What Form of Media Makes the Best Horror Franchise Tie-ins?
VisibleHorrorFan
When a horror movie proves too popular to stay confined to the screen, it searches out fresh places in which to feed and grow. Here, it can find additional acclaim, discover new audiences, and explore approaches it never could before. Of course, not all of these explorations and experiments are built the same.
Taking a look at the most common ways horror movies explore other forms of media, we want to examine which hold the most potential and how these might find success. From novels to gaming and more, let's brave the spin-offs and see what we can find.
The Written Word
The most common adaptations that arise with nearly every popular horror property are the novelisations funded directly by studios. If we're lucky, we might get a film based on the work of a great writer like King, in which case there's nothing to worry about. Even adaptations of original IPs can be great, though somewhat less reliable. These can help give us direct insight into a character’s mindset, as the narrative structure can accomplish what film alone cannot.
From the novelisations, we also have the possibility of audiobook adaptations built on top. The quality of these adaptations depends on the quality of the source material, with additional concerns like production quality and voice acting talent. These audiobooks can be great, but they also face more hurdles than many other forms of adaptations.
Interactive Entertainment
The other big options that horror movies can explore are those of digital interactive entertainment. Two possible incarnations stand out here, with video games often finding the biggest budgets. In this realm, titles find an opportunity to build explorable worlds, letting players engage with properties, environments, and a film's terrors on an intimate level.
In a strong example, like Alien Isolation, the feel of helplessness that horror provides becomes even more personal. You're not watching an actor being hunted here; you become the prey. On the other hand, poor adaptations like Aliens: Colonial Marines take the tension the films spend so long carefully crafting, and throw it out the window. Enemies should be threats, not laughingstocks that make you wonder how your team was ever eliminated to begin with.
The other possible route for interactive entertainment comes from the popular and ever-growing realm of iGaming releases like bingo slots. Instead of directly leveraging horror, these games, like Immortal Romance II and The Ripper, lean on popular horror themes to add another layer of comfort and familiarity to slot gameplay. This gives us a kind of quick way to jump into our love for horror on computers or mobiles, which, for diehards, is great for keeping the passion strong.
The ultimate point here is, just like that from horror movies themselves, it’s all about the effort and direction of developers. Even a silly idea can be elevated through enough work and skill, and the same applies to tie-ins in different forms of media. While this means we can never depend on a tie-in to automatically be great based on the original property, it does provide myriad options to explore, and that’s not a bad outcome.
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When a horror movie proves too popular to stay confined to the screen, it searches out fresh places in which to feed and grow. Here, it can find additional acclaim, discover new audiences, and explore approaches it never could before. Of course, not all of these explorations and experiments are built the same.
Taking a look at the most common ways horror movies explore other forms of media, we want to examine which hold the most potential and how these might find success. From novels to gaming and more, let's brave the spin-offs and see what we can find.
The Written Word
The most common adaptations that arise with nearly every popular horror property are the novelisations funded directly by studios. If we're lucky, we might get a film based on the work of a great writer like King, in which case there's nothing to worry about. Even adaptations of original IPs can be great, though somewhat less reliable. These can help give us direct insight into a character’s mindset, as the narrative structure can accomplish what film alone cannot.
From the novelisations, we also have the possibility of audiobook adaptations built on top. The quality of these adaptations depends on the quality of the source material, with additional concerns like production quality and voice acting talent. These audiobooks can be great, but they also face more hurdles than many other forms of adaptations.
Interactive Entertainment
The other big options that horror movies can explore are those of digital interactive entertainment. Two possible incarnations stand out here, with video games often finding the biggest budgets. In this realm, titles find an opportunity to build explorable worlds, letting players engage with properties, environments, and a film's terrors on an intimate level.
In a strong example, like Alien Isolation, the feel of helplessness that horror provides becomes even more personal. You're not watching an actor being hunted here; you become the prey. On the other hand, poor adaptations like Aliens: Colonial Marines take the tension the films spend so long carefully crafting, and throw it out the window. Enemies should be threats, not laughingstocks that make you wonder how your team was ever eliminated to begin with.
The other possible route for interactive entertainment comes from the popular and ever-growing realm of iGaming releases like bingo slots. Instead of directly leveraging horror, these games, like Immortal Romance II and The Ripper, lean on popular horror themes to add another layer of comfort and familiarity to slot gameplay. This gives us a kind of quick way to jump into our love for horror on computers or mobiles, which, for diehards, is great for keeping the passion strong.
The ultimate point here is, just like that from horror movies themselves, it’s all about the effort and direction of developers. Even a silly idea can be elevated through enough work and skill, and the same applies to tie-ins in different forms of media. While this means we can never depend on a tie-in to automatically be great based on the original property, it does provide myriad options to explore, and that’s not a bad outcome.