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X-Strike Studios and the Silent Horror Saga
By Kevin - 05.28.05
X-Strike Studios, a group of rogue/underground filmmakers dedicated to ending the tyranny of Uwe Boll and his followers over the video-game-to-film market, have always been incredibly willing to share their work even at the roughest stages of production. Perhaps their ascendancy first came at MAGFest 2.0 in Williamsburg, VA in the Fall of 2003, when they unexpectedly blew the collective minds of people who almost certainly didn't quite know what to make of a group of actors, technicians and creative talents all so engrossed in River City Rumble (one of the Nintendo Entertainment System's unsung heroes) as to make a film out of it. Long story short, they were instant hits. River City Rumble is incredibly funny and transcends its budgetary limitations in very clever ways. However, I was floored even before the film began. Like any other self-respecting film collective (*cough* Troma *cough* [though the comparison is reasonably apt but likely not entirely fair, as Tim Ekkebus previously collaborated with taboo auteur Chris Seaver on such films as Anal Paprika 3: Menage-A-Death and Filthy McNasty), they prefaced the feature with some trailers. A parody of an infomercial for Quiet Knoll, a town suspiciously similar in name to Silent Hill, is interrupted by creeping static. Through some more minimalist shots of abandoned locales, accompanied by disturbing static, the mood is brought to a fever pitch. But then comes the kicker: a writhing body, wrapped in a bloody sheet, seen only for fractions of a second. In all of my days of watching low-budget/no-budget/woah-budget horror films, and they are many, I've seldom seen as disturbing a monster, an image that as stuck with me. Almost a year later, sitting in the same room, my curiosity was sated. A twisted vision was nearing realization.
That first cut of Silent Horror reminded me of the reports of Coppola's five hour rough cut of Apocalypse Now (1979) or Bertolucci's untenable 311 minute version of 1900 (1976) that was released as two films and inevitably cut for general consumption: long and lumbering, slightly sloppy, but brimming with great stuff. There was something very deviant about that screening, well behind schedule in the MAGFest 3's special events room. Projected on a sheet, heard through a patchwork of uncooperative audio equipment and being shown amidst a heady crop of moving image fanatics in various states of intoxication, be it underage drunkenness, lethargic stupor or caffeine-high, that film-going experience ranks as one of the weirdest I've been privy to. By the end I knew that X-Strike had another hit on their hands, but it would take some work. Luckily, the months of post-post-production have paid off. The long awaited DVD of Silent Horror is complete, showcasing a stronger version of the film and a breadth of extras that really dig into the vaults.
Quiet Knoll has magnetic pull - a quizzical homecoming that fatefully intersects the lives of three strangers reveals that this town is anything but its name. Though post-apocalyptically abandoned, it harbors a dark evil that threatens the entire world. Think Resident Evil meets Parasite Eve meets Silent Hill with a slew of pop cultural references thrown in for good measure. Silent Horror is a character-driven film that refigures River City Rumble's sense of anonymity (in that film, actors worked double and triple overtime in order to populate the various gangs): given the ambiance of bleakness, the few personalities that are not variations of the walking dead become important. Brett Vanderbrook's conflicted nice guy reminds us that kindness can still work in an illogical world, while Sarah Reis's heroine feels like a postmodern virgin/whore dichotomy incarnate. A hybrid horror/comedy such as this demands hybrid performances. While not always rhythmically attuned to the movie at large (it was, after all, filmed over several months), there is a generally good understanding of what it means to balance the parallel-but-often-intersecting tones of the film. Tim Ekkebus, for example, proves at once diabolical and jokish. Writer/director Rory O'Boyle delivers what works: a film that blurs the distinctions of the two genres while remaining loyal to the core of X-Strike's methodology. This is a respectful video game movie, sure, but it is also entertaining in its own right, at least more so than most direct-to-video fare hitting shelves these days. The film creates some decidedly sinister moods, and as mentioned before, some of the monsters are very disturbing despite their minimalism.
Disturbing Imagery
Budget remains a perpetual problem for independent filmmakers, especially for autonomous units like X-Strike. If White Dawn: Dark Territory was a college film done to set past television-inspired ghosts to rest, and River City Rumble a grand test run as to the feasibility of independently creating video game movies on a large scale, then Silent Horror is simultaneously a labor of love and an undertaking of a higher echelon. It is probably unfair to call it epic, but the narrative, which takes place in one night and puts the entire world at stake, feels like it is executed in the best possible way given the thriftiness for which it was made. Unofficially I'll venture that the budget was in the three figure range, perhaps reaching four figures once one takes into account all the food and gas consumed entirely at the crew's expense. Silent Horror is a testament to what grandiose no-budget feature filmmaking can be. Now, an unsolicited plea attempting to rectify this - support X-Strike Studios so that they can bring more and more ambitious projects to life!
The case to be made in favor of what they do rests squarely in how they treat games. Historically, video game films are total shitshows with regards to the handling of source material. Often it feels as if these movies are little more than excuses to showcase altered versions of the names and likenesses that come with a given license as a means of finding more ways to merchandise. Before X-Strike, fans didn't know how good they could have it because they had only been exposed to what Hollywood had given them and not what they themselves would have made. With two successes and a few lingering on the horizon, X-strike is looking boldly ahead.
Silent Horror is a spoof on and an homage to the survival horror subgenre of video games popularized during the 32 bit era by the Resident Evil series. Taking George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead and its progeny as a jumping off point, the games used technology to fundamentally alter the game playing experience even beyond the realm of story. For the first time, realism, atmosphere and visceral thrills could actually induce a legitmate physical response analogous to those experiences in films. Resident Evil took the horror stories and their archetypes and made them interactive. Gaming thus became more a battle between man and machine than previous. Whereas games have always been able to make a player lose, they had never so frequently been able to induce fear. A survival horror gamer's demeanor is at stake when they lock horns with a game.
Game-within-the-game
Sufficiently battling a video game requires an investment, which in most cases positions the player staking their wiles against an artificial intelligence. Most video game movies do not even acknowledge this peculiar desire: instead, these films insult (by way of butchering a game's story, inaccurately handling its ideas or characters or simply providing inane/inept interpretations of a previously interactive experience) or invite no emotional attachment at all. Silent Horror provides an interesting solution to this problem. Self-reflexivity and satire become key, as hinted at by River City Rumble and its layering of the game within and without the reality of the film. Rather than totally authentically recreate the gaming experience, something which has of yet never been satisfactorily done, Silent Horror points out the moments where the games and the film collide, comments on them (often by making a joke, or at least isolating the moments that make us laugh) and leaves it at that. Watching the film is therefore satisfying on several levels. It provides the necessary emotional avenues for attachment, making it a compelling narrative in its own right. Next, it always reminds us of the gaming experience, using jokes, references and even simulated menu screens to give impressions of the process of going from game to movie. Finally, on a more theoretical level, it is pleasing because it fights all of the bad tendencies of other video game films: watching X-Strike films instead of the Hollywood fare is an act of protest, a grand middle finger that shows that people can and do enjoy video game movies when they are handled properly.
As for the DVD, it is incredibly well presented given that it doesn't have wide distribution. The feature, presented in widescreen, shows its DV origins, but the grain works partially to its advantage given its content. Two commentary tracks, deleted scenes, outtakes, trailers and more round out the package.
Silent Horror is an imperfect beacon that lights the way for X-Strike's future work and perhaps even for the general tendencies of video game movies in general. Though often confusing and beset by technical setbacks (the sound painfully reminds us that professional microphones and post-production mastering make even the worst feature at least easy on the ears), it transcends its humble origins and acts as a roadblock to the Hollywoodization of video game movies, which promises the perpetual cheapening of every and any worthwhile game franchise.
BUY SILENT HORROR
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