I have written before about how product marketing for video games and everything else appears to be driven by enormous, autonomous, self-propelling machines. Huge apparatuses, employing hundreds of people, designed to pounce on any work that catches the fancy of the public, capitalize upon it, and keep it at the forefront of public consciousness until […]
I’ve recently begun Noel Carroll‘s A Philosophy of Horror: Or, Paradoxes of the Heart, and though I’ve only just scratched the surface of the content I am already quite engrossed. Carroll’s intent is to take the horror genre, as defined by film and literature and other media, and put an academic lens to it; to […]
I recently purchased The Mammoth Book of Best Horror Comics, a collection of horror comics spanning the era before and after the Comics Code Authority was instated in 1954. Though I enjoy comics (as a kid I had a pretty good collection), I’ve kind of fallen out of sync with the comics world. I have […]
Holy crap this has been a crazy month! First a bunch of stuff happened at work, then I got on some planes and flew around the country, then I came back and got in my car and drove all over Northern California, then I moved all of my belongings to a new place, and now […]
I’ve finally posted a new feature, Chris’ Guide to Understanding Japanese Horror. This article is a detailed look at Japanese horror within the context of Japanese culture. I attempt to explain how horror from Japan works on a very general level, and how the mechanics of Japanese and American horror differ. Here’s an excerpt: The […]
While this is slightly off topic, I thought I’d point out the Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks. I saw this in a bookstore over the weekend and thought it was pretty funny. The author makes no attempt at levity, however; his delivery of various zombie disposal methods, the origins of the zombie virus, and […]
I’ve been thinking a bit lately about what horror games might learn from horror literature. How might we make a game that conveys uneasiness as well as Stephen King’s 1408? The Silent Hill series seems to have a bit in common with The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, by Haruki Murakami, but Murakami’s works are much […]