Please find some time to view this 22-minute video lecture between now and our Zoom conference call, which will convene at the normal time. You can expect our Zoom conference call to be shorter and more discussion-based as a result.
Steve Neale
Let’s Study Horror Games, pt 6
I did it! I fulfilled my self-imposed goal of uploading four of these in December. (I also accidentally fulfilled my prediction that I’d post one of these on Christmas, which is when I actually uploaded the video.)
One consequence of sticking to this video-making schedule is that I’m now behind on playing games, and won’t be able to post any further run-downs of interesting games of 2018 until January. Following that, I’m going to be diving back into some peer-reviewed work. Not sure when I’ll return to this series, but rest assured: more is planned.
(This one serves as an “enhanced edition” of the lesson plan I originally posted here. Very happy to have a chance to tweak this material further, as it remains one of the favorite in-class discussions I’ve ever had with students.) And even though I don’t credit him in the video, I must give a shout-out to Adam Hart, whose writings on slasher films have been a frequent inspiration.
Script below the jump.
Lesson Plan: Horror, Paranoia, and Suspense in Cinema and Videogames
Ian here—
The following is a lesson plan that I first used in my “Comparative Media Poetics: Cinema and Videogames” course taught at U Chicago in spring 2013. It didn’t really come into its own, however, until I re-taught some of the same material, with much greater success, in my course “The Moving and Interactive Image” at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the fall of 2015. I’m especially indebted to the students in my SAIC course for helping me direct this material into its current form.
Intermittent Mechanism 