Fragment of Horror 3

I usually dedicate this blog to Video Games so it should be no surprise that one or two should come forward on this list for our entertainment. And I do have one in mind. But let's talk about the history of horror games by focusing on a main problem that early video games had that tried to bring horror to the table.

(Title Page to Ghosts and Goblins, one of the first known examples of horror video games)

With the picture, you think I might talk about this but since you know I want to surprise you guys, It's not the main feature. For Ghosts N' Goblins helped with shaping the horror video game landscape, it wasn't as scary with what we now expect from our Resident Evils, Silent Hills, Parasite Eve's (Go give the game a look; it has a pretty cool science fiction horror concept and a great score.), and Amnesias. Most video games of that time gave us a spooky level with monsters and zombies and a scary looking boss. But nothing that gives the aspects of horror the same appeal. With games like Ghosts' N Goblins, you get the full horror game but not the same survival horror aspects we associated with those games now. The elements of fighting the monsters are there but it's the subversion of power, the helplessness in taking away our power fantasies is what sells and makes a horror video game, a horror video game. And the game and the series I'm going to introduce features the beginning of those survival horror aspects. It's influenced two successors and both of them feature art from a die hard fan who finally accomplished his dream of making his own game. A game featuring the infamous Scissorman. My latest fragment of horror is ...

(Box Art for Clock Tower for the Super Famicom, only released in Japan)

... The Clock Tower video game series and Spin-Offs

(The Concept Art of the Barrows Mansion in Clock Tower: The First Fear)

Clock Tower came out around the time of Resident Evil would come out (1995) so you guys know this was the very beginning of what modern Survival Horror would be based upon. (Although there is a debate on which horror game came with survival horror first, I prefer to thing of more that a group of games created the atmosphere needed. The Big 3 being Parasite Eve, the cult classic with deals with bio-horror, Resident Evil, the Zombie horror dealing with Claustrophobia in a twisted mansion, and Silent Hill, the town with cults and devils abound.) Now Clock Tower is a cult classic due to some weird things with how it was distributed and how each game eventually came out.

First, there is Clock Tower, usually referred to as The First Fear because when the west and other countries got Clock Tower, we got Clock Tower 2, the sequel to the first fear. But then it's learned that The First Fear was also remade, but the remake is pretty mixed. But the general aspects of both remained the same. It was a click and point game focused upon escaping the stalking murderer, Scissorman.

In the first two Clock Tower games (We'll just call them the Clock Tower Canon for short because everything else has been sister sequels on name alone with some reverence in 3 (the official sequel of 2)) the game play is simple, you are stuck being followed by the Scissorman as he tries to kill you. But interestingly enough, the game has a bit of a background plot more explored than other killers. Scissorman is actually Bobby and Dan Barrows, the children of Simon and his murderous wife, Mary (insert Anti-Virgin Mary horror trope here) and the Barrows (Burroughs in 3) are a family interconnected with Satanic rituals and sacrifices and Jennifer, the main character of the first two games, must solve the mysteries behind them while surviving the best she can.

(If you play the emulation of First Fear, please get the perfume bottle mentioned)

Unfortunately, Clock Tower does suffer from some bad aspects that I do want to warn you for any casual horror game players here. You can only get the game through emulations for the SNES copy and the game play is SLOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW! I'm not kidding, You have to be patient. Or run by double clicking where you need to go. And it will be annoying because running makes you lose stamina in The First Fear. (In 2, you don't need to worry about that!) And if Scissorman ambushes you and you don't have enough stamina, you die! It's cursor is a turn off for casual horror games usually and when you saw in the above picture about how I talked about the perfume. It's true. There is no notice about investigating important items until you find them so places that might take 30 minutes to an hour for speed players, will take a couple of hours to be extra sure that you're doing things right. (And you might not be sure if you're doing it right!) And this becomes prevalent when I talk about the positives. And in Clock Tower 2 you must suffer bad voice acting! THE MOST SCARIEST PART OF THE GAME! MWAHAHAAHAHAAHA! OH It feels good to manically laugh!

(The Most Effective Weapon to Dilute attention and stop Scissorman. THE ... bedsheets? ... Seriously?)

But beside the clanky controls, the bad jokes I'm making, and some insufferable acting, the games have one thing right! Atmosphere and Horror tension. There are some jump scares, but instead of being forced upon us like FNAF (Five Nights at Freddy's for those who are unfamiliar with the acronym) and Spooky's House of Horrors, they build on the tension and the way Scissorman is avoidable by running but hearing the music change to a frightening theme is what really adds the pressure to escape insurmountable odds. Scissorman appears with some jump scares when you investigate locations you need to search very closely. But the horror is not the jump scares themselves but the tension as he creeps closer and closer waiting for you to make a mistake or run out of energy. In both Clock Tower 1 and 2, he does this with efficiency and skill. In Clock Tower 2, it feels even more random at times, and that's a good thing. But the replay ability is what makes these games work. You can have different scenarios and a host multiple endings from the worse to S or A Rank Best so you get to replay the game and maybe find a new story line you didn't expect to see. Of course, talking of the first two Clock Towers is incomplete without talking about the influences behind the game.

(Dario Argento's Phenomena, the hugest influence for Clock Tower)

Hufumi Kono, original director took his inspiration for the game from his obvious love for horror and we can see it through the love of Italian Giallo Director, Dario Argento. (I admit Italian Giallo is a repetitive because Giallo is usually synonymous with Italian Horror) The film Pheonomena (Creepers here in America) has been the greatest influence due to Jennifer Connelly's appearance and character in this move. Jennifer Corvino, yes Jennifer C. plays Jennifer C., is a girl who can communicate with animals of all kinds, mostly insects, and solves a mystery and SPOILER ALERT! it's criminals are an insane mother and her disfigured child. Coincidence? I THINK NOT! And the character of Jennifer Simpson is modeled after Connelly in this film.

(All the more Captivating. On the left: Jennifer Connelly in Phenomena. On the Right: Jennifer Simpson in Clock Tower)

(Another influence was this Cult Classic Horror called The Burning and has the pair of Hedge Scissors inspire Kono to create his weapon for his assailant.)

For the symbolism of the game, I think it's interesting to note that Scissorman isn't a traditional killer. What I mean is, sure Freddy has his Claw and Jason the Machete and Leatherface, the chainsaw, but all those monsters, when they were first created (The 80's) were all metaphors against teens having premarital sex. (But obviously that didn't help, but it sure is a common trope where the killer kills the couple having sex.) Their weapons all representing phallic imagery usually penetrating women commonly. (I don't even know how this was made as being a metaphor when one penetrates with pregnancy and one actually pierces your guts and isn't fun. But then what about the guys they kill?)

(All the Serial killers symbolizing teen sex who murdered guys)

Scissorman is just a maniac. (For the differences between Maniacs and the crazies, Maniacs will stab people with scissors to death, a crazy person stabs people with scissors to death but wears a Bugs Bunny suit. THANKS George Carlin!) And that's pretty much it for symbolism but if you want to know why Kono chose Scissors, it was generally to make the victims be tortured longer than anticipated. A Shank to the stomach and a gunshot is pretty cut and dry but Kono goes for sadistic torture porn style executions with Scissorman, although it's usually off-screen or Implied by some Game Over screens.

But now let's get to the Sister Spin offs. There are 3 but I say 5 because the main game series did inspire two spiritual successors. So we got Clock Tower 2: The Struggle Within (Or GhostHead in Japan), Clock Tower 3 done by Capcom, and Haunting Ground for the first spiritual successor. Then you have two fan successors. One by Hifumi Kono called Night Cry and the other by one of the head artists and a favorite of mine Chris Darril, who developed Remothered: Tormented Fathers.

(Box Art for CT2:TSW)

All I can say about The Struggle Within is ... it's bad. But I don't think it's as bad as people like to say. To be honest, the main disappointment comes from the later parts of the game. The beginning is filled with good tension and horror anticipation. Though it's weak plot and the overly abundant confusion of the Hospital area in the game, it's generally ok. It plays regularly to the Clock Tower game. But there's a lot more cheesy voice acting. I hope you like House of the Dead Games and other cheesy voice acted games guys! But the Golden Radio award goes to the great Roger Jackson, who voices Bates in this game. If you're wondering why I haven't explained the plot, it's that it gets kinda weirdly melodramatic.

(Bates (Alyssa's alter ego) explores her cousins room. )

Basically you play Alyssa Hale, who visits her family after being moved to them. However, we learn she has a split personality named Bates. Her family is later revealed to be an adopted family and that her adopted father actually gave her biological father a cursed statue with a bacterium that creates zombies and they've been released upon the city. But the cursed statue also serves as a weird mcguffin since the player destroys the Statue but it leads more to discussing the Maxwell Curse (Alyssa's real name is Lynn Maxwell and her father is George Maxwell who has a family curse of twins who cause harm to the family and they bury the children alive.) Look I'm not gonna sugar coat this because the plot is ok. It's not twisted but it is kinda dumbly confusing with the unnecessary plot twists like how Alyssa is adopted which doesn't necessarily add to the horror. But let's get to the next game so we can get on.

(The Dark Gentleman appears near the Hamilton Mansion, the main hub of Clock Tower 3)

Clock Tower 3 has only 2 references to the original canon. This was the situation with the surname mentioned of the family of evil, The Burroughs (originally called Barrows in translations of the first 2 games but in the earlier clip comparing the Clock Tower Dubs from Japan and the West, they say the BURROUGHS mansion not the BARROWS mansion like the Western dubs. And the second is their not so well done tribute to the Scissorman characters, now instead of serious stalker serial killers, they're (it's a set of twins, one male and one female) portrayed as Jester Insane Killers who wield scissors and just carry the name though the game does give a little exposition.

(The Corroder, a former human who dissolved humans in corrosive acid and now tries to kill Alyssa, the main protagonist)

Clock Tower 3 was the first non Human Entertainment game made with Capcom making the game. However, this meant that a new team would be made and new ideas implemented. Involved in the making was the late Kinji Fukasaku, a famous Japanese screenwriter and film director, who helped give a film theme to the game, giving an extra depth to the game with mo-cap blocking helping the 3D team develop the game. (It especially helped that his last great film was the controversial and popular Battle Royale, now a video game genre and novel genre with Fortnite and the Hunger Games being iterations of this film concept.) But sadly despite this help and assistance with a good script and atmosphere, the game ended up leading to poor sales. Probably a big one being those who critiqued the shortness of the game and the mechanics feeling weak and out of place despite those who have played Clock Tower know this was part of the strength of the game. But you can't replicate everything but at least Capcom tried. And try they would again.

(The Main Cast of Haunting Ground (Left to Right) Debilitas, Daniella, Hewie, Fiona, Riccardo, Lorenzo)

Their luck would be on Haunting Ground. Another game with mixed reviews but this one had a different atmosphere. This one based on helplessness and Objectification. Poor Fiona Belli witnessed her parents death and has been kidnapped by a mysterious master of a castle. The place is owned by the mysterious Lorenzo, an alchemist. And apparently, his homunculi children, Debilitas, a Frankenstein monster with a childish persona, Riccado,  Lorenzo's clone and son, the maid Daniella, a beautiful woman who can't feel pain, all want Fiona dead to reclaim different aspects of how they view her.

Belli Castle, where Fiona's nightmares take place.

The atmosphere of Belli Caslte also helps with the telling of the story. It goes back to the First Fear days of a confusing and kerfuffled manor. And the taking of another Gothic house adds to the game's design and horror elements, tracking back to classic gothic stories like The Castle of Otranto. But as I said earlier, Fiona's objectification is what sells the horror of the game. Her helplessness in only having Hewie, a dog who serves as companion throughout the game. However, the game heavily relies on the scenes where she can't be with her pooch friend. Seeing them treat her as a doll (Debilitas) a female trophy (Riccardo), the only way to get to be human (Daniella) and an object to obtain immortality (Lorenzo), each of Fiona's stalkers lends themselves into having her for lustful, envious, or even toy like reasons.

(Concept art for Night Cry)

But then we have the final two selections. The recent revivals of the Clock Tower mechanics. We have Night Cry, where our Scissorman character is finally back with a new design and the identical MO. But sadly this game got mixed to negative reviews but if you are a fan of the Clock Tower series, it would still be worth having in your library. After all Hifumi Kono did develop the game and one of the main artists did help in creating the final game so far from the spiritual successors of Clock Tower. Remothered: Tormented Fathers.

(Logo Art of Remothed, done by Chris Darril)

Remothed: TF was originally supposed to be a remake of Clock Tower with added stalkers and just as creepy an artistic style and with updated mechanics and a new soundtrack. Now you've noticed the art of Night Cry in the last pic and this logar art is similar because Chris Darril, producer and art designer of Remothed, also did Night Cry and other game art all the while pursuing this goal of making this game. The game has received positive reviews and one has called it "The Clock Tower Successor You've been waiting for!" And now that part one is released, hopefully this will persuade him for getting the remaining two parts. And with that, we shall put the scissors away.

Thanks for enjoying this article.

Here's some resources and fun videos on the Clock Tower Franchise.

Remothed: Tormented Fathers on Steam

JonTron's Clock Tower Review and Look

Nitro Rad's Clock Tower 2 Review and Look

Clock Tower 3 (PS2 Review) from Stop Skeletons from Fighting

How Haunting Ground Scared my Teenage Self by ValkryieAurora