Their Lives in Their Handhelds: The Aesthetics of Terror in Quarantine and Survival
Horror Gaming
Shellie McMurdo
Abstract:
The theme of contagion is an enduring aspect of horror cinema. However, the crucifixes and
garlic that once kept us safe have recently been replaced by hazardous material suits, the
Centre for Disease Control, and containment protocols. Quarantine (2008) utilises this new
visual language of fear, and demonstrates a paranoid unease around the governmental
institutions and mainstream media within the film, both of which deliberately obstruct both
the survival of the characters and their recorded witnessing of events.
By emulating the amateur style of 9/11 bystander footage, Quarantine creates an
aesthetic that amplifies horror based in the familiar, engaging with representations of terror
seen on mainstream news, such as during the Ebola outbreak, the SARS epidemic and the
Anthrax threat of 2001. The film also uses images and language we are familiar with and
which is part of the culture of fear in this era of the ‘War on Terror’, such as ‘biological
threat’ and ‘containment’.
The camera is foregrounded in Quarantine as a tool, not only to record a counter
version of events to that shown in mainstream media reportage, but more pragmatically, in
assisting the characters to see what they usually could not, such as their use of the night
vision function. This reveals a connection between Quarantine and survival horror games
such as Outlast (2013) and Outlast: Whistleblower (2014). These games adapt found footage
aesthetics into their game mechanics to enhance the player’s experience of terror, and
similarly use the camera as a tool for the player to navigate horrific landscapes. Through an
interrogation of how the camera is used as both a metaphorical witnessing tool and literal
weaponised tool within the film, this paper will make a connection between found footage
horror and survival horror games, addressing a significant gap in horror scholarship.
Key Words: Horror, found footage, survival horror games, outbreak narratives, trauma
studies
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1. The Language of Fear
David L. Altheide proposes that there is a ‘discourse of fear’ (2010: 19) which has dominated
the cultural landscape since September 11, 2001, and that this discourse, and the ‘safety
rhetoric’ espoused by government officials, ‘promotes the politics of fear and numerous
surveillance practices and rationales to keep us safe’ (2011: 19). Elements of the safety
rhetoric, and a new visual language of fear which incoporates images of contagion and
biological warfare, have a growing presence in both horror cinema and horror gaming. In
examining the film Quarantine, (2008: dir. Dowdle) and the survival horror games Outlast
(2013) and Outlast: Whistleblower (2013) this paper will explore these aesthetics of terror
and how found footage horror and survival horror games are engaging with images of fear,
terror and horror.
In the last decade, images once seen as unusual, have taken on a new familiarity. The
white hazardous material suits seen during the Anthrax outbreak, and phrases such as
‘containment’ and ‘biological threat’ have become commonplace. This new visual language
has found a home in post-millennial horror cinema. This is not to say that Quarantine, or
either of the Outlast games are explicitly about 9/11, the “War on Terror” or biological
warfare. It is more that these texts are aesthetically reminiscent of images of terror that
belong to the first decade of the 21st Century. Homay King (2005) has previously discussed
Cloverfield (2008: dir. Reeves) and The Host (2006: dir. Bong), and argues that these two
Their Lives in Their Hand(held)s : The Aesthetics of Terror in Quarantine and Survival Horror Gaming
films ‘condense images and affects from multiple historical traumas into aggregate globally
resonant forms’ (124). Several other scholars have also identified the nuanced way in which
images of terror have filtered into horror cinema. Adam Lowenstein calls this an ‘allegorical
moment’, which he describes as
A shocking collision of film, spectator, and history where registers of bodily space
and time are disrupted, confronted and intertwined. These registers of space and time
are distributed unevenly across the cinematic text, the film’s audience, and the
historical context’
(2005: 2)
Quarantine is a film that belongs to the found footage horror subgenre, an offshoot of
horror cinema. Found footage horror films use intentionally amateur aesthetics, or what has
been called more disdainfully a ‘studied artlessness’ (Frost, 2012: 26) as markers of
authenticity in order to communicate their anxieties. These markers include shaky
cinematography, poor sound quality and often, obstructed vision. The rise in popularity of
found footage horror has coincided with a more broad cultural validation of actuality footage,
for example the use of video evidence in courtrooms. One of the largest contributors to the
rise in amateur bystander footage being used in mainstream news broadcasts was of course,
the events of September 11, 2001, when our experience of the event was primarily through
the lens of bystander’s cameras; ordinary people who inadvertently witnessed horror and
wanted to capture it on film.
From Jules and Gedeon Naudet’s documentary film 9/11 (2002), to the variety of
bystander footage recorded on consumer grade technology in the streets of Manhattan which
was shown during mainstream news broadcasting, it is the haptic, unsteady camera of the
majority of 9/11 footage that Quarantine emulates most strongly. The film’s fear focuses on
anxieties surrounding governmental institutions that see civilians as collateral damage, viral
contagion, and a media that will lie to further an agenda. Both in its content and in its form,
Quarantine evokes the culture of fear, which is based around ‘ever-looming biological
warfare, terrorism and pandemic disease’ (Froula, 2010: 195-6). Outlast and Outlast
Whistleblower are also steeped in visuals influenced by the U.S military industrial complex.
Both games take place inside Mount Massive Asylum, where a bioengineering group called
the Murkoff Corporation have been experimenting with psychologically traumatised inmates.
The rich visuals contain nightmarish laboratories, emergency lighting, gun wielding
paramilitary and scientists in Hazmat suits. A striking commonality between Quarantine and
the Outlast series is their use of night-vision, which I will discuss in more depth in section
four.
2. Unease
The danger in Quarantine is a form of rabies, which has been developed by the tenant in the
attic apartment of the building. Towards the end of the film, the camera captures glimpses of
newspaper clippings, which advise that a doomsday cult have stolen a virus from a chemical
weapons laboratory. This origin story stands in contrast to Rec (2007: dir. Balaguero/Plaza),
the original Spanish horror film on which Quarantine is based. In Rec, the virus has been
developed by an agent of the Catholic Church, who has isolated the supposed viral cause of
demonic possession. This movement from religious origin to biochemical works to make the
narrative more resonant with the contemporary cultural anxieties common to American
horror cinema, which circulate around the military, the concept of secretive governmental
biomedical tests and the threat of biological warfare.
Shellie McMurdo
This unease around government institutions is also registered in both Outlast, and its
overlapping prequel Outlast: Whistleblower. During Outlast, the player discovers that
intensive dream therapy has been carried out on patients, at the behest of Dr Wernicke, a
German scientist brought to the U.S as part of Operation Paperclipi. Outlast: Whistleblower
takes this connection to secret United States Government projects further with its direct
referencing of Project MK ULTRA. This project was a covert C.I.A program that was
concerned with the development of chemical and biological materials that would be able to
be employed to control human behaviour (CIA vs. Sims, 1985). Many of the expository “cut
scenes” in the Outlast games, in addition to files collected by the player during the game,
make explicit references to the MK ULTRA program, in addition to information regarding
human experimentation and the ‘government men’ who have joined the staff at the asylum.
In the case of Quarantine, there is also an anxiety surrounding the role of the
mainstream media. There is a paranoid sense that the media, instead of being objective and
impartial, is complicit in government cover-ups, or at the very least, is working to its own
agenda. As the apartment block is shut down, Angela screams at her captors that there is a
TV crew in the building. She argues that ‘people are going to see this’, highlighting the idea
that the camera cannot lie, and that the survival and broadcast of the footage will tell a
different story to the official version of events.
During the film, the residents find that their mobile telephones have been disabled, as
well as everyone’s television signal. Angela and Scott, along with two residents, Bernard and
Sadie, use an old analogue television set to try to find out information. They are horrified to
discover that it is being reported that everyone inside the quarantine has been evacuated. The
chief of the fire station, who Angela and Scott had befriended at the beginning of the film is
seen being interviewed and confirming that the building is clear, even though he is aware that
Angela, Scott, and two of his firefighting team, Jake and Fletcher, are still inside.
In all three of the texts, the characters are forcibly confined against their will. This
recurrent motif echoes the anxieties of a culture which has been made so paranoid about
threats to their safety that introducing a state of exception, withholding civil rights or any
heavy handedness in terms of police or military action is to be excused as an attempt to keep
the American people and the homeland safe. During Quarantine, a resident tries to flee out of
the window and is shot dead by the assembled paramilitary on a nearby rooftop. This action
serves as a moment of realisation for Angela, as she turns to the survivors and rhetorically
asks ‘they aren’t going to let us out of here alive, are they?’ Similarly, at the end of Outlast,
Miles Upshurr hobbles slowly to the exit of the asylum, where he hopes, as an investigative
journalist, to get the truth of what is happening inside Mount Massive Asylum out to a wider
audience. He is met at the door by a group of armed men, and Dr Wernicke, who issues
orders for him to be killed. The idea of the civilian as collateral damage to military and
bioengineering aspiration is underlined again in Outlast: Whistleblower. Within the game,
Waylon Parks, a computer technician is forcibly confined in the asylum, due to his attempt to
get information to journalists (including Miles Upshurr) about the experiments taking place.
In the closing moments of the game, Waylon contemplates uploading his video evidence of
the events to a site called ‘VIRAleaks’. An unnamed man reminds him that ‘our enemies are
twitchy and malicious cooperate paranoiacs with resources you’re too moral to imagine.’
Although it is impressed on Waylon that by uploading his footage he is putting himself, his
wife and his child in danger, we never see what happens after he slams his laptop screen shut
after submitting his footage. We are also never shown what happens to Angela after she is
dragged, screaming, into the darkness of Quarantine’s attic, and the fate of Miles in Outlast
is shown at the end of Outlast: Whistleblower as his possessed, bullet ridden body advances
on the player. All three texts, therefore, end nihilistically, and are less about the survival of
the characters than the survival of their recorded version of events.
Their Lives in Their Hand(held)s : The Aesthetics of Terror in Quarantine and Survival Horror Gaming
3. Witnessing
The documentary film 9/11 consists of footage recorded by Jules and Gedeon Naudet before
and during the events of September 11, 2001. The Naudet’s original intention was to make a
documentary about a probationary firefighter in New York City. Near the beginning of 9/11,
Jules Naudet evaluates that it was pure coincidence that resulted in him being one of only two
people to capture footage of American Airlines Flight 11 flying into the North Tower of the
World Trade Centre. However, he notes his belief that ‘there is always a witness for history.
That day, we were chosen to be the witness’.
The idea of witnessing is key element in Quarantine and the Outlast games. Echoing
the raison d'etre behind the filming of the Naudet’s documentary, Angela and Scott’s original
intention in Quarantine was to film a television piece about the fire department. Like the
Naudet’s, a series of coincidences mean that Angela and Scott witness horror, and record
their version of events. In Outlast, Miles is told that he has been chosen as a witness, and is
specifically kept alive by a non-player character, Father Martin, to act in this capacity. The
opening title-card of the game informs the player than their mission is to ‘stay alive as long as
you can, record everything’.
The act of witnessing is often obstructed for these characters and in Quarantine this
happens multiple times. Upon entering the building, Jake and Fletcher meet with police
officer Wilensky, who is cautious of a reporter and cameraman being present. As they ascend
the stairs to the apartment of Mrs Epinoza, one of the first infected residents, he
confrontationally tells Angela and Scott that ‘I tell you not to film something, you don’t film
it. I tell you to get lost, you do it’ After the small group in the apartment block realise they
have been contained, Angela instructs Scott to ‘tape everything’ and Wilensky’s caution
towards the camera turns to hostility, with the camera often being hit and pushed as he
attempts to stop them documenting what is happening. Interestingly, Wilensky’s aggression
towards the camera dissipates towards the end of the film, once the Centre for Disease
Control send in an inspector. Once the inspector spots the camera, he demands it is turned
off, and after losing control of the makeshift surgery that has been set up in the basement, he
attempts to grab the camera. Officer Wilensky quickly pins the inspector to the door, arguing
that they have a right to film what is happening. It is also of note, that the first playable action
in Outlast: Whistleblower is to pick up a camcorder and start to record events. The camera
therefore, in Quarantine, Outlast and Outlast: Whistleblower is characterised as an
unblinking eye, which acts as a vehicle for truthful documentation and operates as a witness
to the horror within these narratives.
4. The Camera as a Tool
The camera is constructed in all three texts as both a figurative and literal tool. As discussed
in the previous section, the camera is used as a figurative tool when it acts as a witness, and
allows characters to record a counter version of events. In addition, the physicality of the
camera, and it’s potential as a literal tool or weapon, is underlined in Quarantine. At one
point, Angela is attacked by an infected resident named Elise, and Scott uses the camera to
bludgeon Elise to death. In this scene, the audience witness extreme close-ups of Elise’s
infected and beaten features as Scott physically drives the lens into her face. Once he has
killed her, the lens remains covered in blood, obscuring the audience’s vision until Scott
cleans it.
The way the camera is used in the majority of found footage horror is reminiscent of
first person gaming and as Barry Keith Grant has noted, survival horror gaming specifically
‘has had a profound impact on the look of verite horror’ (2013: 163). Survival horror games,
such as Amnesia: The Dark Descent (2010), SCP – Containment Breach (2012) and Five
Shellie McMurdo
Nights at Freddy’s (2012) are characterised as having a focus on evasion and survival rather
than fighting enemies, and are notable for their de-emphasis on combat. In these games, the
player typically plays ‘with limited ammunition, energy, and means of replenishing it’
(Kirkland, 2005: 172). In Outlast and Outlast: Whistleblower, there is absolutely no fight
mechanic, the player must run from enemies and hide under beds or inside lockers until a
threat has passed, and the encouragement is to record and then flee. A great deal of survival
horror gaming focuses on puzzle solving or searching for items. This is echoed in Quarantine
several times, where Scott uses the floodlight and later, the night-vision function, to assist
Angela in finding clues and keys within the narrative.
Early survival horror, such as Resident Evil (1996) and Silent Hill (1999), utilised
fixed camera angles as the player navigated around the game, restricting the player’s vision,
and using the off-screen space to build tension. This has changed in more recent survival
horror gaming to either a first person viewpoint or over the character’s shoulder, and in the
Outlast games, the player spends the large majority of gameplay looking through the lens of a
handheld camera. The zoom function on the camera allows the player to evaluate areas before
entering, or get a glimpse of a potential enemy before they are spotted themselves. The ways
in which the camera is used as a tool in the Outlast series are also present in Quarantine as
during the film, Scott uses the camera as a tool to see into areas that the characters cannot.
One particular scene sees Jake and officer Wilensky enter the makeshift surgery room in the
basement along with the officials from the Centre for Disease Control and one of the tenants,
a vet. When Jake realises that Angela and Scott are trying to record what is happening, he
slams the door on them. Undeterred, Angela and Scott enter the adjacent room, where Scott
climbs onto a table and lifts his camera over the partition wall to see what is happening. In
another scene, Scott uses the floodlight on his camera to illuminate areas before he and
Angela enter them, an action which echoes Jules Naudet’s use of his camera’s floodlight in
the aftermath of the collapse of the World Trade Centre’s North Tower.
Night-vision is also used to great effect within the Outlast games. One of the
limitations the player has in the game is the battery life of the camera’s night-vision function,
which is solved by scavenging for batteries throughout the levels. Some areas of the games
are wholly dependent on the night-vision function, as the player is unable to navigate through
their horrific landscape without this function activated. A player who has run out of batteries
at these points will fail the game and be returned to an earlier point. Agnieszka Soltyski
Monnet has illustrated that night-vision in horror is a specifically post-modern aesthetic, and
proposes that it resonates particularly with the anxieties of the post 9/11 militarisation of the
American gaze. Monnet argues that ‘night-vision sequences quickly became a standard
feature of images of the war shown to television viewers and have been particularly important
in documentaries of the recent wars’ (2015: 125). Specifically, night vision calls to mind the
“shock and awe” aerial bombardment campaign of the Iraq invasion, which Geoff King notes
was ‘a “real” defined through reduced visual quality as a marker of authenticity’ (2005: 15).
5. Conclusion
The lasting influence of images of horror and terror broadcast on mainstream news can
clearly be seen both in the visual language of Quarantine, Outlast and Outlast: Whistleblower
and in the themes they engage with. These narratives use markers of authenticity to emulate
actuality footage like that of 9/11, and feature viruses, biological weapons and containment.
All three texts construct their fear around anxieties surrounding the military, governmental
institutions and the mainstream media. There are a myriad of connections between the three
texts, but the overarching hope of Angela, Scott, Miles and Waylon is that their counter
version of the truth reaches an audience.
Their Lives in Their Hand(held)s : The Aesthetics of Terror in Quarantine and Survival Horror Gaming
Notes
i
Operation Paperclip being the U.S secret intelligence program, which allowed German
scientists and intellectuals to work for the American government without the knowledge of
the general public.
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Shellie McMurdo is a PhD student at Roehampton University, London. The working title of
her research is “Blood on the Lens: Found Footage Horror and the Terror of the Real”. In
addition to found footage horror, her research interests are fandoms, transmedial texts, new
media and contemporary horror studies.