Rivera-Herrera 1

Vanessa Rivera-Herrera

Rachel Feldman

Writing 2

6 December 2019

Dear Mrs. Feldman

First and Foremost, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule and being able to read
my revised Writing Project 1. I hope that my revisions prove to be an indicator of how much I
have learned in Writing 2.

My essay focuses on the topic of psychological horror in film and video games and identifying
the conventions used in video game analyses and movie critiques. I selected this topic because I
am a fan of horror and feel as if movies and videogames are the most intimate way to experience
true terror. This was originally my first attempt at writing for this class and tried my best to use
the WP1 process sheet as checklist.

I had troubles in arranging my thoughts and understanding the difference between topics and
genres. After multiple attempts, I realized the error of my ways and created this work. I hope you
can forgive me for not achieving success in this project the first time and grant me a space in
your esteemed collection of writing. Thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing from
you soon.

Sincerely,

Vanessa Rivera

Vanessa Rivera
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Psychological Horror in Video Games and Film

Imagine that you wake up in the middle of a dark room, and have no idea on how you

arrived there. Eventually you start to wander around and discover that you are in an endless

maze. To make matters worse, you start thinking that someone is following you. These kinds of

themes and stories are what make up psychological horror. Psychological horror is a classic

genre of horror that scares you mentally with common deep fears, such as being alone or being

followed. This horror sub-genres has several conventions that are best seen in movies and video

games. Some examples of the conventions used in psychological horror movies are described in

Richard Brody’s New York Times movie review on Mother!(2017) and Carl “The Disc” Fisher’s

movie review on Ring (1998). Another good portrayal of these commonalities in psychological

horror are demonstrated in the videogame analyses by Wired on the roleplaying game Yume

Nikki and on a forum by Finale Firework on the P.T. (Playable Teaser). These video game

analyses and movie reviews both have distinct conventions in their genres, namely their

formatting, diction, and use of images that relate to the audience and caters to the audiences’

needs.

Authors of video games, especially horror videogames, rarely release canon information

than that already found in the game, leading to players theorizing the story’s motives with

whatever hints they can find in-game. Many of these analyses are posted online and feature the

authors’ sentiments on the perception of the plot. The analyses typically offer a summary of the

game, its creator, and several theories. P.T., an elusive demo for a game that was never released,

is a famous videogame to analyze as it has no certain plot yet holds a horrifying gameplay

experience. In the P.T. analysis featured on a forum on Resetera, the author, Finale Fireworker,

begins with some background information on the game’s history, its creators, and a small
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abstract on the post. The forum page is public so anyone can read and respond to Finale

Fireworker. Each new section contains a theory about the game and features a list of possible

theories on why exactly something in the game happened. For example, during the game, there is

a murder being described on a radio that has, according to the author, three possible meanings;

“1. The broadcast is a legitimate newscast from inside the game, 2. The broadcast is part of an

alternate reality and none of the events actually happened, 3. The events in the broadcast are real,

but the broadcast itself is imagined or modified by alternate reality” (Finale Fireworker, 2018).

These lists of theories are separated by topic and by various images used to visually understand

the mode of the game. The diction of psychological horror game analyses tends to be serious, as

the games deal with heavy themes, like addiction and suicide. The analyses are made relatable to

the audience because these serious themes are centered around the fears of any human being.

Another video game analysis that also features these heavy themes is focused on Yume Nikki.

Along with describing the complexity of its seemingly simple plot, the Yume Nikki article also

includes information over its mysterious creation.

Yume Nikki, a cute-looking computer game, holds dark secrets as revealed in the

informative Wired Article. In the Wired contribution, Julie Muncy begins with a detailed

description of the setting of the game. This automatically draws in the reader to ponder what

more the game has to offer. Understanding your audience is an important piece in understanding

the rhetorical context of the writing piece. The audience of video game articles, such as these,

should already have some understanding of the game. The small description at the beginning of

the article is not enough to spoil the game for the audience, but if they do not want to be spoiled,

then they should choose not to read analyses. Like the P.T. article, there is a description about

the creator, and the strange process in the creation of the game. Each new point has a bold, large
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title with attractive wording, like “What’s behind the bedroom door?” to give the reader an subtle

idea of what is in store (Muncy 2018). This article contains only one photo of the game at the

beginning; because the article is quite short, there is no need to include many pictures. The true

focus of these analyses rely not on the visual quantity, but on the theories mentioned. I feel as if

the reader of these game theories should also be quite mature as the psychological aspects can be

too extreme for some ages. Some limitations exhibited in these genres are that people may not

care to understand the underlying themes in a game. These analyses make video games seem

more important and to have more depth than what one might expect from entertainment. It seems

as if video games are a lesser genre than that of film or literature, but with so many theories and

reports backing up the plot story, games gain credit and attention. Similar to video game

analyses, movie critiques not only summarize the story, but offer examples from the work to

strengthen the argument of the piece.

Critiques are seen in magazines, online, and in newspapers, as a lot of people watch

movies and need these reviews to justify if they should support the movie. The authors tend to be

film aficionados who understand what a movie should and shouldn’t be, though many of their

ideas turn out to be biased. In addition to informing an audience about the quality of the movie,

these reviews also often offer a rating system so that readers can understand its worth at a single

glance. Movie critiques are based on the authors’ outstanding emotions about the film. They

typically take one side of the argument and hold on to it. In the critique of the movie Mother!,

the author, Richard Brody, basically completely summarizes the movie. This genre turns away

people who do not want to be spoiled, though these articles usually offer warnings in the

beginning of the article to warn of potential spoilers. Along with this summarization, Brody

offers his own perspective on the film, compares the film to other famous movies, and
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documents what he believes was the director’s process on making the movie. When describing a

certain scene of the movie, Brody assumes that “in [the director’s] vision, the destructiveness of

the artist’s vanity goes hand in hand with the destructiveness of the crowd” (Brody 2017). He has

no evidence for these claims about the director but only assumes it and repeats these types of

claims multiple times in his article. Offering the article author’s perspective will easily

discourage or enthrall the reader into watching a film. Although the critiques theorize some of

the plot, they do not dissect as much as analyses do. The diction of these works, especially seen

in the review for Ring, is seen to be casual and colloquial. Diction is an important tool to

understand the mood of the piece and to determine how successful a work is. In the movie

critique posted about the movie Ring (1998) on a horror-specific blog, the author, Carl “The

Disc” Fisher, uses very casual language. He uses a lot of first person and directly addresses the

audience by asking questions like “What’s not to love [about the movie]?” and “How does it

hold up in 2019?” (Fisher 2019). Aside from the article being very easy to understand, there are

many pictures included between the writing. A review of a film will ultimately decide the

reader’s decision about the movie, and fun to read articles such as this one would make anyone

eager to see this horror-classic. This article is biased, as are most works in this critiques genre.

Movie

Though horror themed media are not everyone’s favorite, video game analyses and movie

critiques help explain their plots and theories. Video game analyses have conventions that are

followed; background information on the creation of the game, a list of possible theories,

pictures, summaries of the game, and an unbiased perspective. Movie critiques share colloquial

diction, several images, comparisons to other movies, and entire summaries of the film.

Conventions are important in identifying a genre because different rules apply to different
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genres, and since some genres come with established conventions, they should be followed (Dirk

26).

Works Cited

Dirk, Kerry. Navigating Genres

P.T. thread https://www.resetera.com/threads/examining-p-t-silent-hills-plot-analysis-gender-norms-and-

media-hysteria.17382/

Mother! https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/mother-darren-aronofskys-thrilling-
horrifying-nearly-unbelievable-satire-of-fame

Yume Nikki https://www.wired.com/story/yume-nikki-japanese-game-that-took-14-years-to-officially-

come-out/
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Ring (1998)
https://www.gbhbl.com/horror-movie-review-j-horror-ring-1998/