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aion-rsa · 4 years

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Lance Henriksen on His Career: ‘Every Job I’ve Ever Gotten Was a Gift’

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Lance Henriksen has been one of the screen’s most distinctive character actors and overall badasses for going on 50 years. A genuine working actor who always seems to be showing up in a film or TV show, the New York-born Henriksen’s early film career featured small roles in some of the most iconic films of the 1970s, including Dog Day Afternoon, Network and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Even though his long and varied run on the big and small screen was just getting underway, he managed to work with directors like Sidney Lumet and Steven Spielberg.

He also didn’t have a clue at the time that those films would endure decades later as classics of their era.

“I had no idea,” he says while speaking to us on the phone about his latest film, Falling. “I was just grateful to have a job and do my best and try. It was a gift. Every job I’ve ever gotten, I feel it was a gift. I don’t make any bones about that. It’s just a lot of luck.”

Now at the age of 80, Henriksen is a statesman of cinema in Falling, Viggo Mortensen’s directorial debut. However, the older actor wasn’t always sure luck was going to come his come his way. His father was a merchant sailor who was away at sea most of the time. His mother, who worked as a dance instructor, a model, and a waitress, divorced Henriksen’s father when her son was just two and struggled to raise both Lance and his brother on her own. Stints in foster care and abuse at the hands of other family members followed, with Henriksen out of school after first grade and out of his home for good at 12. He didn’t learn to read until he was nearly 30 years old.

It was around that time that he began working in theater, first in set design and then eventually on the sets themselves as an actor. His first film appearance came in 1972, in the long-forgotten It Ain’t Easy for director (and future Star Trek: The Next Generation producer/writer) Maurice Hurley. Three years later, he was an FBI agent in Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon, which got him a call from Spielberg, the red-hot young director of Jaws who was then prepping his alien contact epic, Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

In that film, Henriksen played one of the many scientists and technicians on hand for the arrival of the alien mothership and its crew.

“[Spielberg] was getting ready to shoot the mothership leaving, with all the little creatures and all the astronauts going up onto the machine,” the actor recalls now. “And I ran over and said, ‘Hey, listen, Steven, I’ve got an idea. What if I take my coat, throw it over one of these little creatures, and run into the Porta-Potties with it, so we’ve got proof, because this thing’s going to take off and disappear.’ And he looked at me and goes, ‘Lance, listen to me, that’s a different movie.’”

Following that mid-1970s run, which also included the 1978 horror sequel, Damien: Omen II, and the truly bonkers sci-fi cult film The Visitor, with John Huston and Glenn Ford, Henriksen wouldn’t see his next big break until 1982. That’s when a first-time director named James Cameron cast him in Piranha 2: The Spawning, which Cameron was shooting for exploitation producer Ovidio G. Assonitis.

“I like Jim,” says Henriksen of the man who would later go on to make game-changing, record-breaking blockbusters like Titanic and Avatar. “I met him on Piranha 2. Neither one of us liked that movie, but we did it. We had to do that movie. We weren’t supported very much by the producers…And then when the movie was done, we all went home and I remember they fired Jim the last day of shooting so that they could edit and control the movie.”

According to Henriksen, the producers of Piranha 2 took the film out of Cameron’s hands and presented their own edit to distributor Columbia Pictures, which rejected it.

Says Henriksen, “Jim took the same footage that they showed Columbia. He re-edited it and brought it back to [the studio]. And that’s the cut that released. It’s a great story. I hope it’s true.”

Cameron cast Henriksen in his next two movies, both of which turned into sci-fi/action classics: 1984’s The Terminator and 1986’s Aliens. It was in the latter film that Henriksen created the first of several iconic performances by playing the enigmatic and ultimately heroic android Bishop. Other 1980s standouts for Henriksen included Prince of the City, The Right Stuff, and Jagged Edge, while the latter half of that decade yielded lead roles in two horror cult classics, Pumpkinhead and Near Dark.

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Although Henriksen continued to work steadily in movies throughout the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s, it was a TV show that yielded perhaps his most famous character after Bishop: ex-FBI profiler and serial killer hunter Frank Black in creator Chris Carter’s nightmarish thriller series Millennium. The series was Carter’s follow-up to The X-Files and it ran for three seasons and 67 episodes on Fox from 1996 to 1999.

“I think the thing that I admired the most was when I was offered the role, I didn’t right away know it was television,” says Henriksen, who also admits that the show’s oppressive nature and the tormented psyche of his character wore on him during its three-year run. “I got to a restaurant with Chris Carter and the director. I said, ‘Let me ask you something. This is so dark. A lot of serial killers. A lot of bad people. Where’s the light going to come from?’ And all Chris Carter said to me was, ‘The yellow house.’ And then I got it right away. It was about [Black’s] family and I agreed to do it.”

Henriksen adds, “Occasionally it sucked me in,” referring to Millennium’s relentlessly grim atmosphere. “But it was a tough show. It wasn’t an easy one. It was also kind of a groundbreaker at the time, I think.” Henriksen has been quoted as saying that it took him “a year” to get out of the head of Frank Black after the show was cancelled, and has often noted that he finds it difficult to detach himself from a character after the project has finished shooting.

When it came to Falling, Henriksen says he was actually leery at first of playing Willis Peterson, the conservative and homophobic father of a middle-aged gay man named John (Mortensen, who also wrote and scored the movie). Nearing the end of his life, perpetually angry and having pushed two wives and his children away from him, Willis is perhaps the most complex role of Henriksen’s career but one which he says was exhausting to play.

“I have to tell you the minute we were wrapped and we finished the movie, I said, ‘Viggo, I’m going to disappear for a while. I got to get myself back,’” Henriksen explains. “I was a little afraid to do it. I got so deep into some of it that I got a little afraid that I’m going to get a form of Alzheimer’s of some kind–I won’t be able to shake it. But I was able to shake it. But anyway, it was intense. It really was, the stakes were very high. And we had a short time to do it. We shot it in five weeks.”

Henriksen’s relationship with Mortensen–best known to genre fans as Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings–stretches back to the 2008 Western Appaloosa, in which both men starred alongside Ed Harris. “We both love Westerns and we all enjoyed it,” says Henriksen of his first collaboration with Mortensen. “All three of us: Ed loves Westerns. He knows how to ride, he knows how to do it. It was nice to meet Viggo. He’s as good a guy as I’ve ever met. I liked him right away, really good guy.”

Nevertheless, Henriksen–a graduate of the Actors Studio and a practitioner of method acting–still wasn’t sure he wanted to play Willis when Mortensen sent him the Falling script. “It scared me,” he admits. “He said, ‘Would you do it?’ I said, ‘Sure, I’m scared, but I’ll do it.’ And then we lost the original backing and it took two years to finally get new backing, and he said, ‘You still want to do it?’ And I went, ‘Yeah.’ And he goes, ‘That didn’t sound very enthusiastic, Lance.’ I said to him, ‘The truth is, I’m going to have to visit some real dark places from my youth, my childhood, all of that, and I’m nervous.’”

In Falling, John brings Willis home to Los Angeles with him to stay with his family, including husband Eric (Terry Chen) and their adopted daughter Monica (Gabby Velis) while they look for a new home for Willis closer to John and his sister Sarah (Laura Linney). But Willis is resolutely against leaving his rural farm in heartland America, determined to stick to his sheltered lifestyle even as the onset of dementia begins to blur the past and the present in his mind.

Despite his anxiety about delving into Willis’ tortured, embittered psyche, Henriksen now imparts that participating in the film became an instant highlight of his career. “It was the best experience I’ve ever had as an actor,” he says. “The support to do it and [Mortensen’s] appreciation level and all of those things were everything that I hoped for… I have nothing but gratitude. This is maybe the best role I’ve gotten in my lifetime. I really think that.”

Those are strong words coming from an actor who has appeared in many of the definitive films of the last five decades, but Falling may well feature some of the most emotionally raw work he’s done during his lifetime in the business. “I’m grateful to be an actor,” Lance Henriksen says with sincerity. “I’m an apprentice to every new subject. It’s been my education. I’m a lucky guy, I really am.”

Falling is out in theaters, on digital, and on demand now.

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corpse-of-bandersnatch · 4 years

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ship asks 4 and 5/8 for @loathsome-aesthete

My dear, I am sorry (and slightly embarrassed) by the amount of detail I put into answer 5. I know, this is just a ship ask, but you see, I started to think about Alien again and got carried away... there was no turning back.

Ship that is unpopular but you still like

All marines plus Bishop and Ripley from Aliens were one polyamorous family, but some pairings were of a more romantic nature than others. Like Ferro x Bishop or Hudson x Drake. I guess the latter is kind of unpopular, since most people ship Drake with Vasquez (who in my head is bro with Hudson, best bro with Drake and the most brutal match maker between these two oblivious idiots). And I'm probably the only person, who ships Ferro and Bishop, lol.

Ship that you used to have as an OTP

Similar to your answer on that question, dear @loathsome-aesthete, I rarely stop being in a fandom, because I start to dislike it or because I completely lose interest in it. It just fades next to the newest hyperfixation. But it's still important, if just as a part of my past. Often the characters stay dear to my heart, even if I wander of to the next fandom.

So, one OTP from my past: Ferro x Bishop from Aliens

(oh boy, here we go)

We learn in Alien, Alien 4: Resurrection (with the Autons), Prometheus and Alien: Covenant that in the Alien-universe androids are able to develop individualistic thoughts, longings and emotions. I never liked Ridley Scott's explanation, that a machine starts to experience feelings automatically, if you just make it complex enough (that's the simplified version of his statement of course, but this post is not about Scott). For me, that's not an explanation, but the lack of one.

So in my daydreams, androids having emotions started with scientists being curious about the compatibility of the artificial body system and biological substances (or chemicals based on biological substances). Bishop was one of the first test subjects, where the scientists injected just a driblet of chemicals into his system. Nothing happened in the time of these experiments – the scientists concluded, that these chemicals in such a small amount don't have an effect on the artificial body. Though the substances don't degrade either.

The Xenomorphs and the pilot in the spaceship in Alien are examples of lifeforms, that perfectly combine biological and mechanical components in their bodies. So, I thought back then, it would make perfectly sense for them to have substances running through their veins, which make both 'structures' in their bodies work with and in each other.

That's what the scientists tried to achieve with androids ‘back then’, but couldn't make it happen. They were able to include biological substances in an android's system, but not to make the substances effect said system.

BUT if an artificial person, who carries these substances based on human biology in their system, gets exposed to biology from the Xenomorph's planet (you know, that biology that combines organic and mechanical structures and turns them into ONE biomechanical structure), then the biological substances start to interact with the artificial system they are in.

As stated above, I headcanon Bishop being such an android thanks to the experiments. And when he gets exposed to the 'Xenomorph-biology' in the movie, the components in his system start to interact and cause him to feel. This ability to feel doesn't come like an outburst, but evolves slowly.

After the events of Aliens (except for their deaths, which obviously never happen, they all survive in my head), Bishop tells the marines about these weird, new sensations. They bring him to one of the leading scientists, an OC called Erica Rousseau, and she explains, what's happening to him.

So, the marines help their artificial friend to figure things out, he describes what he's feeling and they guess the emotion and help him handling it. Help him with his first feelings of fear, happiness, sadness, anger, shame, longing,.. in their own more or less professional ways.

Especially Ferro spends more and more time with Bishop, stays at his side, tries to help him reconcile his new ability with his former existence and eventually starts to have romantic feelings for him. He needs years to understand and – in the end – reciprocate her romantic interest.

If you think „Wow that sounds heavily inspired by Data from Next Generation!“ then yeah, it probably is. Unconsciously though, because I watched TNG for the first time when I was around 10-11 years old and didn't remember much of it, when I watched the Alien movies for the first time in my early 20. So I probably had some informations regarding Data stored in my subconsciousness , but didn't use those intentionally as inspiration for my Alien daydreams.

And a final Fun Fact: Bishop is the reason I started watching Star Trek again, back then. I watched TOS and TNG as a kid and than didn't watch Star Trek for a very long time. Bishop re-awakend my interest, because I had a huge crush on him (and a celeb crush on Lance Henriksen) and therefore had a special interest in artificial people. So I thought „I could watch TNG again, didn't do that for more than 10 years and they have that cute Data guy!“ so because of Bishop I wanted to see Data again, and watching TNG dragged me back into Star Trek fandom and I am lost since then. (Because after TNG I watched DS9 and VOY and ENT , rewatched TOS, and continued with Discovery and Picard. So thanks for that, Bishop!)

#Corpse-Krams #loathsome-aesthete #thanks for the ask #and I want to apology that I answered way more than that xD

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lancelothenriksen · 5 years

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More good news, everyone!

Bring me the head of Lance Henriksen, the fictionalized tale of Tim Thomerson's rivalry with Lance may (MAY) finally see the light of day! This thing has been hanging in limbo for nearly 10 years (I've been followiing it's development for like 6 years). The interview covers Michael Worth's struggle to get the movie completed and Tim Thomerson's recollections of the shoot and Lance's silly antics.

Keeping my fingers crossed that we'll get to see this magnum opus soon.

#Lance Henriksen #tim thomerson #2000s lance #I need this PLEASE

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frederator-studios · 6 years

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Graham McTavish: The Frederator Interview

At the moment, Graham McTavish is in Malta getting his head torn off by a Werewolf. Jack Bauer once rammed a fire poker through his chest then slit his throat. He’s been set on fire, drowned, strangled, stabbed, speared, knifed, shot - not to mention, kneed in the balls, punched in the face, even slammed over the back with a log by an over-eager young performer. All in a day’s work for the Scottish actor, who’s played the baddest of baddies on a slew of excellent dramas-with-a-twist, from Preacher to Outlander, 24 to Castlevania. But Graham himself doesn’t view his characters as ‘villains’ - just passionate, complex people, of which Dracula (though he’d resent to be called “human”) is the embodiment. Read on for Graham’s take on playing one of literature’s most iconic, dangerous anti-heroes—from the relative safety of a recording studio.

Are you in LA long?

I’m flying out tonight actually, back to New Zealand. My kids are there, so I split my time. I’m doing Lucifer at the moment for Netflix as well as Castlevania, so I had to come back for a day, yesterday - I flew back just for that. (wow whaaa?) Yeah. I do a lot of traveling, but even for me that’s insane! It’s also unusual for the scheduling to work out perfectly, which it does the next few months. I have an episode gap now, then in October, I do a film in Malta, and the day that wraps, come back to LA to finish Lucifer, and the day after that, fly to Canada to do a film with Willem Dafoe about the Iditarod. I’ve got to learn how to mush a dog sled.

That’s awesome. It’s like getting sponsored to learn a cool obscure skill.

It’s definitely a nice side effect of being an actor. What other job would allow you to learn how to mush a dog sled, unless you were actually becoming a professional dog sled musher? It’ll be great.

How is it for you to switch between characters, with so little time between roles sometimes?

It really depends on your approach to acting. I approach from the point of view of a child. I have two young children, and the great thing about being that age, is they can switch from one thing to another in an instant. Very fluid. I think because I’ve never trained as an actor, I can see work as play. Some actors live as a cobbler for 5 years to play a cobbler, and that’s what works for them. Personally, I pretend. When I'm mushing dogs, I will give the illusion that I really know what I'm doing. That’s what acting is: an illusion that the audience willingly participates in. And everybody is complicit.

You didn’t have professional training?

No. I used to write comic sketches at school with a friend of mine, and we didn't trust anybody else to perform them, so we did. The Drama teacher at school asked me on many occasions to be in a play, but I always said no. Then on one occasion, he asked me to step into a play called “The Rivals” by Sheridan, filling in for an actor who’d fallen ill three days before the production was due to be performed. I said yes. To this day, I have no idea why I agreed. But I did the play, and was of course bitten by the acting bug.

After that, a local Dramatics company asked me to join them, so I did amateur theatre for a year. Then I attended Queen Mary College London University and majored in English literature. I was lucky enough to have a professor who loved Shakespeare and Jacobean drama, and he cast me in all of those plays. As an English Lit major, I was doing two or three Shakespeare plays a year, performing roles that I never would have been given if I'd been at Drama School. I'm not against it, but I don't think it's for everyone. I got my union card in Britain after doing a Beckett play, and then just started working professionally. I also did a lot of Repertory Theatre in the UK, which I think is a great training ground for actors. So it was all slightly accidental, the case with a lot of people.

How did you choose to play Dracula? What about that part compelled you?

I played him onstage once, a great experience. Dracula is the sort of character people love guiltily. If you get the opportunity to play that, it's a no-brainer. Just reading Bram Stoker’s book, your sympathy is with Dracula, in many ways. You live the story through him. It's such a wonderful ride to be playing a man whose been alive for hundreds and hundreds of years. Dracula plays to our secret desires, our secret fears. I think in all of us, there is a fascination with the idea of living forever. Fear of living forever, and fear of death; the Dracula myth plays on that edge. It’s so powerful because it takes something that we all have to face one day and says, what if you didn’t? But in gaining immortality, you lose something very important. Dracula is very enviable in some ways, but is also deeply sad and tragic.

How is it, playing tragic characters?

Among the few advantages of getting older is you have more life experience, including with tragedy. It’s inevitable. And you can draw on those memories. But you can also draw on your fears as well. I did a scene in Outlander, toward the end, where my brother is dying. I thought of my own father, and all the things I never said to him. Those emotions definitely informed that scene. When tragedy and death and loss touch your life, you carry those feelings into your future.

Are you an animation fan?

I love animation, I grew up with it. Along with books, it was my first experience of storytelling. Cartoons, as we called them; they fired my childhood imagination. It’s like how we were talking earlier, about children, and the profundity of animation to them. The first film I saw in a theatre was Walt Disney’s Peter Pan. I was five and had no question that those characters were real. To such an extent that when they took the posters down at the cinema, I got upset. I was like, “But where’s Peter? Where’s he gone?” Because I thought Peter lived in the cinema. I still get absorbed into great pieces of animation, when the artistry is powerful, and it’s part of my attraction to doing animated work. And this show, Castlevania, is particularly beautiful.

How were you introduced to the project, and did you have expectations going in?

I knew it was going to be great. I was recording Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles when the Voice and Casting Director, Meredith Layne, pulled me aside. She said she was on a project and couldn’t tell me much, but she thought I’d be a fit, and would I like to be considered? Meredith has great taste, so I said “Of course” and sent in a tape. And when I heard that Warren Ellis was the writer, that was a huge attraction. I love his comic book work, and fiction as well. The Crooked Little Vein is one of my favorite books. Really, it couldn’t not be great, and the more I learned of the creative team behind it, the more sure I was. Everything put into the show - the casting, directing, producing, animation - elevates it so hugely above anything comparable. I love that it occupies this unique space.

What do you feel Castlevania’s Dracula uniquely brings to the character?

It’s his being human that makes it so interesting. When I portrayed Dracula onstage, there was no suggestion that that version of him felt love, or experienced empathy. But in this production, a woman, Lisa, takes him by surprise. She makes him feel, and turns his life around. I love that, because everybody can relate. You think your life is one way, then you meet someone who changes everything, opens your life up, makes you think about it differently - and makes it more enjoyable to be alive. And since Dracula is essentially dead, that irony is very clever.

Do you have a favorite representation of vampires in Media?

I'm a little biased, but I love the portrayal of Cassidy by Joe Gilgun in Preacher. It’s so unconventional. Herzog’s Nosferatu springs to mind, just incredible. Gary Oldman’s Dracula is wonderful. And I loved Let the Right One In, the original Swedish version. It’s genius. It took something familiar as a vampire story and gave it a whole new spin.

You work so much in the fantasy genre - is that purposeful?

Oh yeah. I love the variety. I've been a Viking, a Roman - twice - after always dreaming of playing one, I got to be one for a whole year. Growing up in the UK, you never imagine yourself getting to be a cowboy. On the first season of Preacher, there was a scene I rode into a western town: the whole duster coat with the Stetson guns, surrounded by horses and wagon trains, all the paraphernalia. I had to look cool and unbothered. I wanted to jump up and down in excitement. I was so, pathetically excited. I did a season of 24, and I’d been a huge fan. Every day I’d go up to the producers telling them I was a huge fan. After a while, they’d say, “Yeah, great, we get it. You like the show. You’re in it now, so if you could just be the character that’d be great.”

And I still get a pathetically childish enjoyment out of playing Dracula. What kid doesn’t want to play Dracula?! I once talked to Lance Henriksen, and he said one of the reasons he went into acting was to be thousands of people. You get to be a cowboy and a vampire and a dog musher and a Highlander in the 18th century and a dwarf in Middle Earth. I'd definitely rather do any of that than put on a suit and do a courtroom scene. Not that I wouldn’t! I’ve just never been asked. No one’s ever looked at me and said, “Let’s cast him as The Dad.”

Have you ever played a “Castlevania” game?

I am a terrible game player.

But, but - your voice is in like every game of the past decade!

Yes, I have done loads of video games. I did a franchise called “Uncharted”. Award-winning; incredibly popular. Never played them. I played one game years ago with my friend, called “Gears of War”. I was so bad at it. I'm the guy that shoots in a circle around his feet. I’m useless at them.

Your character's bad-assery makes up for it. Anything to say to fans of the show, in advance of season two?

I just really hope you enjoy it and get carried along with the story and and want to see more. That’s always the greatest thing, if you can get the fans to clamor for more ❀

Follow Graham on Twitter and Instagram

Thank you for the interview Graham! Without a doubt, you’re the kindest chronic bad guy I’ve come across.

- Cooper ❀

(Craving another CV interview? Read Richard Armitage’s here.)

#The Frederator Interview #graham mctavish #castlevania #castlevania netflix #dracula #outlander #preacher #24 #uncharted #the hobbit #interview #actor #netflix #season 2 #frederator

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slashertalks · 6 years

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Pumpkinhead, And Thoughts On Unnecessary Sequels

(I’m writing this as I watch the movie, so the review may be a little all over the place- bear with me, please)

Pumpkinhead is a movie that achieves a rare sort of perfection: it does everything it wants to within the confines of its run time. There are no loose ends, no glaring plot holes, no setup for another movie. It’s a film that needs no continuation; it demands nothing of us beyond itself. Why, then, does Pumpkinhead have three sequels?

I can’t imagine many fans clamoring for a continuation of this film- it’s niche enough as it is, and the majority of people I’ve seen who are fans of similarly niche-yet-fantastic movies want the films to remain relatively untouched. There’s too much of a risk that any additional installments will ruin the film’s magic. You expect a myriad of sequels from big hits, so you can steel yourself for low quality schlock, but for those of us who love smaller (and older) films the announcement of a sequel is both exciting and enraging. More likely than not we’ll be disappointed, but damn it, it’s hard to keep ourselves from being at least a little excited.

Pumpkinhead is a movie about a man and his son, and grief. The film establishes its world before showing us our main characters; there is so much genuine love between Ed Harley and Billy, we really feel deeply for these two even if we’ve only seen them for around five minutes. Lance Henriksen is an excellent actor, and his talent shines in this film- the boy who plays his son seems to have real fun acting as well, and it shows. When we meet the teenagers, only two of them are really bearable. There’s the asshole character (Joel) and his brother Steve (he would be fine, but at no point does he stand up to Joel), and Joel’s girlfriend Kim (who also does nothing until late in the film). We have a third girl, Maggie, who does nothing, and our two tolerable teenagers. The blond guy, Chris, who’s actually willing to stick up to our asshole teen, and the girl with the camera, Tracy- our final girl, who is genuinely good-natured and very kind to Billy when they first meet.

Finally, we meet Bunt Wallace, who provides another introduction for our monster in the form of a rhyme, and also establishes more solidly that Ed Harley is the young boy from the very opening. This leads into a scene where Ed has to go and pick up some feed for Bunt’s grandfather, leaving Billy alone at the store. Which, in turn, sets up the catalyst for everything else in the movie. Gypsy, Billy’s dog runs outside, which makes Billy run outside where Joel and Chris are riding their dirt bikes- Maggie tries to stop him but trips, which is when Steve crashes to avoid Billy. We think everything is fine, until Joel comes sailing over the hill and hits Billy. While everyone else tries to help, Joel forces Kim to leave with the dirt bikes.

This scene is longer than we’d normally get, of the four teens alone trying desperately to help Billy while Ed is gone- what could easily be only a minute of debate is three or four. The point? To give us our real introductions to the teens- Joel is exactly who we thought he was, but the others, who’d seemed like your standard, flat fare for a horror film are shown to be genuine people who are horrified at what’s happened and desperately do their best to help. Steve stays behind while the others leave to wait for Ed. Ed arrives to find his dying son and Steve, a boy he knows had been on a dirt bike. We see Lance Henriksen give one of the most gut-wrenching glares ever put to film.

While Joel is off being one of the biggest teenaged-to-early-20s shitstains I’ve seen in a movie to date, we get to watch Ed futilely console Billy only for his son to die in his arms. At this point in the film, half an hour has passed and we still haven’t seen the title monster. The only film I can think of that’s similar is Alien, but I’m unsure if it even takes that long for some form of the Xenomorph to appear- half an hour is an awfully long time for a monster movie to take to introduce its monster. However, Pumpkinhead isn’t really a monster movie, at least not in the traditional sense. Pumkinhead (the monster) is an extension of Ed Harley, his grief, his rage, and his desire for vengeance (hence the alternate title, Vengeance The Demon that appears on some merchandise). This movie isn’t about Pumpkinhead killing people, it’s about our own twisted emotions and clouded judgement getting the better of us and turning us into a monster.

At his core, Ed Harley is a good man. He’s a hard worker and a loving father who would have and did give everything for his boy, but much like how he tried to wash Billy’s face to comfort him, it was futile. He was desperate, hurting, and made a horrible decision that cost him his life, and did nothing to revive his son. I remember an interview where Lance Henriksen said that the scene that stuck with him the most reading the script is the one where, after summoning Pumpkinhead, Billy’s corpse sat up in the seat of Ed’s truck and asked him what he’s doing: “What’d you do, daddy?” By then it’s too late to go back; even Billy’s warning is futile. The film is an exercise in futility and the pointlessness of our actions when we’ve allowed ourselves to become a monster, but at the same time, the film is never tedious to watch. It’s not painful to sit through, I’m wholeheartedly engaged in every moment of the film, because even at his worst I can empathize with Ed Harley.

Later in the movie, particularly when Ed confronts Haggis the witch, there’s a particular kind of overacting to Lance Henriksen’s portrayal, but I don’t feel like it’s out of place, or particularly cheesy. How many of us can actually say we don’t look and sound stupid when we’re upset? Ed comes across as a petulant child, demanding someone else fix the problems he caused, and it’s perfect. He’s a good man, so how could he have done this? How could he have caused all this pain when all he wanted was to make right the wrong he was done? Pumpkinhead is a monster of payment in kind, though, and Ed had no real target- it was always “those city folk” to him. Not Joel or Steve, but the whole group, and so Pumpkinhead is bound to all of the teens, even the ones who tried to help Billy, and he expects their blood for Billy’s. It’s particularly ironic that Steve, the one who did the most to help Billy, is the one who dies first.

There is a wonderful little touch given to the Pumpkinhead monster throughout the movie, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it transition as the beast’s face slowly takes on Lance Henriksen’s features. It’s subtle, I definitely missed it on my first viewing, but the effect is a perfect little touch. We know that whenever Pumpkinhead kills, Ed can see it, and the additional sign of their further-solidifying connection is a detail not often seen. If you ever get the chance to, I’d recommend looking up behind the scenes footage of the creation of the costume- even unpainted and segmented, the costume is haunting.

Bunt returns to the core group of characters later in the film- much like young Ed, he’s told to go to bed when Chris and Tracy come banging on the Wallace family’s door. However, unlike young Ed, Bunt is old enough to help. He sneaks out of the house, putting himself in grave danger to try to save the teens, giving them a lot of good insight in the process. This is important because of the third film and how it portrays Bunt, but that’ll get touched on in a moment.

There’s a haunting moment where, in a half-built, abandoned church, Pumpkinhead pauses at the doorway before stepping through (Bunt had thought it might be safe there because it’s a holy place). The moment really drives home the point that while Pumpkinhead may be demonic, it’s truly a beast of man. If Ed Harley can step into a church, so can Pumpkinhead. The finale of the movie comes when Ed tracks down Bunt and Tracy, doing his absolute best to save them- like everything else in the film, however, it is a futile gesture. Until Ed Harley is dead or vengeance has run its course, Pumpkinhead is tied to the earth and bound to do its duty. As a final exercise in futility, Ed Harley tried to kill himself- to shoot himself in the head. This fails, and it’s Tracy who has to destroy the monster. A final act of both kindness and cruelty, she ends the destructive path of Ed Harley’s corrupted grief, only for Haggis to collect the gnarled and withered corpse. I’d stated at the beginning there’s no call for a sequel, so why this moment? Because it shows us that Ed Harley is not a special case- he’s simply human, and we are all susceptible to this if the right conditions arise. When the next desperate, rage-filled and heartbroken person wanders her way, Haggis will summon up Pumpkinhead again, and Ed Harley’s twisted remains will become its flesh.

I began this review by talking about sequels, though, and I’m going to close it the same way. Pumpkinhead, a film that presents is message perfectly to us within the span of an hour and 27 minutes, has three sequels. The second of which is supposedly an alright film, abandoning the setting of the original and focusing entirely on a new set of characters, which is just fine. I would argue, in fact, that that kind of departure from the original was necessary to create the film in such a way that it could stand on its own as a decent film (without using the original as a crutch). I haven’t seen the second one and I don’t particularly intend to, but I bring it up here because it’s important to the sequel(s) I do intend to talk about.

In 2006 and 2007, SyFy released two installments in the franchise. I forced myself to sit through the third, but couldn’t bear to trudge through the ocean of garbage the fourth would inevitably bring. In the third movie, we see a funeral director who dumps bodies in the river instead of cremating them. Bunt is his assistant, and had been doing the dumping, but Ed Harley’s ghost appears and tells him he’s doing wrong. Somehow, Pumpkinhead is summoned and everybody dies, while Ed Harley’s ghost keeps appearing to Bunt. Now, this’d be alright, if it was just Ed Harley’s ghost- when they finally destroy Pumpkinhead, it turns back into Ed and disappears in a puff of white CGI bullshit.

It’s one thing if you want to ignore a sequel, but please, for the love of god, make it CLEAR that you are ignoring a sequel. Pumpkinhead 3: Ashes to Ashes does not do this, therefore leading viewers to believe that the second Pumpkinhead film is still valid within canon, which means Ed Harley is no longer Pumpkinhead. If the person who summons Pumpkinhead becomes the next conduit, then Pumpkinhead should’ve turned back into whoever the hell summoned him in the second film. Why does this bother me so much? Because while the makers claimed they had passion for the original, it doesn’t show in the slightest. Bunt is treated as a stereotypical “hillbilly” idiot with none of his charm or intelligence from the original. Lance Henriksen seems bored the whole time. The Pumpkinhead monster looks ugly as shit (which would be excusable considering the film’s low budget IF there had been an ounce of care put into the rest of the movie). At this current moment, I’m watching a featurette about the making of the original and the creators are still so clearly passionate about the film, even after all these years. It’s deeply unfortunate that the third film, supposedly a return to form, was instead so horribly disappointing.

The fourth film was filmed back to back with the third, entitled Pumpkinhead: Blood Feud. The film is about the Hatfields and McCoys, but in the “modern” (for 2007) day. It’s also a play on Romeo and Juliet. For some reason, instead of moving on to the afterlife to be with his wife and Billy, Ed is still a ghost who hangs around and talks to Haggis. Don’t ask me why. It has received mediocre reviews; again, don’t ask me why. Disconnected from the original, it may be decent, but it’s still a shitty sequel. For a film to work as a great installment while also requiring a disconnection from the original, it needs to have a fantastic message and an environment that fits near-perfectly. Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation fits this description; it is both a terrible Texas Chainsaw installment AND an excellent film with a lot to say about complacent viewership. Pumpkinhead: Blood Feud? It’s nothing of the sort. There’s no grand message, the idea is... somehow both nonsensical and overdone. It is a deeply, deeply unnecessary film that has no reason to exist within the continuity of Pumpkinhead.

Horror sequels for niche/cult horror films have to match the passion of the original film if they want to be taken even remotely seriously. I saw something, once, some article, where the thought that maybe, if the budget hadn’t been split into two films, Pumpkinhead 3 could’ve been great was put forward. I’m not sure if I agree, but it would be interesting to see. Yes, SyFy films are notoriously bad, but I’d point attention to Fear Clinic: based on a miniseries on FEARnet (which was absorbed into SyFy/Chiller after being acquired by Comcast), the film continues the story of the series while also being greatly original and is, in my humble opinion, a very interesting film. Is it the best ever? No, but Fear Clinic is fun and interesting. A film with a relatively small budget that makes use of CGI and is a passion project for its creators and cast can be great and can make fans who are passionate about the source very happy.

Even sequels that can be considered bad, can at the same time be obviously fun. I consider Escape from LA one of the absolute worst movies I’ve ever seen. I love Escape from New York, but I can’t express how much I despise EFLA. Yet, the team behind EFLA clearly had worlds of fun making it! The third and fourth Pumpkinhead movies could’ve easily fallen into this category- even if I still despised them, they could’ve had the redeeming quality of having actual, genuine passion behind them, but they fail at even that simple step. Why do so many small horror films get such bad sequels, though? If the original doesn’t have a huge following/hadn’t seen great success initially, why the follow-ups? Were there really that many fans clamoring for two subsequent Pumpkinhead films, especially ones from SyFy? I highly, highly doubt it. Maybe it really was a passion project, but why then did the films turn out so shoddy? People can make low budgets work, as clearly evidenced by films like The Evil Dead, so there’s no reason for that to make the film fail. Lance Henriksen certainly didn’t seem overjoyed to be there, so he wasn’t demanding a sequel either, even though he’s said he enjoyed working on the original and liked his character.

This phenomena of unwanted, poor quality, yet seemingly fan-demanded sequels absolutely boggles my mind, trying to decipher why they come to be. The horror genre has such an interesting core of fans who come to legitimately care for the villains of these movies. There’s a feeling that these iconic, terrifying monsters and madmen should be honored by their sequels- evolution is a natural part of the process, but they shouldn’t devolve into pure schlock and silliness. With smaller films, this feeling is doubled- we treasure what little is given to us and dread the almost inevitability of terrible continuations if the movie isn’t completely forgotten. I think I’m going to lose my mind if I continue to try to solve this conundrum, to grant reason to the completely unreasonable and almost completely profit-driven (ridiculously so, because of the niche market, but which also explains the low budgets) decisions to continue films that do not need sequels. I think this is the longest piece I’ve ever written, and outside of the actual review of the film I haven’t come to much of a conclusion- I’ve got to apologize for that.

There’s news of a remake of the original Pumpkinhead on the way, though, and I am truly filled with exasperation, dread, and a little spark of hope. Hope, because maybe it will introduce more people to the original, or spark more merchandise. Dread, because it will likely be terrible and spawn more negative thoughts than nostalgia for the original. Exasperation, because really? We’re going through this again? Why? I don’t think I’ll ever know.

#pumpkinhead #long post

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the-master-cylinder · 5 years

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SUMMARY Detective Lucas McCarthy (Lance Henriksen) finally catches the serial killer named “Meat Cleaver Max” (Brion James) and watches his execution. McCarthy is shocked to see the electric chair physically burn Max before he finally dies promising revenge. Max has made a deal with the devil to frame Lucas for his murders from beyond the grave. Max scares the McCarthy family (who have moved into a new house) and the parapsychologist they hire. The parapsychologist tells Lucas that the only hope of stopping Max for good is to destroy his spirit.

As the family move in, Donna (Rita Taggart) searches the basement to find their missing cat Gazmo. She discovers their furnace turns on and flings the door open, apparently Max’s spirit is inside the house and focused on the basement. Lucas starts having hallucinations that lead him to behave erratically. Bonnie (Dedee Pfeiffer) goes to the cellar to secretly meet her boyfriend Vinnie, who is later killed by a physical manifestation of Max with a cleaver. The next night, Bonnie tells Scott (Aron Eisenberg) to come with her to look for Vinnie, while Lucas goes to the basement and angrily calls for Max to stay away from his family. Bonnie returns to the basement and finds Vinnie’s body for which Lucas is suspected of the murder.

Max kills Scott with the meat cleaver, transforms into Bonnie and decapitates the parapsychologist before holding Donna hostage. Lucas escapes from questioning and goes into the cellar to fight Max. Lucas sends Max to the electric machine where his arm gets stuck, Lucas and Donna use the chair to shock Max causing him to appear back in physical form in the house where Lucas shoots him dead.

The next day the McCarthy’s are moving out with Scott still alive. Bonnie goes into the basement and runs outside to find Gazmo in a box the family takes a photo as the screen freezes and fades to black.

DEVELOPMENT/FIRING DIRECTORS The Sean S. Cunningham production was written by Leslie Bohem, a gold record-winning country and western songwriter who also served as a member of the rock ‘n’ roll band Sparks and a group called Bates Motel. Bohem’s script-his first to be produced was rewritten by Isaac and possibly one or both of the directors who preceded him on the project. The script is credited to Bohem and “Alan Smithee,” Isaac declined to reveal Smithee’s identity or discuss the genesis of the script, which closely parallels Wes Craven’s long-in-preparation Universal release Shocker (1989), but named Fred Walton and David Blyth as the film’s earlier directors.

“Producer Sean Cunningham didn’t hit it off with (Walton).” said Isaac of THE HORROR SHOW’s first director. “I’m still not sure why. Fred wanted the film to go one way while Sean wanted the film to go another way.” Six weeks before the film’s start date Cunningham hired Blyth to direct, but fired him after a week and a half of filming. Though footage that Biyth directed is still in the film.

“At that point, the original script was not being shot,” explained Isaac. “Then one Friday night Sean called me into his office and told me that he had to let David go. I must admit it was a real shock. Sean wasn’t happy with the dailies. He wanted me to start shooting on Monday. Obviously there were some problems with the script. But there was no extra time to work things out. The original script had a lot more humor in it. Things off-the-wall. It had some wacky stuff.”

Isaac recalled that the mood on the set of THE HORROR SHOW was tense as he took charge of the directing. The cast and crew, he felt, were unsure of him. “I felt especially bad for the actors,” he said. “They were trying very hard to make this movie more than just another slasher film. They also had some input in the script. Of course, I had been involved in the script before they started shooting. But, the actors didn’t know that.”

“Firing the director is the last thing in the world you want to do,” Cunningham said, “because it undermines everything. But if you know it’s not working, you have to come to grips with the consequences of not firing the director. You’ve got to make a change, or walk away from the whole thing.

“When Horror Show started to fall apart I had a real problem. I couldn’t direct it myself, and even if I had been able to, it wasn’t what I wanted to do. On the face of it, Jim wasn’t in line to direct, but he was in the right place at the right time. Jim was Visual Effects Supervisor on DeepStar Six (1989), and there was nothing I could throw at him that he couldn’t handle. I knew he wanted to direct, he knew all the effects, he knew me and I trusted him to ride this thing out and make it work.

“Sean brought me into his office and said, ‘Jim, I have to talk to you’, and just stared at me, while I was trying to figure out what I’d done wrong. I thought he was going to say something like, ‘Well, you know Jim, there just isn’t enough work to go around right now and I think I’m going to have to lay you off.’ Instead, he said, ‘I just had to let the director of Horror Show go, I’d like you to take over the picture, and you’ll have to start on Monday.’ Initially there was an idea that we’d direct together, but the more we talked about it the more it was obvious that one person really needed to take hold of Deepstar Six and one person needed to grab onto Horror Show.”

PRODUCTION The film was shot non-union in seven weeks in Los Angeles on a budget of $4 million. “I’d have to get in a certain amount of set-ups a day,” said Isaac. “Id average 25 to 30 set-ups.” After shooting for a few weeks, Isaac was happy with the footage. “Sean was pleased too,” said Isaac. “Yet, I knew when it came time to edit the film, we were going to have some problems. There had been some suggestion of electricity that would bring killer Max Jenke back to life. But since it was a rush job, there wasn’t enough time to make it clear.”

In the director’s first cut, the film was pretty dark. Isaac took about 20 minutes out of the film that didn’t work. “We were left with a film that had some major gaps in it,” said Isaac. “Of course, Sean was well aware of the situation. I asked him if I could add some new scenes and have an extra week of shooting. Sean tried to get some money from UA. That didn’t quite work out. He said we’d do it anyway.”

Isaac spent about two weeks writing new scenes for the film. “We needed to see that Max Jenke is a wacky guy,” said Isaac. “For example, the scene where Max appears in the turkey at the family dinner. Lucas (Lance Henriksen) picks up the carving knife and starts to stab the turkey. The family needed to see that Lucas was going off the deep end.”

“We’ve been really kicking ass with this thing.” Henriksen says firmly. “It’s a surprise to everybody. This has a powerhouse cast; it really took off.”

When the slight similarities to the Nightmare movies are mentioned, Henriksen disarmingly agrees. “Yeah, but it evolved,” he nods. “To Sean Cunningham’s credit, we got together and did a round-table reading of the script, and everything that was bogus, we red penciled. We’re maybe a fifth-generation script away from what it originally was, which is great. For me, this has been a real pleasure the hardest work I’ve ever done on a movie, but the most rewarding.”

The change in directors caused giant troubles.” Henriksen sighs. When you start with a director, you really bond with him. And that bond is something you defend. you work with. you nurture throughout a whole movie. The replacement left us high and dry for about a week, and it was traumatic. The reshoots were very difficult, but as we got into the scenes with Jim Isaac, we realized he was allowing us to do our work, so we were able to get into new areas for this genre. Oh sure. you still have to serve the special efsects, but we were able to take it to another level. Jim has allowed me to be really spontaneous about the reactions of this guy.” – Lance Henriksen

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SPECIAL EFFECTS Greg Nicotero, Robert Kurzman, and Howard Berger (KNB) supervised the special effects. Kurzman handled Max Jenke’s electrocution make-up. They used a dummy head that split open for the scene. The effects were designed to make Max unique. “He’s not Freddy and he’s not Jason,” said Isaac. “His facial burns are unlike Freddy’s hideous scars. When Max is electrocuted, he’s fried to a crisp. There’s smoke and sparks all over the place.”

But we wanted Jenke to have a unique identity.” The thing we were all really afraid of was having him be anything like Freddy Krueger,” Nicotero elaborated. “So we devised ways the effects could be used to make Jenke a very different kind of monster. Even the burn make-up is designed so it’s not like Freddy burns-it’s crispy and black.” “Jenke is a murderer who comes back from another dimension to torture the detective who caught him by destroying his family,” concluded Isaac. “He threatens to tear this guy’s world apart, and that’s pretty much what he does.”

Take Jenke’s execution. “Bob did the electrocution make-up,” explained Nicotero, “which took four days to shoot. The first stage burn make-up comes after they put the headpiece on him and start the juice, you just have a series of little burns around his temples. The first prosthetic stage starts with his face looking normal, then the skin begins bubbling and little veins show through. The second stage of make-up has more burns, and Bob scored the bladders so that when they started swelling the skin would split…that took us to the third stage, where we had a full dummy head and torso that Howard did, with the skin split open even more. We were able to squib that with a lot of sparks, so you could actually see sparks on his body. There were smoke tubes in his clothing the whole time, so you also saw little curls of smoke. The fourth and final stage was a straight prosthetic make-up so Brion can get up out of the chair and move towards Lance.”

With his dying breath, Jenke-who has been secretly experimenting with a home electric chair, devising a method by which he can project his spirit into another dimension as his body dies-threatens to make McCarthy’s life a living hell.

That he makes good on his promise is clear from the following sequences. “There’s a scene where the daughter, Bonnie (DeDee Pfeiffer), is in bed crying. Lucas comes in, she pulls her nightgown up and she has this huge, pulsating pregnant stomach, then Jenke’s face appears stretching through from under the skin,” noted Nicotero. “And it goes one step further-Jenke starts talking to Lucas, saying really obnoxious, offensive things to him about his daughter.

“We were actually able to get all three of them into the same shot. DeDee and Brion were both dropped through a fake bed; we positioned her off to the left and him to the right. He had his face stuck up into the belly appliance and Lance is leaning over them both. The shot is really disturbing, because you can see they’re all there in the same space.

In that same scene, Lucas falls back against the wall and pulls his chest open-there’s a dream sequence earlier when we see Jenke bury a meat cleaver in Lucas’ chest, so we know its something he’s touchy about-and is trying to keep his heart and every. thing else inside. It has a Videodrome feel. We did a full torso appliance and put Lance through the wall on a slantboard-only the head, arms and shoulders was really Lance.”

Horror Show also features the nastiest uninvited dinner guest scene since the debut of Alien’s chestburster. As the McCarthys gather for a moment of family harmony, “Lucas looks down at the turkey and sees it’s not the same turkey anymore-it’s a weird, stretching, mutated turkey, a la The Thing.” Nicotero explained. “In the first shot all these tentacles shoot out and grab hold of the table. In the next shot, the turkey leg lifts up and it’s got three human fingers and two turkey fingers, as though it’s metamorphosing into something. Then this big turkey head that’s been lying on the table all covered with slime, lifts up and looks at Lucas, and there’s a little mechanical Jenke face growing out of the side that starts to talk to him. At that point Lucas picks up a knife and starts to stab it. It’s a whole creature transformation, and it’s pretty weird and gross.”

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The corpse of a little girl in a nightdress, her head loosely attached by a bloody line, dangles from the wall. This is one of Max Jenke’s (Brion James) victims from Horror Show. There’s also a hot-melt vinyl head found in a deep-fat fryer in Horror Show, which comes up from under the fat with exploding eyes.

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The Things I Have Done To Our Love Gleaming Spires Performed by Gleaming Spires

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CAST/CREW Directed by James Isaac David Blyth

Produced by Sean S. Cunningham

Written by Allyn Warner Leslie Bohem

Lance Henriksen as Detective Lucas McCarthy Brion James as Max Jenke Rita Taggart as Donna McCarthy Dedee Pfeiffer as Bonnie McCarthy Aron Eisenberg as Scott McCarthy Thom Bray as Peter Campbell Matt Clark as Dr. Tower David Oliver as Vinnie Terry Alexander as Casey

Special Effects by Howard Berger … special effects Kit Cathcary … special effects apprentice Keith Claridge … special effects technician Ken Ebert … special effects technician Robert Kurtzman … special effects Greg Nicotero … special effects (as Gregory Nicotero) Doyle Smiley … special effects technician F. Lee Stone … electronics specialist Richard Stutsman … floor effects supervisor

CREDITS/REFERENCES/SOURCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY Fangoria#81 p.36-39 Fangoria#81 p.40-43 Gorezone#07 Horrorfan#02 Cinefantastique v20 n03

The Horror Show (1989) Retrospective SUMMARY Detective Lucas McCarthy (Lance Henriksen) finally catches the serial killer named "Meat Cleaver Max" (Brion James) and watches his execution.

#80sFilms #80sHORROR

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barbosaasouza · 6 years

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Detroit: Become Human Review - More Human Than Human

Elon Musk has been telling us for quite some time that we need to be more worried about AI. I’ve always agreed with him, but never took the idea seriously. I know technology will advance, and the world will continue to change, but I’ve never had a clear mental image of what that could look like. In Detroit: Become Human, Quantic Dream presents a future filled with androids and AI that is both terrifying and exhilarating. It’s a future that we might already be headed towards, and if within the realm of possibility, it’s one we’re not ready for.

The Illusion of Control

The opening moments of Detroit: Become Human see an advanced-model android named Connor on his way to resolve a hostage situation. Conner is immediately met with hostility by everybody he encounters, and it sets the tone that androids are not regarded as equal to humans, despite how much more advanced they are in some cases. Connor, of course, isn’t alive and doesn’t have feelings, so he’s only concerned with completing his objective. However, the idea that androids are less than people, even as they become more human, is a central conflict that continues throughout the entire experience.

The prologue offers the perfect entrance into Detroit: Become Human. There’s a mix of free movement, searching for clues, inconsequential conversation, and dialog with severe consequences, topped off with some action-packed quick-time events (QTE) that can change how things play out from one run to the next. When it was all done there was a slick looking flowchart to show me the path I had taken, and about three dozen other paths with question marks to let me know I was only scratching the surface. I resisted the urge to replay that portion and pushed forward.

In hindsight, I was probably cockier going into the prologue than I should have been. I figured it would be a walk in the park, and for the most part it was. I never felt things were out of control until suddenly they were. It was terrifyingly realistic to make what I felt were good decisions and have everything go sideways. I didn’t miss a QTE, things just weren’t as cut and dry as I was expecting.

That was an important lesson for me; the entire narrative changed in an instant, and there was seemingly nothing I could have done to prevent it. My choices were intuitive. I checked all the boxes, but nothing worked out as I envisioned. It was at that moment I had to let go of achieving the best outcome. I shifted my focus from the illusion of beating Detroit: Become Human and accepted I was just here to experience it.

Letting go of control was part of the reason I experienced almost no frustration while playing. Normally, missing a QTE would be infuriating for someone who is always trying to achieve the best outcome, but it wasn’t; it felt like life. Sometimes the punch gets blocked and sometimes it sneaks through. Sometimes the door jams and sometimes it’s effortless. The moment I accepted that I was able to enjoy myself more.

It helps that the QTEs are much improved from what I recall in Heavy Rain. It feels as if the sweet spots for maneuvering the right and left sticks, or the motion detection when tilting the controller, have been improved. This is true in all situations except where the touch pad is used. That still feels awkward, but luckily it isn’t utilized in life or death situations. There was never a time where I felt cheated because my actions didn’t register as intended, even on the higher of the two difficulties.

A Good-Looking Android

Because Detroit: Become Human is more narrative driven than most games, the audio and visuals must be on point, and they are. I’m not someone who buys into the idea that any game looks amazing on a PS4. I’ve been spoiled by PC. I think recent PS4 exclusives look good, but Detroit: Become Human might be the best looking PS4 game I’ve played. It looks fantastic and doesn’t have the huge open spaces to deal with. That seems to have paid off with the detail and realism of character models, and it helps accomplish a crucial task for Quantic Dream: bringing the androids to life and making them feel more human.

As someone who appreciates quality audio, Detroit: Become Human didn’t disappoint. The soundtrack was used well to complement the emotional highs and lows, and gameplay felt more realistic because the detail in sound design helped to bring situations and environments to life. Whether it was footsteps getting closer or the thuds of punches and kicks, sounds landed with an impact that helped drive the narrative, regardless of the direction it was headed.

I’m getting used to well written and acted PS4 exclusives, but this could again be one of my favorites. Not all the performances are great, but most characters are played well, and I had no trouble believing them and caring about their journey’s. Valorie Curry (Kara) and Jesse Williams (Markus) are particularly strong as leads, but Clancy Brown and Lance Henriksen do an incredible job in supporting roles and help take the voice acting in Detroit: Become Human to an exceptional level.

A Lasting Impression

By all standard measurements, Detroit: Become Human is a good game. It looks, sounds, and plays better than most, and even when I finished it I didn’t feel done. I went through a couple dozen chapters to get to the end of the story, but it was clear to me that there were countless paths, both significant and minor, that I hadn’t been down. Unlike most games I play, the end didn’t feel like the end, it just felt like one piece of a larger world, and I was eager to experience more of it.

What makes Detroit: Become Human a great game, though, is that even after going back through alternate narrative branches and winding down my play time, I’m still invested. The world that Quantic Dream gave me to explore is only a short leap from the one we’re living in now, and the ideas presented have left me contemplating the role AI could play in our lives sooner rather than later. How would androids impact our personal lives, our economy, or our approach to global conflict? When Elon Musk said we should care about AI advancements I knew he was right, but Detroit: Become Human has shown me why.

This review is based on a PS4 download code provided by the publisher. Detroit: Become Human will be available in retail and digital stores on May 25th, 2018.

Detroit: Become Human Review - More Human Than Human published first on https://superworldrom.tumblr.com/

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