Finishing off my research into haunted houses, I watched Dreams of the Witch-House, part of the Masters of Horror TV series and an adaption of the classic Lovecraft story of the same name. But first I'll discuss The Burrowers, a recent film (2008) about the old west and the monsters that live below it.
Warning: lots of spoilers!!
The Burrowers
Set in 1879 in the Dakota territories, the Burrowers follows Coffey, an Irish immigrant. He seeks to marry Mary Anne, the daughter of one of the local settlers. After introducing him the movie jumps to the next night at the Mary's home where something begins killing and grabbing her family. The last few barricade themselves in the cellar before a creature pulls the eldest brother down from below.
The next day Coffey and Clay, an older authority figure, find the family, some murdered and others (like Mary Anne) missing. Coffey goes to his boss Parcher for help. Together they, Clay and the teenage son of Parcher's girlfriend, Dobie, head out after the "Indians" who did this.
The movie starts off slow focusing on interesting and fun moments between the characters. We get to know these people, particularly Coffey and Parcher. Coffey has a kindness the others lack such as an empathy for the minorities they encounter. Parcher's life meanwhile reflects that of the West, full of rough living, violence and a pride in taming the land. This competent warrior and settler remains a tad callous from his years of hard living.
The movie contrasts Parcher with Victor, the evil cavalry man who "helps" the posse at the beginning. The vile soldier is quite willing to torture otherwise innocent Native Americans to get answers. Unsurprisingly this does not lead him to the true monsters responsible and the protagonists break off to conduct their own investigation. They are joined by Victor's cook Callahan/Walnut, a freed black who only Coffey really treats like an equal.
The initial investigation turns up some odd aspects to the crime: strange wounds, insufficient blood at the scene and odd holes in the ground which eventually becomes their way of tracking the things.
Night by night we learn more about the creatures. First we watch as they twist the long grass before surfacing. Then we learn that the natives call them 'burrowers'. Finally we discover what happens to those they take when the team discovers an abandoned wagon and discover a girl buried just below the earth. With the same strange cut as the dead victims, she seems paralyzed except for her toe. They send her back with Dobie just before things begin to go poorly for everyone.
The gang suffers a deadly encounter with some natives while the boy is attacked by the monsters. Paralyzed and buried alive, he tries to call for help by moving his pinkie. Meanwhile the others bury Clay, a victim of the battle with the natives.
The group presses on, unaware of the boy's fate. As things turn grim, Parcher uses the others for bait only to be attacked himself. He avoids paralysis but slowly sickens as the monsters' poison softens his flesh. They encounter a Native American woman who tells them much about the beasts. They come every third generation and used to feed on the soft parts of the buffalo.
She also knows Parcher is doomed. Unfortunately only Parcher speaks her language and he hides that information from the others. Instead he pursues a cure from the Utes, a dangerous tribe that has fought the creatures in the past.
Eventually they are taken down one by one by bad luck and violence between each other and the natives. Coffey survives to see the last few killed by Victor's hand. Though one batch of the creatures dies, in the final scenes we watch as another group devour Dobie. In the end no one is saved and Mary Anne remains lost forever.
There are some problems with the film. The most trite is that some of the ideas that never seem to pay off. We see several times that Coffey can throw quite far and accurately. But nothing comes of that. The paralysis always leaves one part of the victim unfrozen but it only leads to a sense of creepiness.
More irritating is what feels like inconsistent characterization of Coffey. We learn quickly that he knows how to work within this group. Later however he ignores Parcher's advice and makes a stupid mistake that leads to Clay's death. It just feels off.
Otherwise the film works well. The violence is graphic but kept short and tasteful. The characters interesting and compelling.
The monsters are intriguing, moving like crickets with odd inverted limbs and biting with oddly featureless faces. Stakes and bullets can't kill them but like vampires they burn in sunlight. They can be poisoned but only the Utes, now murdered by Victor, knew that secret.
Overall this is an excellent movie and one I would not mind watching again.
Gaming Ideas
I think one could have a lot of fun creating a sequel to this movie. Since the creatures come every third generation (so perhaps every 50 or 60 years?), you could set game during World War II when they next return. While most of the able-bodied men are overseas, the PCs (elderly men, women, children and those unfit for service) must defend their isolated towns in North or South Dakota from the monsters.Or you could set it two steps farther in quasi-modern day 2000s as the creatures return again (perhaps running the 1940s game as a grisly one shot which the PCs later uncover in their investigations).
Even the original story is a good scenario idea (if one where most of the PCs are not expected to survive). Four or five PCs team up with a military escort to hunt down the murderers of a frontier family. After the initial information gathering scenes, they encounter the monsters and the horror begins.
The monsters would be easy to stat. They have sting that numbs and (slowly) dissolves the flesh. When ingested it paralyzes. They can tunnel quickly (perhaps as fast as a man can walk) and seemed to be harmed by normal weapons. But they can't die except by sunlight. They seem slow and easily fought off by an able opponent, relying on their poisons to cripple their prey.
In terms of a system, I could see using GUMSHOE, GURPS, or a period variant of World of Darkness. The choice depends on how much detail you want in your characters. Given the high possibility of PC death, a lighter system might be best.
Dreams of the Witch-House
Warning: this is decidedly R-Rated with nudity and violence to a young child!
So I've owned this movie for a few years and while I don't think it's amazing, I did think it was a fun little film. Unfortunately I find now as the father of a little boy (much like the one used in the film) that this movie is much more horrifying to me and a little unwatchable. Make of that what you will.
The premise is our protagonist rents a room in a decaying 300 hundred year old house. He is looking for quiet and a place to study. It reminds me of my graduate days (though not with quite so dire a living conditions).
Ironically Walter discovers the room shares the same odd geometry as his research into distortions in space-time. He also finds despite the landlord's emphasis on quiet, the place is quite loud at night.
Anyway he finds himself the subject of attention by a human faced rat-thing and an ancient witch that torment him at night. He tries to convince himself that these are dreams despite the wounds he acquires along the way.
The reclusive occupant in room #2 on the ground floor slowly reveals himself as the prior subject of the witch's attention. Now a broken old drunk, he claims to have been forced to kill children for her and now seeks to save Walter from the same fate.
The other important characters are Walter's next door neighbor Francis and her toddler son Danny the baby. The two hit it off early on. However as the witch begins to manipulate him, stealing and seducing him while he babysits Danny, their relationship crumbles.
As for myself, as I can only watch Walter's struggle and the scenes with Danny with growing dread as the witch's plot to sacrifice the child draws closer and closer.
Walter again and again tries to look for rational reasons: dreams, then sleepwalking, before accepting the truth. Of course by then he sounds crazy and no one believes him.
He clings to the hope that he can trapped the witch with geometry but it is too late. Though he "kills" the witch, he is too late to save Danny from the rat-thing.
They blame him for the murder and he cracks. While committed to a psychiatric center, clues turn up to support his story. To ensure he won't tell his tale the rat-thing burrows into his flesh and kills him.
A few bits are pretty silly. The gore is a tad tasteless and a sex scene is added for no real reason. They use an absurd amount of blood in a few scenes. The Necronomicon makes an appearance containing diagrams out of a physics textbook.
The movie is cheaply but well made and overall the story is told well. As long as the subject matter doesn't cross your trigger threshold, I'd recommend a look.
Gaming Ideas
Horror is a hard genre for a roleplaying game. So much of it relies on isolation both physical and social. In this story if Walter had someone to discuss this problem with, it would lose a lot of its power over him. Thus a direct adaption would lose a lot of the power of the original narrative.I'd say adapting this story as a prologue to the real game might work better. The PC investigators find Walter's notes and the police reports. Then they must finish what he started, track the witch (whose body was never found) through space and time, and end her evil forever (and possibly retroactively). Obvious concept choices would include fellow graduate students, his professor and his or her colleagues, and perhaps skeptical but dogged police officers.
I will say the game has some nice ideas for how to handle the Physics skill for finding clues. For researching how a Trail of Cthulhu game might play out, its worth a look.
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