I'm a sucker for a good horror movie. But even horror movies can get a bit dull, as you do nothing but sit there and watch. A game allows you to control the action, and that makes things a bit more fun. But Allan Plenderleith has taken this particular concept up a notch, and has brought out “The Hunting”, an iOS game that's part game, part movie, part app, and more zombie mayhem than you can shake a severed limb at.
I was absolutely shocked to note that there was preview content for this thing going as far back as 2013, but it was a recent interview in Venture Beat that drew my notice to Plenderleith and his game. In “The Hunting,” players are inserted into the midst of a zombie apocalypse and required to fight for survival. Personally, this isn't an approach I'm in favor of as it removes the best part of a zombie apocalypse story; the tension-filled buildup as the world starts to fall apart, done so well in Zack Snyder's “Dawn of the Dead” remake. But anyway, users play the game / watch the movie / what have you through a series of taps, swipes and decision making processes.
Perhaps the most noteworthy part of the whole thing was that Plenderleith filmed the whole thing on an iPhone 4S, and from there, used the footage as the movie. Footage of teenagers testing the game / movie can be fairly readily found on Plenderleith's YouTube channel, and these kids look pretty scared indeed, no mean feat for kids who often consume fairly large quantities of horror at a clip. Just to top it off, Plenderleith's previous credits come not from horror film, but rather from children's fare, like Noddy in Toyland and Thomas & Friends. Yes, the most inoffensive train series ever has the guy who came up with one of the creepiest zombie stories I've seen in a long time to its credit.
During the interview, Plenderleith talks about the film process and how battery life was actually a big problem when it came to shooting, but what he's managed to do here is pretty seamlessly merge gaming and movies together, a concept that's been on the back burner for some time yet never really done anywhere near as well as this was. Games have had movie components since the days of VHS tapes; just ask anyone who ever had a Captain Power spaceship toy. But this is significantly more advanced than those ever were, and may well represent a whole new way of doing things. After all, we've been seeing games get more cinematic for years, and the rise of the Oculus Rift and other virtual reality systems (VR) means that it's only a matter of time before the two fields start to merge in earnest.
That's likely to pose some unexpected consequences, and we may well be getting a look at one such consequence right now. Plenderleith's game / movie is some very exciting stuff, but it may well ultimately prove more exciting than anyone saw coming.
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