Malkavian's Month of Monsters,

Hey guys, guess what! It's October! That means I've got scares on my mind! Every day this month, I'll be reviewing one horror item. Everything's on the list: movies, games, books, tv, music, I'm going to be doing it all! First on the list is a game I just got done playing recently, widely viewed as a cult horror classic: Silent Hill 2.

DAY ONE: SILENT HILL 2 Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation fame has this to say about Silent Hill 2 “Silent Hill isn't just a game I like. It's a game I play every now and then to remind myself that for the all shiny brown space marine quick-time events, gaming is still worth defending.”

I can't help but sympathize. Silent Hill 2 is, in my opinion, not only the finest horror game ever created, but a horror masterpiece that can stand up with the likes of Hitchcock and Poe. Why no, I don't think saying that is ever going to come back to bite me in the ass. Why do you ask?

The first Silent Hill was a wholly enjoyable horror game, though hardly worthy of the reputation the sequels give it. It concerns the story of Harry Mason, a writer who is taking his sweet daughter to the quiet lakeside town of Silent hill for a vacation, where they spend a nice week of relaxation and reconcile the fact that he's always working. Whoops. I was thinking about the latest Disney movie. Turns out Silent Hill, is actually the location of a crazy pagan cult trying to awaken a dark god. It was pretty good, though being a PSX game and having all the ailments of that era such as voice acting makes it not having particularly aged well. It did well enough for sequel time to come around, and the developers had a rather brilliant idea: why not make the primary villain of the next game the town itself instead of a cheesy cult?

Thus was born the basic premise surrounding Silent Hill 2. Now there was always something off about the town and the old ancient cult jump started the town into something truly malevolent. This is where we meet our protagonist James Sunderland. He's come to Silent Hill after getting a letter from his wife to meet him there. It's a particularly odd letter to get, considering his wife has been dead for the past three years. Such is the love that James holds that he's determined to find his wife against all logic. It's a pretty stupid thing to do considering, but James really does strike you as someone obsessed to an unhealthy point. Despite all this, his tragedy and strong character make him someone you want to see succeed. Even though this means going through an area of unspeakable horrors.

The frat boy detractors to the game usually attack the game through it's gameplay. It's true that the gameplay of Silent Hill is rather sticky and that most of the game involves you stumbling around the place looking for various modifications of keys and using them on various modifications of doors. The most infamous is probably the six-pack-of-juice-down-the-garbage-chute puzzle. The puzzles are such that you won't feel bad to have a walkthrough for the whole thing. I don't think any of these things make for bad gameplay, though. The main characters of the first four Silent Hill games are a writer, a widower, a teenage girl, and an unemployed bum. If you're not dreading the encounters with monsters then it's not horror, as Dead Space discovered to its Resident Evil-copying shame. You're supposed to be scared, disoriented, and powerless. To demand a horror game to conform to the standards of action game, even if it would result is a less scary, is limiting the format.

But hey, the gameplay isn't what I love so much about these games. What I love about this game is its complete and utter immersion. The town is a quiet and still place that relies on tension and mood rather than monsters jumping out at you. There's at least ten minutes of blind wandering before you can get to the first monster. It might sound boring but it's set up so well that it puts you in a proper mood of tension and alienation.

Silent Hill is also a very lonely game. All the other people you interact with seem to not be perceiving the same things you do, as though the town is presenting them with their own personal purgatories. None of the monsters seem to have any sort of sentience and will ignore you most of the time if you don't decide to go and smack them with your pipe, and if you're smart you won't. I've never played a game that made me feel so isolated, even during the parts where other people are in the room with you. You get the sense that you're the lone voice of sanity in the town and even that quickly fails to reassure or even be true. There's just you, James, and this big empty town and you have to wonder which of you is hurting James the most.

There's also the question of how much the town is really doing. If you ask me, the majority of James' hellish journey seems self-inflicted more than anything else and Silent Hill is just giving him the proper tools to do so which it also seems to be doing to the other residents of the town. It's James guilt which causes the creation of Pyramid Head, in his first glorious appearance be he totally sold out.

Actually let's talk about Pyramid Head quite a bit. Most of the monsters in Silent Hill have a vaguely feminine appearance. Pyramid Head is the obvious exception, his establishing shot being that of him forcing himself onto another monster that is basically a pair of feminine legs with the top also being comprised of feminine legs. He's a clear creation of James' neurotic sex issues and his survivor's guilt, being both a brilliant piece of psychology as well as being incredibly creepy. So leave it to fans to ruin it completely. He showed up in the terrible terrible movie with a set of washboard abs. Really, this happens. The justification by the director was to put Pyramid Head in a 'female perspective' and if making a crazy violent rape monster more physically pleasing to a 'female perspective' isn't the epitome of unfortunate implications I don't know what is. He also shows up in Silent Hill: Homecoming for no reason other than the developers liked him and to make things worse he resembles the movie version now. Between that and the fact that there are creepy women on the internet who find him sexy, it's safe to say he's lost his bite since. Pyramid Head is the classic horror monster tragedy beginning as a genuinely terrifying creature that then becomes a hollow shell of himself and the finally a joke. I can only assume he's at a bar with Dracula and Freddy Kreuger lamenting the good old days.

But he's great in Silent Hill 2. This is a game that I recommend to anyone even vaguely interested in horror. It's available on both the PS 2 and the X-box, so you gamers out there have no excuse not to get it.

The series has piddled away to mediocrity recently. Silent Hill 3 holds the series' silver medal and I might even write about it as well sometime this month. Silent Hill 4 got some much deserved lambasting for some ridiculously terrible gameplay design, but I still enjoy it for it's incredible story telling despite and even partially due to the fact that it never actually goes to Silent Hill. Silent Hill: Origins was the first game not made by the Japanese developers and its widely agreed to be a piece of blandness. Many criticize the game because the protagonist in it, Travis, doesn't have a reason to be in Silent Hill. It's a valid criticism but I was bothered more by the poor logic Travis had to go where he did. Someone just mentions the sanitarium, doesn't say there's anything interesting about it, but Travis just goes there because he can. He finds a ticket stub in the trash and decides it's time to go the theater. The game assumes that a random tragic backstory and a Pyramid Head wannabe called the Butcher will make Silent Hill 2's lightning strike twice but lacks the tragic charisma James did. Silent Hill: Homecoming was another nail in the coffin, attempting to make the game work better by improving the combat, but suffers the flaw of not actually being scary. That's a pretty big flaw for a horror game if you ask me. I've yet to play Shattered Memories but its psych profiling strikes me as being rather gimmicky. It should be noted that the best horror doesn't need to know about you personally because it should strike into the most primal feelings which lie in all of us.

This is pretty cool. I'll keep an eye on it.

DAY TWO: ALICE COOPER

Not gonna lie: Alice Cooper is one my favorite musicians out there. A large part of that is the fact that he often blends rock music with grim horror imagery to make. It's hard to believe that the most enduring shock rock artist in the business is also a pleasant religious golfer who donates to school art programs and teaches at his local Sunday school. Today we're going to be go through the albums of both the band and the artist himself, looking at what started out as a pretty terrible psychedelic rock band turning into one of the most recognizable faces in Rock.

THE BAND:

PRETTIES FOR YOU: Let's not beat around the bush, this album is terrible. You could produce an album that punched me in the face once I put it in the CD player and I'd still like it better than 'Pretties For You'. This album sounds so different from anything Alice Cooper does that there's really no reason to associate it with Alice other than the fact that he was technically on the band It ended up being a critical and commercial flop. For completionists only.

Best Song: Reflected. It's not much, but it shows the groundwork for the much better 'Elected' song by Alice.

EASY ACTION: Not getting much better with the second album. It was still the same psych rock nonsense that sounds pretty terrible. This once again was a commercial flop, making the next album a surprising Lazarus movement on the part of the band.

Best song: Beautiful Flyway. It's a song that sounds like it wanted to be on the Magical Mystery Tour album so badly but made the cutting floor. Still it's a song that reminds me of the Beatles on this album and that counts for something.

LOVE IT TO DEATH: This is where we begin to see a bit more of the flavor of Alice we know and love comes to birth. It shows the band moving away from psych rock and more towards hard rock. It also features the horror roots that we all know Alice Cooper for with 'The Ballad of Dwight Fry' about the classic horror star. It's a first for the Alice Cooper band in that not only had one really good song, but had more than one good song on it. It was also the bands first platinum album.

Best song: I'm Eighteen. It's still one of Alice Cooper's most heartfelt songs, talking about the fears, frustration, and anticipation that comes with being eighteen. It's slow, deliberate, and sung with so much heart that you can practically hear Alice ripping out his own.

KILLER: This album continued their strong showing with a more mixed bag of psych rock which actually didn't suck as well as 'Dead Babies' a song that's still incredibly creepy today Ironically, the title song 'Killer' actually wasn't written by Cooper and is one of the only two in the album that isn't.

Best Song:Dead Babies. It's easily the most memorable of the album and still one of Alice's creepier songs.

SCHOOL'S OUT: Oh, don't even pretend you didn't know this was coming up. Unfortunately, with the exception of the classic track everybody knows about there isn't much on this album to bang on about, not even a single horror track. Even so, this does have the song that set Alice for life.

Best Song: Oh, like you even have to ask.

BILLION DOLLAR BABIES: Now we're getting somewhere. Billion Dollar Babies is a pretty great album all around and has enough good songs not to depend on a single hit. It opens with the fantastic “Hello Hooray” which sets both an energetic and somewhat creepy feeling. It continues on with a lot of great songs and a number of horror ones like 'I Love The Dead' and 'Sick Things' (which was actually written about his fans) as well as Elected which was a re-write of the less good Reflected and supposedly one of John Lennon's favorite songs. The entire album is simply about the fact that the band's reaction was 'Wait... we're famous?” Yes, folks. Yes, you are.

Best Song: No More Mister Nice Guy. This is the first album where I genuinely had to think about which song was the best, but in the end had to give it to this one. It has the significant disadvantage of being overplayed in every teen comedy but it's in there for a reason. It's a memorable, catchy, and driving song.

MUSCLE OF LOVE: The last song Alice Cooper would do as a band and the first since Love It To Death that didn't hit platinum. It's a concept album about the screwed-up teenage years and it's also a pretty good way to see why the band broke up. Simply put, Alice Cooper wanted to continue with the band's over-the-top theatricality and shock rock while the other members wanted to tone the sound down. Eventually this difference of opinion led to the band breaking up. Unfortunately, this swan song for the band isn't very interesting beyond the history.

Best song: Teenage Lament '74. It's a simple song and not as great as lot of the other songs mentioned, but still is pretty good.

WELCOME TO MY NIGHTMARE: Solo careers after a band break-up rarely end well and are even more rarely better than the original band, but singer Vincent Furnier had his name legally changed to Alice Cooper to keep name recognition and created the first wholly horror concept album. This album was such a success that it produced a Halloween TV special. This album took the horror aspect to a whole new level and became what many consider to be Alice's best album.

Best song: Welcome to My Nightmare This is a tough one, yet again. There are a lot of strong songs on this album, but the opener is just so fantastically moody that it perfectly captures everything. Cooper even did a (toned down) performance of this song on the Muppet Show.

GOES TO HELL:A rock opera where our hero Alice -you guessed it- goes to Hell for all the crimes he's done as a rock star. There was no tour for this album, unfortunately, as Alice was struggling with alcoholism That's even what the song 'I Never Cry' is about. Even so, this album continued Alice's horror influences with a healthy blend of humor.

Best Song: Go to Hell. Yeah, a lot of the title songs are the best. Go To Hell is probably one of the funniest yet vicious songs Alice has done.

LACE AND WHISKEY: After years of developing the dark and sinister persona, Alice decided to try something new. This concept album was more devoted to his love of other musician than of Hammer Horror. The song 'You and Me' was even covered by Frank Sinatra, which Alice took as a deep compliment.

Best Song: You and Me. Sinatra covered it for a reason.

FROM THE INSIDE: Another concept album, this one semi-biographical. Each song is about a different person Alice met during his tenure in the sanitarium (to treat his alcoholism) with varying degrees of accuracy. While not strictly a horror albums, you can see the horror elements in songs like 'Millie and Billie'. It's all over the place in terms of songs, but there are a few gems there worth finding.

Best song:Serious. It's a quick-paced made-for-radio song that has a great lyrical dissonance with tragedy of a man with serious chemical dependence, something Alice had a history of. Alice has also called this song his favorite that he's made.

FLUSH THE FASHION:Following the album about being insane, we have an album about identity and loss of such. It's a different sounding album but still has the Cooper-style of humor and a little of his brand of horror. There are several stories on this album making it more of an anthology of short rock operas than a concept album.

Best song: Clones (We're All). It was actually covered by Smashing Pumpkins. It's one of those classic 'don't wanna be like everyone else' songs but done with a lot more self-doubt and lack of conviction making it feel more sincere. The great pseudo-techno back-up doesn't hurt either.

SPECIAL FORCES: This album is honestly completely forgettable. Not as mind-numbingly horrible as Pretties For You and definitely not as phenomenal as Welcome To My Nightmare. There's genuinely not a lot to say about this album.

Best song:Who Do You Think We Are. Wouldn't have made it on most other albums but it's decently catchy.

ZIPPER CATCHES SKIN: This album had more of a humor focus and continues with Special Forces in being rather mediocre. There are a couple decent songs, but nothing worth writing home about.

Best song:I Am The Future. One of the few non-comedy songs. It was single and has a nice moody element to it.

DADA: This one... is really weird and I have a feeling that Alice Cooper having no recollection of recording it due to alcohol abuse is a part of that. What the album is about is subject to interpretation. Maybe it's about a man in a nuthouse or a murderer with disassociative identity disorder. Regardless, it's got some great horror songs on it to set the mood. Of course, the title should have been a clue this would be a weird one.

Best Song: Former Lee Warner. It's a nice song because of the surprise involved. It seems like its going to be an airy song, but it quickly takes a creepier tone in a way that I really dug.

CONSTRICTOR: Hailing back after rather long hiatus, Cooper moved in with a heavy metal wail right into the era of glam rock and slasher movies. Cooper quickly embraced both of these with a really strong album. The album varies in its horror elements though there are some clearly horror inspired ones like 'He's Back (The Man Behind The Mask)' which was written specifically for Friday the 13th part VI. Others do have horror influences if not completely horror themselves, such as 'Life and the Death of the Party'.

Best Song: Teenage Frankenstein. It's a goofy song about a monster teenager and his insatiable appetite but it's got a catchy chorus and a great melody. This is another album with plenty of strong songs so check it out yourself. RAISE YOUR FIST AND YELL: Continuing the harder, rougher, gorier trend constrictor started, this album came out. It's not quite as strong as Constrictor, but what's more worth noting is the extremely violent tour that it was a part of. This tour was so violent that Germany had him excise several aspects of the show and Britain tried to have him banned altogether.

Best song: Prince of Darkness. This song actually also shows Alice's religious convictions, ironically during a time when his shows had gotten darker and gorier than ever. It's also just a great rocker with spooky lyrics.

TRASH: Alice Cooper teamed up with musician Desmond Childs in an attempt to create not just an album but a multimedia implement guaranteed to shoot Alice to number 1. The result could not be denied. It was his first platinum album since he went to Hell. Unfortunately, many fans felt that its lack of horror or comedy showed a lack of an important element: Alice himself.

Best song: Poison. This song is easily his second best known. It's the only song off this album he'll play and it will never leave your head.

HEY STOOPID:Coming after the commercial success of Trash, Cooper attempted a happy medium including the catchy ear worms of trash with the kind of material he wanted to write. While there were some strong songs on the album, it wasn't as commercially successful despite appearances by Slash, Ozzy Ozbourne, Nikki Sixx, Mick Mars, Steve Vai, Vinnie Moore, and Joe Satriani. Even so, there are some great creepy-yet-catchy songs on this album like 'Wind-Up Toy'

Best song:Freed My Frankenstein. Yeah, it was on Wayne's World. Maybe that's because it was a great song.

THE LAST TEMPTATION: Did you know that Marvel had a music label for a short, very ill-conceived time? Did you know this album about temptation and redemption which had a pretty decent tie-in comic co-written by Neil Gaiman? Did you know that this is probably the only decent thing to come out of that venture by Marvel? Well, now you do.

Best song:Nothing's Free. This is another tough just because of how well the songs meld togethether, but Nothing's Free is the song where you realize things are going to get much much worse. It's catchy and spooky and that's what this list is all about.

BRUTAL PLANET: Supposedly, this is a concept album about 'a dark world from the future' but really the industrial songs this album has are all about things that ail the world right now, from starvation in other countries while we gorge ourselves, to simple anti-war songs. The entire album can be seen in a biblical light, much like The Last Temptation with Christian morality tales, though nothing that would be objectionable to any atheist metal fans. The industrial sound will no doubt be disturbing to some, but it's a rather well put together album.

Best Song: Pick Up The Bones. It's a slow song, but definitely the creepiest and most moving of the song about a boy finding the remains of his family after a battle.

DRAGONTOWN: Continuing the theme of Brutal Planet, Dragontown has a harder style and deals with similar themes to Brutal Planet, as well as taking quite a few vicious jabs at hypocritical believers. 'It's Much Too Late' deals quite viciously with the idea of someone going to hell simply because he wasn't the right religion. It's a wholly strong album with plenty of great songs. Best Song:It's Much Too Late. Not only is the subject matter hitting, but the vocals and melody are beautiful and haunting.

THE EYES OF ALICE COOPER:Moving away from his usual material yet again, The Eyes of Alice Cooper is another album that just flies under the radar being neither phenomenal nor terrible. Just forgettable.

Best Song:Man of The Year. It's not the most brilliant song in the world, but it makes a genuine point about pain, loneliness, and suicide that actually works with the deceptively poppy sound.

DIRTY DIAMONDS: Another underwhelming album that continued the garage rock sound. Somewhat better, but it also happens to have the song where Alice Cooper raps with Xzibit. Decipher that any way you want to.

Best Song: Zombie Dance. It's ironic that a song I like so much is on such an underwhelming album. Even so, this song is just really cool.

ALONG CAME A SPIDER: His most recent album is actually a return to strength. As the title implies, it's not very original. However, it's the mood and music that really draw you in, telling a great serial killer story. Oh, and Slash plays the guitar in it. That should also signify the cool.

Best Song: Vengeance is Mine. Besides the fantastic guitar by Slash, the driving beat and absolutely insane drama makes it great to listen to.

Thanks for reading. Trust me when I say no other articles will be this long.