Halloween Chickens

[DuckandCover]

A bizarre, non-serious post for an off-kilter day.

 

I gotta admit, I’m a long time fan of horror movies. Getting scared out of my mind has been a favorite pastime for many years now. Even as a boy, my love of being spooked carried over into my interest in videogames. Although I may get some derision for this, I can distinctly remember almost jumping out of my skin while playing Atari’s Haunted House and having the ghost of Old Man Graves rush out of the dark to zap me. Obviously, horror-themed games for the 2600 were in short supply, so the few that were produced really aroused my interest.

 

Amongst the titles that I was curious about was Wizard Video Games’ Halloween. I was eight when the movie came out, and when I finally got the chance to see it, it spooked me but good. I can remember that Electronic Games magazine gave the game only a fair review when it was released, along with some reservations about its violent subject matter. But the reviewer’s qualms didn’t quell my curiosity. Of course, it would be years before I got the chance to play Halloween, but when I finally did, it was with a certain degree of inquisitive anticipation.

 

My first impression was good. The eerie theme music was there to set the mood. Guiding your blocky Jamie Lee Curtis stand-in through the large house, dodging the relentless Michael Myers while struggling to rescue panicking children was pretty intense. The killer would appear suddenly, the lights would go out at random, and every once in a blue moon you’d come across a letter opener and give your murderous pursuer a stiff jab in the liver. It was fairly suspenseful stuff until the inevitable happened. Taking a wrong turn at the dining room you run headlong into the killer and…

 

WHOP! You break into your best decapitated chicken imitation. Waving your arms like a cheerleader on speed (Gimme a H! Gimme an A! Gimme a L! etc.) you charge merrily off into the house, moving with more speed than when old Mike was hot on your heels.

 

As cartoon violence goes, it was pretty cool. But it sure popped the whole “suspenseful horror game” balloon. One minute, the game seems like a life or death struggle in an eerie old house. Then with one quick swing of the knife, it’s “The Coyote and Roadrunner do Psycho”.

 

I guess what I’m wondering is, what was the programmer thinking? Did he really think that death animation was horrifying? Was he ticked off that this was the only programming job he could score and thought he’d express his real feelings? Did he think the whole project was ludicrous (a good possibility) and figure, “What the heck. I’m out of a job as soon as it’s done anyway.” Was he trying to make some kind of odd political statement about violent oppression in an obscure third-world country? Or maybe he was just a chicken farmer turned game programmer who figured that was just what happened when folks lost their heads.

 

Any thoughts?