Nashville’s Belcourt Theatre will be screening Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 and hosting a reunion of the film’s cast for this Saturday night’s midnight movie. I’m reviewing the flick for this week’s edition of The Contributor which hits the streets today. If you’re in Nashville, be sure to grab a copy and say hello to your neighborhood vendor.

I love the original Massacre and the sequel is a satirical scream that’s garnered a cult following of its own. There have been multiple films inspired by the first flick, but one of the most bizarre spin-offs is the Atari 2600 video game that features charming, ambiguous graphics and sketchy gameplay: Players control Leatherface on a saw-toothed rampage of pointless carnage in some surreal barnyard where the rules of perspective no longer apply. As the reviewer here notes, in a game like Grand Theft Auto, players can choose to go on a bloody, murderous binge of violence, but that’s not what the actual instructions suggest for a winning score (NSFW. Fast forward to 3:30 if you get tired of the long intro)…

Watch the end of the video for a surprise appearance of another super rare Atari 2600 game based on a horror flick.

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Perhaps it’s just the coming, new Twin Peaks season, but it seems that all things Northwestern, surreal and Lynchian are in the air. The most recent iteration of this wave before the flood is a recent article by Leigh Anderson which collates instances of the series appearing in video game mode…

It sure is a boom time for the odd intersection of Twin Peaks with video games. There are game-y reimaginings everywhere, and a few commercial projects in recent years pay tribute to David Lynch’s 90s mystery television: 2010′s janky but beloved Deadly Premonition went heavy on the similarities, for example. In the just-released first episode of Life is Strange, set dreamily in the Pacific Northwest, a main character’s vehicle bears the license plate “TWN PKS”.

The 1990s make a good setting in general for modern games with unconventional goals. The trend toward creating more laid-back, sentimental experiences of reading and discovery — like the nostalgic Riot Grrrl story the Portland-based Fullbright Company told in Gone Home — means lots of developers might be seeking settings where physical technology (tapes, notebooks, VHS), ripe for rifling through, intersects with poignant generational angst.

I track my young adulthood through the 1990′s and I can’t think of a better summing-up of the slacker/bohemian culture of Generation X than trying to play “modern games with unconventional goals.” Twin Peaks still appeals to my generation because it still resonates with the weird idealism of that era, and it continues to win fans because, well, we were really on to something.

Or not. Agent Cooper would never fall for the straitjacket of belief and neither will I. The spice must flow.

The Welcome to Twin Peaks site has a great breakdown on the gameplay including this anxiety inducing description that left me reaching for my joystick…

A day in the FBI was never like this before! You are Special Agent Dale Cooper and you’ve found yourself trapped inside of the Black Lodge, a surreal and dangerous place between worlds.

Try as you might, you can’t seem to find anything but the same room and hallway no matter which way you turn. Worse yet, your doppelganger is in hot pursuit! You have no choice but to keep running through the room and hallway (or is it more than one?) and above all else, don’t let your doppelganger touch you! Your extensive physical training in the FBI will provide you a seemingly limitless supply of energy to run as long as necessary, but running out of breath is the least of your worries!

I don’t have an Atari 2600 anymore and this game was never actually available as a cartridge as it wasn’t produced until 2011. That said, the game master, Jak Locke, recreates vintage gameplay here while simultaneously immersing players in a thoroughly disorienting tour of Twin Peaks’s alternative reality.

Here’s a video from inside the Black Lodge…

Read the rest of the article and download the game for yourself at the Welcome to Twin Peaks link above…

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This week: Ken gets all nerdy about the Star Wars Episode VII cast announcement, The KKK gets all neighbourly and then sleeps with a gay black guy, Bees are little bastards!, Balls of purity, More fascism in the UK, Dem Vampire Ants be all up in my yard, E.T.’s sordid past, Locke and load, and Trippin’ in Italy.

Personnel – Joe Nolan, Frater Isla, and Ken Eakins

Links

• STAR WARS Ep VII CAST ANNOUNCED!!! – Link
• KKK Starts Neighborhood Watch Link
• Ken’s Fascist Corner: KKK Grand Dragon’s gay black man past. – Link
• Worst place to be stung by a bee Link
• Purity Balls Link
• Ken’s Fascist Corner: EDL march in Brighton turns ugly…who saw that one coming? – Link
• Dracula Ants Discovered in Madagascar Link
• Atari’s Shame Unearthed Link
• Locke film review Link
• The Trip is back

Interlude

• Ugly Duckling – Left Behind