Editor’s note: It appears that Andy’s watched Invasion of the Body Snatchers one too many times. When a scene in Dead Space reminds him of the movie’s parasitic aliens, he starts to… well, you’ll just have to read his story to find out. -Brett
Like many of us, I caught my first glimpse of Dead Space on The 1UP Show and it floored me. The game looked like the second coming of Resident Evil 4 — set in space! — and I couldn’t wait to play it. When I finally bought it, I waited until I was alone in my house, then turned off all the lights, cranked the sound up high, and settled in front of my 32-inch HDTV. I was prepared to be scared.
Thirty minutes later, I turned the lights back on and waited for my wife to come home.
Before you write me off as a coward, let me give you some background. I’m not usually scared by things. I’m an avid scary movie buff, having been educated on monsters and other creatures by a father who loved to grab a stack of 1950s monster flicks from the dollar bin at Blockbuster to entertain the kids. I’m a student of the George Romero School of Undead — slow, moaning, and terrifying in groups. I love a good alien movie, monster movies are my favorite afternoon snack, and I love the chance to sit on the couch all day long during a SyFy Channel movie marathon.
That said, the scariest movie I’ve ever seen, the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers, still creeps me out to this day.
Anyone familiar with Body Snatchers (check out this trailer if you’re not) might get a hint why Dead Space so frightened me. The most terrifying movie I’ve ever seen is all about your body being taken over, duplicated, and absorbed by a horrific space race bent on world destruction.
The worst part is, at the end of the movie, (*spoiler!*) we don’t stop them. The final scene of Body Snatchers shows our hero raving mad, screaming in the streets that “THEY’RE HERE!” as trucks of pods ready to snatch unwitting bodies roll into California. We lost.
So here comes Dead Space. Not too long into the game, I witnessed the death scene shown below (it’s the first one in the video). The Necromorph does the same horrible thing I’ve seen over and over when watching Body Snatchers. It takes over the body of Isaac Clarke and makes him an extension of itself. This thing, this tiny creature, decapitates Isaac, then shoves itself down Isaac’s neck and turns its head into Isaac’s brand new head. And then… oh god, and then it straightens up and walks away with his body.
There is nothing scarier. Honestly.
Okay, at this point we’ve established that when it comes to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, I’m a total pansy. When it comes to Dead Space, I can only play with the lights on and a comforting wife near me.
But that isn’t the whole story. This post is just the primer. The true horror of what an easily terrified joke of a man I can be comes tomorrow. I have to take some pictures at my office to fully explain the terror.
Why my office? Well, much like the people of F.E.A.R., I was visited by a great evil in my workplace.
And how did I deal with my fear?
I twittered my final living minutes, of course.
And now, the conclusion.