worldofgrim

[worldofgrim]

Dead By Daylight - and Pride

Dead By Daylight, otherwise known as DBD is an asymmetrical horror game in which players choose the role of survivor or killer, with four survivors having to complete generators and escape, and the killer having to kill all the survivors. Think hide and seek, but deadlier.

The game is quite popular, having been released in 2016 and growing quickly- considering this infographic released a year later:

The game features both original and licensed characters, with licensed characters coming from franchises like Halloween, Evil Dead, Silent Hill, Stranger Things and more recently, Resident Evil.

There's a lot to be said about the game- it has major balancing issues both considering matchmaking and the roles themselves- queue times can become insanely long because game changes sometimes make one role or another immensely unbearable and dissapointing to play. The developers frequently make changes to perks and abilities rather than changing problems with the basic foundation of the game.

This all being said, it's stil popular and Behaviour is constantly working on and improving the game, so hopefully that will change. A bigger issue I'd like to discuss is the way that the game and its developers choose to address Pride and LGBT issues, following the desire for LGBT representation in game.

In 2020, the developers released a statement promising representation in the future. The next character released after this was a white man with a girlfriend and future child left behind in his backstory, so many players felt disheartened with the timing.

This year, the developers took time in their anniversary stream to announce Pride events and a charm released in game- the events were mostly stream based and charity. While it's not bad that they chose to do this, there is still no LGBT representation in the game, save for one killer who is not explicitly stated to be LGBT and only fits due to a technicality (this killer is Charlotte Deshayes- The Twins are a pair of killers who are conjoined twins, with Victor being a parasitic twin. Charlotte can be considered trans because she is a woman, when the circumstance of her and her brother makes it impossible for her to have been a cisgender woman and her brother be cisgender as well.)

Not to mention the criticism that came from the charm in game being a rainbow flag that didn't match any existing gay pride flag, and it being JUST that- a rainbow flag, and no flags for other identities or even the progressive flag. There's hope that this will change, but it's upset many.

[worldofgrim]

Spiral: From The Book of SAW

Let me preface this by saying that SAW is one of the most unique horror franchises I've seen, and there's no question to why it's been so successful. At the same time, the films dropped in quality over the years as the plot began to continuously rely on bringing back old characters and inserting new ones into fray after the death of Jigsaw himself, John Kramer.

Naturally, the introduction of a new SAW film is a gift and a curse: revive a well known franchise whose icons have lasted throughout the years with a new set of characters and a new plot - at the cost of potentially being another failure to bring back the success of SAW.

The story of Spiral takes place long after the death of Jigsaw, following Detective Ezekiel "Zeke" Banks and his new partner William Schenk in their hunt for a Jigsaw copycat killer targeting members of the police force. There's a heavy focus on holding police accountable for their corruption, leaving no survivors in any of the traps within this film.

I personally enjoyed the film myself, with the new characters and plotline being more interesting than the older films while still holding up the same imagery and symbolism the previous films held so well, keeping the colors and the goose-chase style flow.

And like the films before, the moral view of justice being served via Jigsaw's traps comes to question. Not the fact that the traps exist, but the reasons for victims being put in them - John Kramer put people in traps for violent crimes, covering up arson, and racism, but he also put people in traps for the sin of self harming and having drug addictions. His traps also put three different children in harm's way- Dr. Gordon's daughter, Detective Matthews' son and Lynn Denlon's daughter all either experienced some sort of harm directly from the traps or some kind of trauma resulting of their caretakers' deaths to his traps. This doesn't even include the relatives of other minor characters in the films, so there could be more. Considering that John Kramer's choice of victims was questionable, so is the new killer's choice. While it's no doubt that corrupt police deserve justice for the harm they cause, there's a bit of hypocrisy on the idea of the police system being "cleaned from the inside out" by "good" cops being framed as a solution to a problem that is not only throughout the police system but the entire framework of the government and the country itself.

Whether the traps is justified is one thing, but the hypocrisy of Jigsaw killers and trying to fix a system by framing it as an "us versus them" mentality rather than realizing that the problem is bigger than that is another thing entirely.

[worldofgrim]

Review: The Silver Scream

The Silver Scream is one of my first real introductions to metal music- a good friend told me that the band Ice Nine Kills made a song inspired by Saw and put it on this album, so I was immediately interested.

This being said, I have mixed feelings about the album as well as the marketing of the band as a whole following it.

The general design for the album and its merch are heavily inspired by classic slasher films, complete with lots of black, white and red illustrations and blood. Even the music videos - everything incorporates classic icons like Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, and the twins from The Shining all with the IX symbol. They even have sick looking vinyls shaped like a saw blade and covered in blood spatters.

I think these are really awesome designs and work really well to sell the horror theme for this album. They're fun, edgy, and even cheeky, like this shirt that pokes fun at when the band had a venue conflict with Disney.

Out of everything, though, my favorite aspect of the marketing for this album was the music videos. All of the music videos for this album were connected with a storyline about vocalist Spencer Charnas visiting his therapist, mixed with bloody scenes just like each movie the songs were based off of. The storyline ends with "IT Is The End", where Charnas, dressed as a clown similar to Pennywise, confronts his therapist and points out that all of the murder throughout the murders could've been avoided.

At the end of the video, he talks about how the therapist making connections where they weren't, making the ableist connection between mentally ill people, especially psychotics, and violence.

Considering stories like Halloween, where a good retrospective look shows mistreatment by mental health professionals, it's self aware. Horror movies often portray their villains as being mentally ill, even to the point that common belief is that people who experience psychosis, schizophrenic people, and people with dissociative identity disorders are dangerous, when more often than not they are the victims of violence.

And this is where my mixed feelings come in - if Ice Nine Kills is so aware that they can create a storyline that points out the flaws of mental health professionals, why does their marketing rely so much on using ableist language? Fans of the brand are frequently referred to as ps*chos, a slur specifically aimed at people who are psychotic. It's unnacceptable to make a message and then do something that does that same thing you're calling out- why call out ableism in your music video storyline, then turn around and create a premium subscription where you call your fans an ableist slur?

It's upsetting, and as much as I love the marketing for The Silver Scream, this isn't something you can easily let go. Encouraging the use of ableist language and equating it with people who enjoy horror or media with violence in it without acknowledging the harm caused by it is simply disgusting.

[worldofgrim]

Introducing Grim

Hi everyone! I'm Eisha, but I'm also known as Grim, DK, and other names. I'm an illustrator, a designer, and huge horror enthusiast.

I'm an autistic nonbinary hijabi lesbian. There's a lot of words here, I know.

I'm planning to use this blog to talk about design I love, especially when it comes to stuff specifically related to horror media. I'm fascinated by old horror movie posters and merch, but a lot of newer movies and games also have really interesting design and stories.

I want to look at games, movies, and even music and other media and not only look at what makes them good but take a critical look at what doesn't work - as well as the parts of horror that make them bad. We all know that a lot of tropes in horror are ableist, racist, or bigoted in some other form, and it's important to keep calling it out even today.