Doom 3: The Movie

How many different movies and video games did we promise ourselves that we would NEVER play or watch in high school, but now that we're in college..... yeah, you get the picture. Well, I can now add another one to the list: Doom 3. Just the box used to creep me out when I was in high school, and rightfully so! 

I was up until about 1:30 AM playing it with my roommates, and that game, quite literally, has the power to scare your socks off! The movie, I have heard however, was less then stellar. So, I have decided to provide the screenwriters of Hollywood with several tips, in order to do it better next time. (If you are thinking right now that they will NEVER try to make it a movie again, you do not know how Hollywood works!)

OK, three things:

1) The plot. A virus???? PLEASE! No, the whole theme of the game is that a company on Mars opens a portal to Hell. There is nothing truly scary about a virus; but Hell? You had better believe it. However, there is a major flaw in the game script as well, one that apparently was not present in Doom 1: placing Hell has a building plot point, not the climax. STUPID, STUPID, STUPID!!!!!! SINCE WHEN HAS HELL NOT BEEN THE ULTIMATE  SHOW DOWN???????? AGGGGGG!!!!! No, the game/movie should end with the main character getting kicked out of Hell, because he is too tough for it. Now THAT is a good ending!

2) Length. The game is WAY too long! As is the movie, no horror movie should be two hours. The same goes for the game play. We played that thing for three + hours, with cheat codes and skipping levels..... and we STILL never got to the end! The first hour was down right scary, the second was pretty creepy, the third was freakishly boring. If you are going to scare your audience, you must do in within the first hour and a half. That should be the MAXIMUM length of a Doom movie!

3) Emotion. Even a hardcore gamer knows that first person shooter point of view (FPSPOV) is a HORRIBLE way to shoot a movie! They also know that emotion is what makes or breaks a horror film. If you have a FPSPOV film with no emotion, it just feels like you are watching your friend play the game on hard. This only MIGHT appeal to horror fans and gamers, and CERTAINLY will not appeal to anyone else! Even though some fanboys might complain, two things MUST be done to rectify this part of the film: a) add more major characters and b) stay as far away from FPSPOV as possible. The audience must see the horror in the protagonist's eyes, they must feel the terror.... or else they will fall asleep.

THAT, my friends would make a killer movie! As an aside to those who wonder why on earth I am advocating a horror film, let me respond with the two quotes from the beginning of C.S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters:

"The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." -Luther

"The devil... the prowde spirite... cannot endure to be mocked."

-Thomas More

Sincerely,

Scott