Hormephobia
A sudden shriek or an unexpected flash, sometimes a quick sensory overload is enough to make someone jump out of their seat. Because their execution is often lack, JumpScares are generally looked down upon. They are supposedly easy shocks, a simple way to induce fear into the hearts of players. Sure, many jumpscares aren’t exactly overwhelming (although highly succesful), but when implemented well a true jumpscare can be a moment of brilliance. There’s far more to it than just the element of surprise. It takes strategy and choreography to really elevate the experience to another level. An experience which will haunt the player for the rest of their gaming lives. A moment which will turn young gamers into digital fear addicts.
Resident Evil may not have been one of the first survival horror games in the literal sense, but it’s definetly the game from which the average survival horror formula stems. The action mixed with mystery, limited inventory, random puzzles and the exploration of monster filled locations has often been copied, with differing results to be frank. RE changed the genre, and dominated it for quite a while. Nowadays, the series is infamous for it’s extremely long and convoluted plot, but to fully understand the impact of this particular moment within the original, one has to ignore all the knowledge gained from it’s sequels. Let us go back to a time before Brad got what he deserved, Rebecca’s secret prior adventure, Sergei’s cloning involvement and even Wesker’s needless revival. A time when all we knew about Resident Evil, was that some bizarre murders took place in the Arkley Mountains and that we had just lost contact with the Bravo Team.
The opening movie filled us in on the horrific details. Contrary to it’s later sequels, RE(1) featured a reallife cast in it’s opening sequence. Real people mind you, not real actors. The acting itself being absolutely atrocious, it’s no wonder that much of the dialogue is still mocked today. Still, the intro blew many gamers away. You were on Alpha Team, either being Chris Redfield or Jill Valentine, and you were going to investigate what happened to the missing Bravo Team. Brad “ Chickenheart” Vickers landed Alpha team’s chopper in the Raccoon Woods upon seeing smoke rise from the forest. The team searched and found Bravo’s wrecked helicopter. The Alpha team then scattered to search for it’s missing secondary squad and it was the doomed Joseph Frost who found the first clue about what happened to them: A severed hand, and the pack of ferocious rotting canines that ate the rest of the body. Needless to say, the dogs got pretty fussy about it all and ended up mauling poor Joseph. The remaining Alpha members instantly lost their coordination, forgot their tactical training and started running away from the canines while shooting behind them. This prompted their pilot to just take the chopper and leave (even though there were plenty more options available). Left behind and shooting poorly at the undead dogs, they decided to go into a giant mansion, setting the stage for the rest of the game. Cut to: An insanely over-the-top introduction reel of the characters, flaming wipes and all.
Don’t let this cheesy intro-scene fool you though, the game itself has a totally different athmosphere. When you finally obtain control, the game becomes spooky almost instantly. There are only three characters still remaining at the start of the game and just who is still remaining slightly depends on which character you choose. Both characters will encounter today’s spotlighted defining moment, but its faster to reach with Jill, due to her formidable and noteworthy mastery of unlocking ‘things’. Before that happens however, you’ll have to investigate the dining room. The slow ticking of the clock, the creepy drawn-out music in the background really help set the scary mood. Right beyond the dining room, you’ll encounter your first enemy.
As you round the corner, you’ll interrupt a flaky grey-skinned man eating from the corpse of one of your former Bravo friends. He turns to greet you, blood still dripping from his mouth. It’s the gamer’s first confrontation with the undead, an iconic moment to be sure, but not nearly as memorable as what is coming up. You either run away or use an entire pistol clip to down the ‘zombie’ and you are left to explore the mansion some more.
As said before, Jill can reach the location of the memorable scene a lot quicker, Chris is forced to confront a few more former humans first. In any case, you’ll eventually reach a long L-shaped hallway, one side lined with furniture, the other with windows. It’s completely quiet inside, you don’t hear any moans from zombies, perhaps causing you to not be as careful as you should have been. It doesn’t matter though, the first time, everybody is unprepared for what’s about to happen. You slowly inch forward, at the same pace you have been doing for the last couple of rooms….
Suddenly a CRASH! From behind! As a window shatters and an undead dog leaps into the hallway. This is basically the moment most Survival Horror Virgins dropped their controller. The ones with the nerves of steel who got their wits together faster, would quickly be amazed at the speed of the Cereberus. Far faster than the zombie, the bloody animal moves all over the place, making it a hard target to hit. Not to mention the sudden change in music which will pump around the adrenaline even more. Should your character still be alive at this point and have the coordination to quickly run towards the far-end of the hallway away from the dog, one would be confronted with a subsequent shock: yet another hound from hell bursting through the window. Not many players make it out alive on their first confrontation, let alone unharmed. To summarize, the game shifts gears from one to six.
The scene is genius for oh so many reasons. First off, the camera angle is fixed in a way that makes the dogbursting happen near the player, this overwhelms the gamer more. Second, the backgrounds in the original are all prerendered and mostly static. There’s no reason to assume that dogs can come in from the windows, even though the brilliance is that there’s no argument against dogs jumping through windows. It’s realistic within it’s setting, the player isn’t ready for it because it hasn’t happened before. Third, you’ve been introduced to the dogs in the opening cinema. They are the main reason the characters fled into the mansion, in fact you’ve locked yourself into the building because of them. You have been condioned to know that they are dangerous and lurking outside, thus when they finally shatter the windows, it’s only your first encounter gameplay-wise and there is already some background sense of immediate anxiety. Fourth, the sudden shift in speed. Up until the moment, the game has been taking it slow. The enemies move slow, the characters move slow (and tank-like) and the music is slow. All that changes instantly when the MA-14 Cereberus enters. It’s not just a sudden crash and that’s it, no, it’s a sudden crash and then it’s a relentless in-game encounter with a new viciously fast beastie. Fifth, it all happens in-game. There’s no cutscene showing you the action, then putting you back in control. Instead the moment is served in-game, without warning. It’s one flowing scene.
To see the difference in impact, you’ll only have to play the same scene in the far later released Umbrella Chronicles. A rail-shooter detailing the events of multiple Resident Evils and thus containing this memorable scene as well. In that game, the entire moment is converted into a cutscene in which the only interactivity is hidden in timed button presses. The conversion damns the brilliant moment into mediocrity, revealing just how perfect the original’s execution was.
The classic’s generated result is not just a general fear for digital windows, it’s the fear to be shocked again. As a gamer you now have the knowing burden that the unexpected can happen and strike at any time. But when? Because you never quite know which part of the ‘static’ background is another enterance for an enemy, you’re trapped in a constant state of paranoia. It’s an extremely well staged scene, showing that creative execution can heighten the tension of an otherwise short jolt. It’s the absolute defining Jumpscare moment in survival horror gaming.
JumpScare
- A sudden sensory imput which makes a person jump out of fright.
Hormephobia – Fear of shock
