In Wes Craven's Scream (1997) a bunch of American high-schoolers are stalked, menaced and butchered by a mysterious killer. So far so average, but what sets Scream apart from just about every mainstream American horror movie is the fact that the movie's protagonist have all seen countless numbers of horror movies and are not about to: "..go for a walk on my own down by that old abandoned graveyard, where all those gross murders of high-school cheerleaders happened; AND THEY NEVER CAUGHT THE KILLER." - doh!

Most role-playing genres are reasonably well-served by the cinema, but the glut of boring & predictable "fuck & die" flicks that appeared after the definitive Halloween (John Carpenter, 1978) don't do the suspense/horror genre any favours. Generating a feeling of creeping dread is one of the harder feats of refereeing and it has always galled me that films masquerading as "horror" do nothing but irritate me. The sheer stupidity of Friday the 13th Part VII: Jason Takes Manhattan (Rob Hedden, 1989) has to be seen to be believed.

Much as in From Dusk Till Dawn (Robert Rodriguez, 1996), the characters behave in a thoroughly PC-type way, being proactive and inventive. There's also a twisty-turny plot which will keep you guessing until the final revelation and a constant self-referentiality well-played for laughs. I would find it very hard, if playing in this genre, not to have my character behave as if they had seen horror movies and behave accordingly. Scream acknowledges that its' character's are movie-literate and constantly plays on this fact, misdirecting the viewer as to what's going to happen and infusing much of the film with a delicious sense of sick irony.

Although more a suspense thriller that an out-and-out horror movie (there's not a single whiff of the supernatural), Scream still made me laugh more than it made me jump, but its' superb entertainment nonetheless. By far the best film Craven's made and with a sequel in the works Scream marks a welcome return of the intelligent horror movie.

Also hitched to the same bandwagon is the Frighteners (Peter Jackson, 1996). If you missed this during its' woefully short release in the cinema, rent it on video - it's great. The Frighteners' plot concerns psychic investigator Frank Bannister (Michael J. Fox) as he attempts to unravel the mystery behind a series of ghost-related murders in his hometown.

Straight off the bat The Frighteners has every requisite ingredient for a one-off adventure. Bannister has the ability to see ghosts, and usually works as a Richard Venkmann-style sleaze-bag, getting his three ghost pals to do a haunting and then turning up to "exorcise" them. The husband of his most recent exorcism is killed by a spectral grim reaper figure and Bannister is drawn into conflict with the malevolent spirit. The Frighteners takes the premise of "psychic guy pursues ghost serial killer" and follows it through with dash, flair, astonishing visual effects, a palpable aura of deep menace and genuine chills. There's also a great NPC-in-the-making in the form of insane FBI man Milton Dammers (Jeffrey Combs, Re-animator). Falling into the overtly supernatural class of horror movies, the Frighteners manages to be comprehensible, consistent and is chock-full of amazing cinematic devices which will enhance any referee's repertoire of descriptions. Worth owning in wide-screen in my opinion.

There's a class of films which Hollywood producers like to term "high-concept" - films like Multiplicity, Groundhog Day, Stay Tuned, Honey I Shrunk the Kids or Jumanji. In these films a central premise is the driving force behind the narrative structure: guy clones himself, guy lives the same day over and over, couple get stuck inside television programmes, guy shrinks his kids, magical board-game takes over a town and so on. I've always felt that these movies have a lot in common with that rare (in these heady days of campaigning) beast - the one-off adventure. Those adventures where you usually get a pre-generated character, run through a clever and self-contained plot and then never return to it strike me as being thinner on the ground these days. There are still films being made that convert into one-off adventures remarkably easily, however.

Jumanji (Joe Johnston, 1995) is a prime example of this - although easily dismissed as a kid's film, it's virtually a ready-made scenario. The McGuffin is a magical boardgame (the "Jumanji" of the title) where each move unleashes some form of challenge from the jungle at the heart of the game. The only way to undo the damage that Jumanji does is to complete the game. So, in the course of the movie, we are treated to lions, giant spiders, stampedes, a white hunter, and flesh-eating plants. What's ripe for "borrowing" is a linear structure that still allows for a lot of player freedom. Each move will unleash a particular effect, but what the characters do in-between moves is completely up to them, ditto the way they deal with each threat.

Jumanji rockets along, it's pacy, well-scripted, boast impressive visual effects and is carried off nicely by the cast, featuring Robin Williams (in controlled and non-manic mode) and the excellent Kirsten Dunst (Interview with the Vampire), as well as a supporting cast in excellent form. Well worth seeing if there's nothing left in the video shop

I always classed Escape From New York (John Carpenter, 1981) as another of those scenario-in-waiting movies. Once again the central premise is highly inventive and instantly communicable: the president of the United States crash-lands in a New York which is now America's maximum security prison on the brink of a war with the Russians, anti-hero Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) must rescue him by sundown or die by having his arteries blown out by timed nano-molecular explosives.

Unfortunately Escape From LA (John Carpenter, 1996) does not add anything to its' predecessor, instead it treads over exactly the same ground as the original, throwing some rather ropy effects in an attempt to sweeten the pot. LA replaces New York, the threat of nuclear war is still imminent, the President is still a vain and corrupt right-wing nutcase, Snake is as mean and amoral as ever, yadda, yadda, yadda. Throughout Escape From LA there's this constant sense of Carpenter winking at one as events repeat themselves almost scene-for-scene from the original, saying "Isn't this cool? Look how post-modern and ironic I've become."

Unfortunately, John Carpenter has not learnt (as Wes Craven has) that self-referentiality within a genre can be both amusing and innovative whereas constantly referring back to a previous film in a sequence without putting a new spin on it only serves to short-change the audience. In some ways it's the same problem that cropped up with all those old AD&D dungeon adventures: the rooms and monsters may change, but it's basically the same deal all over again. To go back to using Jumanji as a scenario idea, it would work perfectly - once. A straight repetition of the same plot would serve no purpose; a journey into the jungle at the heart of the game however adds a new dimension to the idea. This new dimension, the expansion of the milieu we're already familiar with is sorely lacking in Escape From LA

On the plus side, Kurt Russell still manages to turn in a great performance, no other anti-hero has ever been so effectively portrayed. The ending is also superb and very much in keeping with the original (and therefore totally against the dictates of standard Hollywood action movies). The sense that Plissken is caught in this weird loop, destined to go through the same sequence of events does have some potential for amusement. Regrettably, there's nothing else in the film to back this rather slim joke up; what passes for the plot is badly constructed and lurches from one set-piece to the next without rhyme or reason. Escape from LA shows up the perils of sequels to high-concept movies - repetition is not enough. A sadly missed opportunity.

Close-Up On: Westerns and the Horror-Western

With the release of the Deadlands RPG and the Sixguns and Sorcery supplement for Castle Falkenstein, it would seem that the wild west genre is creeping back into RPGs. The western's absence from the RPG market has always puzzled me given the incredible amount of source material around; westerns have never really gone out of fashion in Hollywood, there's usually at least one released every year and they're frequently quite good. The sheer wealth of material provides role-players with so many archetypes to play with - Clint Eastwood alone has played many different types of western hero. In fact, I've been told of an old game of Boot Hill where each of the five players was portraying a different Eastwood character.

The most recent westerns have tended to portray the look of the old west with an eye for verisimilitude, although they vary in the tone they set. By far the most "revisionist" of recent westerns is Unforgiven (Clint Eastwood, 1992). Totally unglamorous, and downright nasty most of the way through, Unforgiven is both a western and a meditation of the act of killing and the toll it exacts on one.

For referees who wish to impart a really harsh and realistic tone into their game, this is the definitive work. Further realistic approaches concerned real-life figures Wyatt Earp and Wild Bill Hickok. The superior of two films about Earp released within the same year, Wyatt Earp (Lawrence Kasdan, 1994) stars Kevin Costner and a host of other A-list actors. Although overlong and slow in places, Wyatt Earp captures the brutal and capricious nature of the old West. Wild Bill (Walter Hill, 1995) is partially adapted from a stage play, and shows it badly towards the end. Overall though it is an interesting examination of a larger-than-life figure. Both films are good, stolid source material for a more realistic setting.

There's also a sort of hyper-realism to be found in the spaghetti westerns, although everything tends towards hyperbole. The three best and best-known spaghetti westerns are Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Sergio Leone, 1964, 65 & 66), also worth checking out as is Django (Sergio Corbucci, 1966), which is in a similar vein, but is particularly bloody (the eponymous hero has a gatling gun, ho ho ho). The king of realistic westerns has to be Sam Peckinpah, and his paean to the ending of the wild west, The Wild Bunch (1969) is justly regarded as one of the greatest films ever made.

Players in need of inspiration for putting a party together need only see three films in my opinion. The Magnificent Seven (John Sturges, 1960), Silverado (Lawrence Kasdan, 1985) and The Quick and the Dead (Sam Raimi, 1996) contain just about every single type of wild west character one can think of. They're all very different and equally superb.

Deadlands is the RPG of the Weird West, a wild west with added occult overtones. Surprisingly there are several films which fall into this genre. The most well-known is High Plains Drifter (Clint Eastwood, 1972), over the course of which Eastwood is revealed as the spirit of a sheriff horse-whipped to death who returns to wreak revenge on his killers and the townsfolk who left him to die. Two other movies that may require some searching out are Grim Prairie Tales (Wayne Coe, 1990) and The Killing Box (George Hickenlooper, 1993). Grim Prairie Tales is a portmanteau movie, in which Brad Dourif and James Earl Jones tell each other wild west ghost stories around the campfire.

Although something of a curio, Grim Prairie tales is well worth seeing, particularly for Sam Raimi's end sequence, clearly the beginnings of The Quick and the Dead. The Killing Box is basically a zombie movie set just after the American Civil War and is something of a direct-to-video classic. The simple plot concerns the efforts of a Yankee platoon to fend off attacks from zombies awakened by the disturbance of a voodoo shrine. Tightly plotted and adequately acted, the Killing Box is great reference material for Deadlands' referees, as it effectively creates the atmosphere required for the Weird West.

As a final round-up, I would suggest that budding wild west referees check out the following list of movies, it's by no means exhaustive, but it covers most of my favourites:

Pale Rider (1985); The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), The Beguiled (1971) - more of a drama, but interesting for it's depiction of life during the Civil War; Gettysburg (1993), an exhaustive depiction of the bloodiest battle of the Civil War; Dances with Wolves (1990); The Ballad of Little Jo (1993), an interesting look at women outlaws; The Big Country (1958), more for the landscapes than anything else; High Noon (1952), the ultimate showdown movie.