The intersect between the world of slashers and the world of video games was minimal, at first, if only because video games themselves were minimal. Things changed eventually, at first only a half-attempt in 1987 that went nowhere due to the console it was being developed for actually not coming out; Hasbro's Control-Vision (codenamed NEMO, even! Can we escape the world of dreams?). It would be five years before the concept saw the light of day, and it got more than that. We're 24 years and 1 day into the future from when this thing was unleashed unto the world. Watch out behind you, because it's Night Trap. I'll lay it out there; Night Trap is not all that good. I didn't even play it, as its nature resists against traditional means of playing it. Night Trap, however, is perfectly watchable depending on who's cutting the footage. Well, maybe not perfectly. It's not all that well-acted either, if we're being honest. Still, it's got that "so bad it's good" thing going for it in places, and it also earned itself a bit of infamy back in the day. I called it The Left Hand Of The Nemesis, and it's time to fess up; it's more high-concept stuff inspired by Phil Sandifer. In his Super Nintendo Project, he took Mortal Kombat to task for what it did, and the totemic power of pure cruelty its popularity enabled. Night Trap and Mortal Kombat are, of course, linked at the hilt thanks to that pure cruelty: specifically a moral panic that led the older ones in the 90's to wonder just what in the fuck was up with video games being so goddamned violent nowadays. It's a debate that's still rolling on, but at the heart of its root is Night Trap and Night Trap definitely owes its own roots to the slasher genre, in a sense. Still, in this medium, there's something crackling.
For one, the full-motion video aspect of the game combines with its premise to create a horror movie in which you're the arbiter of fate. You, yes you, the person holding the controller, are in control here. You're even referred to as such, only called "Control" the entire time. Your commander, in briefing you on your situation and how to control it, is even holding a Sega Genesis controller up as he explains things. The mission is simple enough. Keep the cool teens alive at all costs, and monitor things within the spooky house by swapping cameras. If some lumbering monster should come rushing forth, all you need to do is trigger a trap... unless, of course, the clever bastards who own the house mentioned that they were changing the access codes. Then you're kind of fucked. There's a duality here, and it's odd. Usually in these films, the deaths are the exciting part because there's a jump scare and some horrific murder weapon and probably even lots of blood. Night Trap pales in comparison to Friday the 13th, but thank god for it; imagine the moral panic if it did. Nevertheless, if you're not paying attention, these girls will die and it could be for any number of reasons. Maybe you weren't watching that camera. Maybe the access code got changed on you. Maybe, just maybe... you wanted to see what it looked like when a bunch of black-masked creeps hooked a collar drill around a screaming teen girl's neck and siphoned out her blood. The game does not side with you on this, and your commander will chew you out for allowing such nonsense to happen on what was supposed to be your watch. If you're not going to do your job properly, someone else will. Game Over. Night Trap wants you to succeed and keep everyone alive while also fucking up as many black masked half-vampires as possible with a bunch of traps. This isn't some fucked-up horror movie where all you can do is watch. You're in control, and you can save them! You need to in order to complete the game!
You're not going to, though. At least, not on your first try. Or fourth. Or tenth, even. To "win" at Night Trap, to save everyone, you have to put yourself through loops. Watching the footage, switching around cameras, trying and failing to catch everything. Every failure will sting, but the story never really changes. You'll know when and where the owners of the house plot to change the access codes, when the Augers will strike, when to trap things and when to protect the girls. Your repeated failures create a myriad of dead timelines with dead girls, but the memory remains. Once you commit the path to memory, you've "solved" Night Trap. You can pull off a flawless run, like the one up above. You can save them. There's also "movie" cuts of Night Trap, and I watched one in preparation for this. It was less than stellar, because we have the whims of the editor to consider. This editor posited that Control was actually an asshole, and since we're working with raw footage, Control cannot be penalized for the fail state. Things can continue all while Control does the absolute worst possible job, only intervening when it would make the story more tragic. It even ends on the bad ending, for god's sakes! This is, believe it or not, a corrupted version. Nemesis chuckles from its dark throne. Isn't this funny? They're all dying, just like a real horror movie. Horrific. We need to look away from the world of slashers for a while. Right now, in the middle of this dud that nonetheless created moral panic, we can find a guiding light. With interactivity came the weakening of the fourth wall, and this is a horror film that plays with the concept of someone watching all this fucked up shit happening to innocent teens and enjoying it on a visceral level. For all of the moral panic, the goal of Night Trap is to save everyone. You're not meant to watch it like a horror movie. You're meant to relive it over and over until you get it right, or shelve the thing and move on. Other films will come along that play with the tropes and metanarrative of slasher participation, but not yet. Not in 1992. In 1992, we're reloading Night Trap again because those little fuckers changed the code again. But, the day of judgement for slashers is coming.
Watch out behind you.
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