well as several books featuring interviews with comic writers that deals with their writing, and structure. I can pinpoint exactly where my infatuation with writing came from, and it’s not at all embarrassing for me: Kevin Williamson, the writer of Wes Craven’s Scream.

There was a time in my life when I could have role-played the entire film, dialogue-for-dialogue, from start to finish. I was obsessed with that movie and it played a huge part in why I love horror, and writing, so much. Since then I’ve written tons of stuff and would still very much like to write from a creative standpoint.

So what about the screenplay I was writing? Well, I’d always had an idea for a horror film. More specifically, I always had this sequence in my mind – a cataclysmic event that would propel the story forward. And I always had the ending, too, right down to what song I wanted it to end on (Klaxons’ cover of “It’s Not Over”). But what I didn’t have was what came in-between. I had the inciting incident and the ending, but not the real meat and bones of the tale. There were no beats plotted out.

Rather than spend ages torturing myself writing several hundred treatments, as has usually happened with me, I remembered hearing something from Stephen King once. He was talking about a writer’s role, and that for him, plotting things out just aren’t fun. For him to gain any pleasure from what he’s working on, he needs to have several ideas already in place – like the beginning and end. But that’s it. That’s all King needs. As when he puts pen to paper (and I was even writing my script’s first draft on an A4 notepad), he just writes, and lets his imagination shepherd him from the beginning until the end.

I did a similar thing. I just started writing, always aware that I’d be jumping back to flesh things out further later, just trying to establish the beats and lead to the inevitable end. I got around 60 pages into it (a single page in a screenplay ostensibly equating one minute of screen time). I was pleased with what I had… it was pretty nasty, had a minimal cast of characters and, most important, I imagined that if it were ever filmed it would have been relatively cheap and effective.

I reached a point where the main character was fending off an attacking woman whose hands had been severed, when I then became aware of a film called The Cottage. It stars Andy Serkis, and is a horror film about some kidnappers who hide out in the countryside who then fall prey to a killer farmer. I haven’t seen it, but it’s a comedy horror and reviewed quite well, as I understand it.

It also isn’t /exactly/ the same concept I had. It was quite different. However, from the information I gleaned about it there were certainly similarities. As such, my screenplay, which was tentatively called CULT HORROR, has now been shelved. I’m going to check out The Cottage one night next week (Free time… hurrah!) just to see how similar they are, and if I can still salvage Cult Horror. I certainly hope so, because it has some stuff in there that I absolutely would love to see on screen. It also has a ballsy, no-nonsense vibe to the actual horror aspect – something I find severely lacking in most modern horror.

Here’s hoping I can dive back into it one day…

As good a time as any...

... to start blogging again. As I type, I'm sitting in an extremely comfy double bed so wonderfully provided by Sam Brace, PR for Fallout 3, and his lovely wife, Samara, in their awesome home just outside of Greenwich. I'm completely naked as I type. It's liberating. This is my third night in London, having moved up March 21st in preparation for a new job. Suffice it to say, given who I'm working for and the nature of my job there'll be no posts regarding what i get up to in the office.

Instead, I'd rather concentrate on my time in The Big Smoke and adapting to life here. Well, eventually...

Having been a videogames journalist for just over a year and a half, I've commuted to the city a lot. In that time, I gained a greater understanding of it - the layout of some areas, how to use the tube, and so on. However, it's still scary to think about living here. London is a fucking huge place. I know but a handful of people currently. All the friends I've made are still in Bournemouth, meaning my interaction with them will likely be work-related, Xbox Live-related or - in what I imagine to be rare circumstances - piss ups here, or down there. As it stands, I'll be spending considerable time making new friends too.

In my final month working at Imagine, a number of people asked me if I'll miss the job. I'm entirely certain that I will. Staff Writer isn't the greatest job in the world, but it's a bloody good one. The pay is whack, but the benefits are excellent. Free games, the opportunity to meet people that worked on your favourite titles, trips abroad and so on.

More than anything, however, it's the fact that you're essentially getting paid to be creative in any number of ways - whether that's on the written page, writing copy, or in terms of aesthetics when coming up with a feature, column, or whatever else. That creativity and a genuine love of the medium are what I enjoyed the most, as well as the people I surrounded myself with. There are characters in that place I doubt I could ever forget. So yes, I'm positive I'll miss it.

It was an amazing period of my life. Terrifying at first, because it meant I had to uproot and leave home in Lancaster. We weren't talking about moving an hour or two away either - instead, right down to the bottom of the country, to Bournemouth. I didn't really know too many people. I was living with strangers, and I had taken a job I didn't actually know enough about. It didn't take long to learn the ropes, as it were, and from there things got a little better. A little, because I had three months worth of probation to endure. I remember that period as being absolutely horrible, convincing myself time and again that that one thing I said to whoever had cost me my job, or I had written copy so bad my journalism career was at an end before it even began.

Calling my parents every weekend, I remember telling them of countless small incidents that had happened, and how I thought I had fucked something up. In typical Craig fashion I believe I was making mountains out of foothills. I believed right, as I ultimately passed probation and there was nary a bad thing said to me in my appraisal. What followed after probation was around 18 months working full time at Imagine, all of which amounted to the single most significant step of my life. Imagine changed me. More specifically, the people and the chance to be creative on a day-to-day basis changed me and I'm forever grateful.

But I do think the opportunity to work in London has come at the perfect point in my life. I feel life at Imagine peaked too early for me, work and colleagues wise, throughout my time on Next3 and PSU3 Magazine. Both were essentially the same magazine, the latter launching around a year later when sales were low for Next3 and we needed to breath new life into the mag. Sony had delayed the PS3 in the UK meaning we were appealing to a demographic that didn't have the very console we were covering, and wouldn't for ages to come. It was a problematic period. But it was an unforgettable one too.

Keithor, Jones, Tompey, Gayvies, Sleeburgar and myself... I think we had the best collection of people working on a magazine at Imagine. We were disruptive -especially myself and Tompey during PSU3 - but we also got the work done, even if it was technically over deadline a lot of the time. Our reviews were ridiculously long and there was also the fact that not all of us were entirely convinced that the very console we were writing about, daily, was going to be a winner. But as a team, I think we were amazing.

And while I went on to work with Jones on PLAY for a short while, enjoying my brief period on a great long-running mag such as that, I still missed the original Next3/PSU3 team. Working on GamesTM was a particular high-point, as it's such a respected magazine within the industry. I actually lost count of the number of industry folk I met on press trips or during interviews who told me they subscribed to GamesTM and really dug it. The team there took their job and the magazine a hell of a lot more serious than we did on PSU3, and I think it resulted in me turning over some of the best work I've ever done. But I still missed PSU3, specifically the laughs.

Some particular examples: grabbing screenshots for The Godfather with Tompey, the pair of us teary-eyed with laughter. Tompey's vocal change whenever he spoke to female PRs. Davies exploding with laughter at that fart gag in Family Guy. The Circle Of Trust. Cocking people on the phone. Tompey's Circle Game Press Release and DVD. Tompey's Circle Game Advent Calendar. Art Club. Tompey' party invitations ("More Christmasy Than Banging Your Mum"). The hidden Ninja Turtles. Nature's Biscuits. Baby Jesus having a fully grown man's face. Davies' fart warnings. Joe Esposito's You're The Best Around. Constant Family Guy quotes.

I also got to spend my first ever press trip in an amazing hotel in Paris, with a great view of the Eiffel Tower. That trip came replete with a story I could never forget, involving competition winners, one highly flirtatious redhead, tons of free booze, a vaguely suicidal boyfriend, an affair, and more. I also got to visit New York, Chicago and Sweden throughout my time as videogames journalist too. Places I never would have seen had Mark Podd not convinced me to send in my CV and a cover letter when he noticed several staff vacancies on Imagine's website two years ago. I'll always be grateful to him (for more than just that).

I have so many amazing stories from my time in Bournemouth, which I haven't even mentioned yet. Perhaps I'll divulge them in future. One thing is certain though: that chapter of my life has ended and a new one begins. I’m terrified and excited in equal measure, as I’m sure, like before, it’s going to bring a significant change.

I might blog about it. That, or how fucking annoying London trains are sometimes. We’ll see.