Contextual research

1. Research

2. My chosen Discipline: Games
What I know already:
- Horror games: As a fan of horror games, I have knowledge and consumed various
games such as Silent Hill, Soma, PT, Outlast 1 & 2. I consider myself a fan of these
games and enjoy the genre. I particularly enjoy psychological horror games, as I
enjoy exploring narrative in horror rather than gameplay that focuses on jump
scares and shock value. I also enjoy the themes in psychological horror and find
them much more interesting, as often the story is something you need to peel
open and discover through subtle hints and context clues.
P.T – Kojima Productions (2014) Silent Hill 3 – Team Silent, Konami (2003) Soma – Frictional Games (2015)

3. My chosen Discipline: Games
What I know already:
- Visual novels: Visual novels are a genre of games that have large
variety. I enjoy them as they’re easily accessible and what they lack in
gameplay is made up for with story. Genres of visual novels can span
from fully fleshed out adventure genres, to quick easily digestible 1
hour horror stories. Visual novels also usually have multiple options,
letting you choose your own adventure.
We Know The Devil
– Pillow Fight, Worst Girl Games (2015)
Hello Charlotte: Heaven’s Gate
– Etherane (2018)
999 – Spike Chunsoft (2009)

4. My chosen Discipline: Games
Questions I have heading into my research:
- A lot of the most popular psychological horror games are decades old,
what is keeping them relevant still?
- What themes are commonly present within psychological horror?
- What art styles are commonly present in horror games / visual
novels?
- How does music help emphasize feelings of horror?
- What are modern horror games missing? What do fans want out of a
horror game? Fans often reminisce on the PS2 era of psychological
horror – Why is this?
- What techniques are used in different types of horror? How do
slasher movies scare the consumer differently than psychological
horror?

5. My Chosen Discipline
• What am I looking at: Horror
• Why: For my FMP I plan to make a horror themed visual novel
• How: I'm writing an essay
• What experience I already have (previous projects): A lot of my past
projects have been horror themed, like my fanzine and my video game
project.
• What I hope to learn: I hope to learn the inner workings of what makes a
horror game scary, and what techniques are used.

6. After this point, I decided to change my research focus to horror artists
and similar subjects. This is because the way films & other non-
interactive media such as comics and artwork portray their subjects is
very different to how a game would.
Junji Ito horror artist &
writer. Author of Tomie,
Uzumaki & Gyo Kaneto Shindo, director
Directed Onibaba (1964),
Kuroneko (1968)

7. Study of Kaneto Shindo
Main points/notes:
- Kaneto Shindo is a black and white movie director born in 1917. From the time period he started making
movies, 1951, horror was a much different scene. Coming straight out of the devastation of World War 2, his
films were strongly inspired by topics such as poverty and social issues – alongside other things such as
Japanese folktales. Another important part of his horror is sexuality – which is a common convention for
western horror, although Shindo's usage of the topic differs greatly from the western usage.
- His film Kuroneko (1968) focuses on a folktale set in the Heian period. The story is a mystery, and heavily
inspired by Ryunosuke Akutagawa's 'In a Grove' story. The Japanese title of the film 'Yabu no Naka no
Kuroneko' refers to an idiom used to refer to a mystery that is difficult to unravel. This title perfectly describes
the story.
- His film Onibaba is also heavily inspired by folklore, and the cycles of karma. The movie focuses on two
women who seduce, kill and then rob soldiers. One of the women steals a Hannya mask from a soldier. The
Hannya mask is used in Noh theatre, which has been around since the 14th century. Hannya represents a
jealous female demon – The demon is supposed to be demonic and scary – but also sorrowful. The mask's
usage in this movie is very much representative of the older woman out of the protagonist duo. She is jealous
and rageful towards the younger woman who is seduced by the 'Hero' of the story.
Summary of how this information will help/inform me for my essay:

8. Study of Junji Ito
Main points/notes:
- The main point of Junji Ito's horror is to take mundane everyday things and making them entirely horrific and terrifying.
- His art style is more mature and realistic than the majority of manga authors, there are no over emphasized features and the
proportions are realistic. This mature art style allows the reader to place themself in the environment, the art style makes the story
less detached from reality – further emphasizing the mundane horror he creates.
- His art style is also unmistakably identifiable as a horror art style. From the harsh shading and tones, to the way he draws eyes –
creepy and pallid, staring directly into you. The detail in his artwork also adds to this. The panels are busy, the horror imagery is
incredibly detailed – a stark contrast to a lot of the other panels. It jumps out at you and shocks you,
- You can usually predict what happens in his stories, as there tends to be foreshadowing. This is in part due to it being unmistakably
horror from the beginning. Gyo foreshadows it's plot at the beginning when a bunch of sailors haul a net of fish onto the boat and
discover that they all have legs. He works against your expectations by playing on common horrors and mixing them together, as most
people are scared of the deep ocean and spiders – He mixes this by giving fish the legs of spiders.
- The narrative in his story is almost always linear, It builds up, it climaxes, it resolves. The shock value of the climax is always
incredibly detailed and intimate. It puts you directly in that situation and it Stays.
Summary of how this information will help/inform me for my essay:
This will help me in my essay as Junji Ito will be the focus of my essay. I'll use his techniques in horror as a backbone for my essay, and
then expand and include other authors and directors, and how they all create horror in similar and different ways.

9. Study of Ari Aster
Main points/notes:
- The way he portrays horror is relatively unconventional in terms of western horror. The movies feel more like dramas until
everything all comes to a climax, and you start realising 'Oh god.'
- The horror is never in your face, it always has an element of subtlety, like in Midsommar, how everything is portrayed as bright and
happy but there's that awful nervous feeling that something is wrong.
- Ari utilizes some horror conventions in his movies, such as displaying the murder weapon early on before it's used. For example, in
Midsommar, you see a tapestry early in the movie that shows the grand finale where one of the characters dies – you also see key
moments leading up to his death but they're hidden in plain sight so well – you don't even realise you're seeing it.
- The soundtracks of Aster's movies are also important to his horror. During the climax of both Hereditary and Midsommar the music
is intense, but not in a conventional horror fashion. The music always has a weird uplifting tone to it – which makes the scenes that
it's paired with much more horrifying. In hereditary, at the end of the movie when all of Peter's family is dead and he enters the
treehouse, the track 'Reborn' slowly starts playing. The music is written in major key – which gives it the uplifting sound, but the track
holds the same nervous feeling that you've been feeling for the whole movie.
https://youtu.be/1Vnghdsjmd0
Summary of how this information will help/inform me for my essay:
This information will help me in my essay, as a western perspective on how to portray psychological horror. Despite being western, Ari
Aster's style is still very different from the 'typical' western horror, with Midsommar's bright colours and upbeat feeling, and the
subtlety of Hereditary's story and watching all of the characters spiralling into a horrible climax.

10. List of other sources
https://youtu.be/1Vnghdsjmd0
https://tunebat.com/Info/Reborn-Colin-
Stetson/6Pu6B3gFg94qExHkzwQdpb
https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/bobby-krlic-midsommar-
original-score/
https://www.overthinkingit.com/2018/07/24/junji-itos-eyes/
https://nostroblogs.wordpress.com/2015/02/11/junji-ito-entretien-
avec-un-maitre-de-lhorreur/
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sci-fi-fantasy/the-horror-of-
an-uncertain-future-an-interview-with-revered-manga-ka-junji-ito/
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2016/01/30/books/black-
illumination-unhuman-world-junji-ito

11. My chosen Discipline: Film
• Reflective summary on the answers to the questions I started with
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