13 Nights of Hallowe'en: Night #3 Mimic: Sentinel

Sequels are something in cinema that are often
maligned, especially by critics. The need to compare a sequel to its original is natural but best avoided. A film should stand on its own, or fall on its own to be fair. Tonight’s movie is a sequel. It is the third in the Mimic franchise. For some reason the number is left out of this sequel’s title and it is simply called “Mimic: Sentinel”. While all it takes for a movie to be a sequel is to carry on with some part from the previous movie--a character, a creature, a storyline--sometimes sequel take their own direction, blaze a new trail. This movie falls into that category. At the same time it is not extremely divergent. It is still in the horror vein, and it still has the Mimic bugs, the Judas Breed.

“Mimic: Sentinel” can be described--it is by even the director--as “Rear Window” with Mimic bugs. As funny as this sounds on the surface this is a seriously good movie. J.T. Petty is the writer and director of this film. Comparisons between this movie and “Rear Window” can only be a good thing. It has great suspense, some really nice mystery, and satisfies from start to finish. Some people are going to wish for more material with the Mimic bugs in it, but this one has about as much scene time for the special effects as the original film. It is next to impossible to say if this sequel is better than the first movie in the trilogy, they are very different movies even staying in the same genre and sharing the link that they do. The best that can be said is see this movie and judge for yourself.

Mood: tired.
Music: Spookshow Baby by Rob Zombie off of Hellbilly Deluxe.

Anatomy of a Horror Setting #16: Too Much Information

One of the big deal breakers for the mood of a psychic horror setting is having too much of the right kind of information. It is especially contentious in the arena of role-playing games. It puts a great onus on the game master to, not only develop the information to be gleaned by psychic methods as is the case with authors or scriptwriters, but also to deal in a more hands on way with balancing how much information to pass on and when, notably without the safety net of re-writes. This manner of information handling is directly a result of abilities such as precognition, post-cognition, to a lesser degree remote viewing, and the like. Limitations placed on these powers and the additions of the vagaries of chance are thankfully in keeping with reports of such abilities in the real world.

There is a connection between this idea of too much information and the topic of evidence as discussed previously. A story's psychic who can see the influence of another psychic on a person has a certain amount of comfort that extends not only to the character, but also the audience. The ability as it serves the purpose of pushing the story in a particular direction mitigates its effect on the mood somewhat. In contrast if such an ability were able to identify the psychic responsible then things change drastically. At the level where this power is akin to reading a psychic fingerprint there is too much comfort afforded and the horror is lost. There is some suspense when the fingerprint isn't recognised by the psychic but beyond that it quickly reaches a point of diminishing horrific returns.

Another ability that effects comfort level is the sixth sense that warns a psychic of danger. Again, it has its uses, but can also quickly deflate the horror. The danger sense works best when it is vague. It is also most effective at the far ends of the timescale, but less so in the middle. When the sense comes on quickly with little, to practically no time, to act on it then the urgency and immediacy drives the horror through suspense. Likewise, if the warning arrives well ahead of the trigger event then tension builds and dread mounts until it is resolved. Of course that ratcheting tension and the swell of foreboding needs to be cultivated with a certain amount of finesse. All of this simply highlights two old adages; knowledge is power, and all good things in moderation.

Mood: lustre.
Music: F.I.N.E. by Aerosmith and Pump by Quiet Riot.

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Suspense from the Known

R.G. Male ©2007 Excerpted from "Unnamed Psychic Horror Game"

Every good scary story, and this includes novels, movies, and games, needs suspense. An obvious thing. Often times as much as there is a need to be mysterious, even aside from leaving things to the imagination, some things do work better when they are obvious after a fashion.

The idea that needs to be approached here is that there are a few select times where revealing the horror doesn't lessen it, but instead increases it. A lot of these revelations are in scenes usually not involving the main characters. This is useful in a gaming context as well. For example, there is the type of scene where a monster stalks its victim. It is seen through the victim's eyes as much as from an outside point. While it does not give everything away, maybe even not a lot, it does make some things clear. For instance, the monster chases its victim, but yet on occasion, sometimes, somehow, gets ahead of the victim and they run right smack into it. This adds suspense in the fashion that the monster could pop up anywhere at any time.

R.G. Male ©2007 Excerpted from "Unnamed Psychic Horror Game"

There are mode insidious methods of ratcheting up the horror. The monster corners its prey. As it begins to do whatever it does to them, there is a flash of green light, and the scene goes to black. Now later, the audience, in this case the players, knows about this little tidbit out of character. Then the characters are somewhere, and they see a flash of green light, say in an alleyway, or behind an only partially closed door. Now the players start to sweat buckets, just like the movie audience does, because they know what is going on. At the same time there is nothing they can do about it, just as the movie character that is ignorant of what is happening cannot do anything.

Another example could go something like this... "Hey, what's this ash here?" It's one of the missing people being sought out for a clue, or they need to verify is indeed missing, and not just out of town. The players know this and they are biting their nails bloody, the characters have no idea as of yet. There are a number of different ways to express similar ideas, and beyond that there is a myriad of different concepts making use of this same principle of revealing things but not spoiling the suspense with a "look it's a werewolf" sort of let down.

R.G. Male ©2007 Excerpted from "Unnamed Psychic Horror Game"

Mood: melty.
Music: All I Want Is Everything by Def Leppard and Riders Of The Storm by Hammerfall.

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