Author Archives: Jedadiah Leland

Jedadiah Leland’s Horrific Adventures Online #25: Don’t Go In The Old Greene House (2015, Laura Knetzger)

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For my next horrific adventure online, I played Don’t Go In The Old Green House (2015, Laura Knetzger).

Don’t Go In The Old Greene House is another Twine Choose Your Own Adventure type of game.  You have been dared to spend all of Halloween night in the old Greene House, which is said to be haunted.  You agree because you know better than to turn down a dare.  Exploring the house means running into mysterious spirits.  Here’s something that I learned the hard way: Be nice to the little girl at the table.  I know that one of the fun things about interactive fiction is that you get to do things that you would never do in real life but, no matter how tempted you may be, do not tell the girl at the table to stop crying and fuck off.  Bad things will happen.

Twine games are always a mixed bag for me.  I enjoy the simple format but, as opposed to games made with Inform or TADS, they can leave you feeling more like a reader than an active participant in the game.  Don’t Go In the Greene House is an example of a good Twine game, well-written and with enough different outcomes that it is actually worth replaying.

Jedadiah Leland’s Horrific Advenures Online #24: Faithful Companion (2013, Matt Weiner)

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Since I was running out of horror games to play in the Internet Archive, I decided to broaden my sights by exploring the Interactive Fiction Database.  That is where I found Faithful Companion (2013, Matt Weiner).

Faithful Companion is simply but difficult.  You are at the cemetery, visiting the mausoleum.  You want to get in the crypt.  Opening the doors that lead into the crypt should be easy except you are being followed by a ghost.  Any action you take will be duplicated by the ghost two turns later.

That may not sound like a big deal until you learn that, if the ghost touches you, you will pass out.  If you take something and are still holding it two turns later, that means the ghost will take it from you.  If you have to open a door by pushing three latches so that they open, the ghost will follow behind you, pushing the latches closed.  The game’s challenge comes from fooling the ghost into helping you accomplish what you want to do.

I enjoyed this game.  It is short, it is not impossibly hard, and it’s rewarding when you actually figure it all out.

A Movie A Day #294: Ghost In the Machine (1993, directed by Rachel Talaly)

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Karl (Ted Marcoux) is a serial killer who works in an electronics store and who steals address books and uses them to pick his victims.  His latest stolen address book belongs to Terry (Karen Allen).  Before Karl can start killing Terry’s family and friends, he is killed in a car accident.  Because there is a lightning storm going on at the same time, the dead Karl is able to transfer his evil soul into the electrical grid.  Traveling from appliance to appliance, Karl starts to kill all of Terry’s friends and co-workers.  A microwave oven.  A hand dryer.  A dishwasher.  If it is electrical, Karl can use it to kill.  Fortunately, Terry knows a legendary hacker (Chris Mulkey) who can help her fight back.

Like Prison, Destroyer, and The Horror Show, Ghost in the Machine is another dumb movie about a psycho who gets his soul transformed into electricity.  Ghost In The Machine was also obviously influenced by The Lawnmower Man and the entire movie is full of early 90s paranoia about the internet and computers in general.  Rachel Talaly, who got her start with the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise and who has recently directed some of the best received episodes of Doctor Who, does a good job with the deaths but cannot do anything with the lousy script and unlikable characters.  Nearly everyone who dies is killed because they know Terry but that never seems to bother her.

I think every 90s kid, or at least every 90s male, watched Ghost In The Machine on HBO and had a crush on Shevonne Durkin.

Jedadiah Leland’s Horrific Adventures in The Internet Archive #23: Psycho (1988, Starsoft Development Laboratories)

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For my next horrific adventure in the Internet Archive, I played Psycho (1988, Starsoft Development Laboratories).

Psycho is an example of game that borrows a famous name but has next to nothing to do with its supposed inspiration.  Despite the picture above, you do not play Norman Bates in Psycho.  You are not Marion Crane, either.  You are not even Aborgast, Lila, or Sam.

Instead, you are a nameless detective who is searching for some jewels that were stolen from a museum.  For some reason, you believe the jewels were stolen by Norman Bates and that Norman is holding a curator hostage at his motel.  (None of that sounds like Norman.)  You go to investigate.

You have only four hours to find the jewels and rescue the curator.  Unfortunately, once you enter the house, you will be randomly besieged by ghosts, dogs, and other members of the Bates family.

If they touch you, you fall asleep for a period of time.  Somewhere in the game, there is a gun. If you find it, you can at least shoot at the ghosts.  Why wouldn’t a detective have his own gun?  I’m not sure.

Psycho the game has not aged well.  What was probably state of the art in 1988 now feels clunky and slow.

I do like the painting of Mother Bates, though.

Since first discovering it, I have tried to play Psycho on ten separate occasions.  Each time, I got frustrated with the slow gameplay and I quit.  Norman can have the jewels and the curator.  After all, he wouldn’t hurt a fly.

Jedadiah Leland’s Horrific Adventures In The Internet Archive #22: The Dark Convergence (1993)

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For my today’s final adventure in the dark side of the Internet Archive, I played The Dark Convergence (1993).

The Dark Convergence is another haunted house game.  Like Uninvited, it starts with a car crash.

Since you crashed the car, it is up to you get help.  That means that it is time to start walking.

I tried to go into the woods but the game would not let me.  I also tried typing “kick sign” into the parser, just to be told that I was not allowed to do that either.  So, I kept walking until I found the house:

The house looked haunted but it was also the only sign of civilization that I had come across in the game.  Plus, I tried to keep walking down the road, just to run into an invisible wall as soon as I passed the house.

In the house, I discovered this:

That mess on the floor was the house’s owner.

I explored the house a little further.

This bedroom was nice until all of the monsters came through the door.

So much for that.  Fortunately, in a game like this, you can always restart after you die and hopefully, apply the lessons that you learned from the first time you played.  The main lesson I learned was to close the door after me.

The Dark Convergence is a typical haunted house game, the type where you have to solve puzzles to keep from having a bunch of monsters use your organs to “decorate the room’s interior.”  The puzzles are not hard, though some of them require more patience than others.  If you enjoyed Hugo’s House of Horrors, you’ll enjoy The Dark Convergence.

 

A Movie A Day #293: See No Evil (1971, directed by Richard Fleischer)

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After a rain, a car drives through a puddle and splashes mud on a man’s designer boots.  The owner of the boots follows the car back to a country manor and murders everyone inside.  (Did he really kill everyone in the house because his boots get muddied?  It is never really clear.  Before his boots got splashed on, he was looking at violent comic books in a shop.  Maybe Wertham was right.)  Later, Sarah (Mia Farrow), the niece of the car’s driver, arrives at the house.  As the result of a recent horse riding accident, Sarah is blind.  She walks through the house, unaware that she is surrounded by dead bodies and unaware that the owner of the boots left behind a bracelet that he will soon be returning to retrieve.

Obviously inspired by Wait Until Dark, See No Evil is a well-done cat-and-mouse game between Sarah and her unseen stalker.  Mia Farrow is great as the blind woman and the scenes of her unknowingly walking past the dead bodies of her family while being followed are tense and suspenseful.  See No Evil has been overshadowed by Farrow’s other two horror films, Rosemary’s Baby and Full Circle, but it is definitely worth a look.

Jedadiah Leland’s Horrific Adventures In The Internet Archive #21: Haunted Mission Adventure (1987, Agency Automation)

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For my next horrific adventure in the Internet Archive, I played Haunted Mission Adventure (1987, Agency Automation).

Everyone loves the Blairs’ annual Halloween party.  However, this year, the Pumpkin Man has been kidnapped by the evil Lady Windsloe.  According to the game’s introduction, Pumpkin Man is world-famous and beloved by children and adults.  Maybe he is somehow related the Great Pumpkin.

This text-based game is simple and I think anyone who is in the mood for a retro horror game will enjoy it.  You move around the neighborhood, searching for clues and trying to not get captured by monsters.  One thing I liked about this game was that it was not hard to find the tools that I needed.  At one point, I went south and I was told that I was in a lumberyard and that I saw a “stake.”  Figuring that there would be vampires around, I grabbed it.  Two turns later and I was suddenly in an occultists shop and I was told that I saw “spirit neutralizer.”  Again, that sounded like something I needed.

Of course, neither one did me any good when I ran into the Moss Man.

That did not go well.

Haunted Mission Adventure is simple and fun.  I have yet to find The Pumpkin Man but I won’t give up until he makes it to the Blair Party.

Jedadiah Leland’s Horrific Adventures In The Internet Archive #20: Countdown to Doom (1987, Topologika Software Ltd.)

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For my next adventure in the dark side of the Internet Archive, I played Countdown to Doom (1987, Topologika Software Ltd.).

Man, this game is tough!

You have just crashed your spaceship on a mysterious planet called Doom.  You have 400 turns in order to find the spare parts necessary to repair your spaceship.  To do that, you will have to figure out how to get out of your spaceship.  Assuming you survive the escape, you will have to explore the planet and find everything that you need.

The best thing about Countdown to Doom is that it is really well-written.  The descriptions are so detailed that you will feel like you are actually on the planet.  The bad thing is that you only have 400 turns so if you spend too much time exploring, your ship will collapse and you will be forever trapped.

This is a challenging game because if you make one mistake, you will die.  For me, the most humiliating moment was when I tried to pull the door of the spaceship and it fell on me.

Next time, I tried push door and I had better results.

Countdown to Doom is one of the best games that I’ve found in the Internet Archive.  It may be difficult but it is not impossible.  There is also a walkthrough but, for best results, suck it up and figure it out for yourself.  It will be worth it.

Jedadiah Leland’s Horrific Adventures In The Internet Archive #19: Shenanigans (1984, Mark Data Productions)

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For my next trip through the dark side of the Internet Archive, I played Shenanigans (1984, Mark Dice Productions.)

In Shenanigans, your goal is to track down a leprechaun’s pot of gold.  You really need the money.  Just look at where you are living:

Everything in Shenanigans is a puzzle and that includes getting out of your apartment.  Directly outside your bedroom door, your landlord is waiting.  He wants the rent that you own him.  I typed “hit landlord” several times but the game does not understand the hit command.

The only way to get by the landlord is to pay him.  The money is in the room but it is not easy to find.  Hint: look at everything more than once.

If you ever get out of the apartment, you can wander around the city.  Be careful because it is surprisingly easy to die in this game.  For example, you might run into muggers.  If you remember to search everything, you will have an item that will save your life.  If you miss something, you will die.

Assuming you survive, you will find a bar.

Make sure you order the right beer or you might die.  If you do order the right beer, you can find a subway that will take you to this magical place:

Solving the puzzles in Shenanigans can be rewarding but the gameplay can sometimes be frustrating.  Not only is it extremely easy to mess up but, like many games from the 80s, the game’s vocabulary is limited.  I spent a lot of time playing “guess the verb.”  Fortunately, there is a walkthrough available.  Without it, I would have died even more times than I did.

A Movie A Day #292: The Bride (1985, directed by Franc Roddam)

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The Bride opens where most films about Frankenstein and his monster end.

The Baron (played by fucking Sting, of all people) has agreed to create a bride for his creation, who in this movie is named Viktor and played by Clancy Brown.  Jennifer Beals plays the Bride, who is named Eva.  Eva looks like a normal, beautiful wielder-turned-dancer so when she first sees Viktor, she screams.  Viktor gets upset and starts to trash the laboratory.  “Don’t be impertinent!’ snaps the Baron’s assistant (Quentin Crisp).  A fire breaks out.  Quentin Crisp dies and so does another assistant played by Timothy Spall.  The monster escapes.  The Baron takes Eva into his household.  The Baron is obsessed with controlling Eva, who wants her independence and who has fallen in love with Cary Elwes.  When Eva sees a cat, she screams.  “You never told me about cats,” she tells the Baron, “I thought it was a tiny lion!”

The rest of the movie is a bewildering collection of cameos from respected thespians forced to recite some of the worst dialogue in film history.  Viktor befriends Rinaldo the dwarf (David Rappaport), who tells Viktor about how much he dreams of one day seeing Venice.  After Rinaldo is murdered by Alexei Sayle, Viktor swears that he will go to Venice and he will take Eva with him.

(Timothy Spall,  Quentin Crisp, and Alexei Sayle are not the only British performers to be strangely miscast in The Bride.  Keep an eye out for Phil Daniels, Ken Campbell, and Tony Haygarth, all wasted in small roles.)

The Bride attempts to put a revisionist, feminist spin on the story of Frankenstein but it ultimately just looks like a two hour Duran Duran video, with a guest vocals provided by Sting.  The scenes with Clancy Brown and David Rappaport work but otherwise, every important role is miscast.  Jennifer Beals is monotonous as the Bride and Sting never comes close to suggesting that he is capable of the type of mad genius that would be necessary to create life.  When it comes to the Bride of Frankenstein, stick with the original.

One final note: Both Sting and Phil Daniels also appeared in a much better film from Franc Roddam, Quadrophenia.  I recommend seeing Quadrophenia almost as much as I recommend forgetting about The Bride.