Strawberry Loft

Video game movies have always had a reputation for being bad, but that’s changed over the last few years with hits like the Mario Movie and Sonic. I’ve always felt video game horror movies were bad on a different level, most missing the plot of the original game. The Resident Evil live action movies don’t carry the same air of fear as the games. The first Resident Evil movie doesn’t feel like the game at all, the movie just took the name. The Until Dawn Movie isn’t even out yet and I share the same sentiment with it. The game was nearly a  movie already with extensive lore and dedicated fanbase, the new movie, again doesn’t seem to share anything but a name to get butts in seats. I haven’t decided where the Fatal Frame movie lies, giving nods to the franchise if you know what you’re looking for, but not directly following any particular game. I love this horror franchise.

The Fatal Frame games (or Project Zero games as their known in Japan) are horror games with female protagonists who for various reasons explore haunted areas, mostly mansions, armed with only a camera. The game play with the Camera Obscura (the camera featured throughout the series) made the game stand out to me. Entering combat changes the third person perspective of the game to a first-person perspective, bringing the player face to face with the ghosts attacking them. Most of these fights take place in cramped spaces, forcing the player to think fast and make snap decisions. I think the atmosphere pulls players in with small, cluttered, dimly lit rooms and long hallways. There are always noises creaking and scuttling behind you. Disembodied voices whisper on the wind within the drafty mansion.

I’ve played the first three games and in each one it’s a female protagonist against a female antagonist, a spirit re-awakened searching for revenge, in a strange way for their own peace. The women that become all powerful evil spirits were women who in life only bared the sin of being the perfect sacrifice. The job of the protagonist is to learn the stories of these women and to an extent re-live the pain they were put through. The player is put in the antagonists’ shoes seeing visions of the sacrificial rituals that trapped these women’s souls in the first place. The protagonist characters are there as comfort to the antagonists to save them. Depending on the different endings you can get for each game, another character may take the pain from an antagonist, allowing them to move on at the cost of sacrificing themselves. In a weird way Fatal Frame is about growth through re-living and coming to terms with the past finding peace. This theme is especially prevalent in the third game of the series and my personal favorite, Fatal Frame: The Tormented.

The Fatal Frame movie came out in 2014, and until I saw it at a Katsucon movie panel, I had no idea it even existed. A curse resides in a photo of the most popular girl at an all-girls catholic school, Aya. A spirit calls to the girls at midnight enticing them to kiss the photo. Once the girls plant a kiss on Aya’s photo they have a normal day or two before falling into a trance that lures them to an old, abandoned reservoir. Later their bodies are found floating in the river. Michi and Aya partner together to stop the curse from taking out their whole school.  

I went in blind expecting  the movie to follow the story of Crimson Butterfly as I think that’s the most popular of the games, really taking off with the port to the Xbox and Wii. The movie has twins in it like Crimson Butterfly and one of the sisters ends up in a dark place alone; not exactly the hell pit of eternal despair, but it’s really close. The parallels to Crimson Butterfly are there but the story in the movie takes a different direction. Still, it’s the story of a curse on young woman whose lives are stolen right as they’re about to begin due to the actions of others in the past, a very Fatal Frame trope.

I felt like this movie explored the deep connections woman make with each other and the razor’s edge that is the difference between platonic and romantic love. It also explores the loneliness that sometimes overtakes people with no explanation at all. Michi is close with the other girls in class skipping homeroom to go into town, this scene specifically feeling free with the sun high in the sky as Michi gets snacks and sits on a set of stairs enjoying her life. Oblivious to the hardship waiting for her in a brief few days. It feels like the freedom of youth becoming almost tangible right before the girls talk about their plans for the future and how they’ll be separated when they go to college. Aya on the other hand is popular but feels like something is missing and doesn’t seem to share the same bonds as her peers. They all like her but she can’t say they know her. It’s not until the curse starts to take hold that Aya realizes she’s not as alone as she feels. To solve the mystery of where the cursed girls are going, Aya kisses her own photo, Michi following after refusing to let Aya go alone. Michi ties them together at the wrist with a red string which I viewed as the red string of fate sealing their strong friendship. Aya needed Michi’s strength to remember her past. Aya doesn’t remember she has a dead twin floating in the old reservoir.

Aya’s twin Maya died to appease a spirit wronged during an act of love, Maya dies for someone else’s self-preservation. I wasn’t expecting Fatal Frame to touch on the experiences of being a lesbian and the hardship it can come with when the world isn’t willing to accept who you are. The heartbreaking story that places the curse on Aya’s photo comes from love. Girls from that school who find themselves falling for each other get their photos taken at a specific photo studio that does spirit photography. The girls take those photos and walk into the river together ready to be together in the spirit world. Sadly, this is the reality for some queer couples who still don’t experience acceptance in their lives. Being how Fatal Frame has always been female-centered I’m also not totally surprised. Every other Fatal Frame story though has had straight couples as the tragic main love story, and it was about time to explore the love women hold for each other. Watching Michi and Aya take on the curse together was refreshing as most of the Fatal Frame series leaves you feeling empty and alone. Even if you start in a duo it doesn’t end happily for every character involved in the games.

Though it doesn’t follow an exact storyline from the games there are more nods to the series in a broad sense I can appreciate. I do want to sneak in here that the dead twin Maya’s name is very close to Mayu which is the sister who is sacrificed in Crimson Butterfly. The photos containing spirits are also obvious nods. They show the Camera Obscura the games main weapon and it was beautiful. It was so well done it looked so much like the games old camera that plays the titular artifact. Michi takes it halfway through the film and I was like this is it we’re fighting ghosts it’s about to get terrifying. She doesn’t use it until the end for a sentimental ghost view of their deceased classmates. It was kind of a letdown of such a beautiful prop.

The Fatal Frame movie was more suspenseful and beautifully haunting than scary. I expected a lot of ghost jump scares and some gruesome makeup. There was none of that due to the lack of Camera Obscura shots. The movie is rated R and you don’t see why until the end and I get it. The lack of scares all go into one big gotcha moment where Maya’s body is pulled from the reservoir and her perfectly preserved body disintegrates into exposed muscles and then a skeleton is left behind. It left me with my jaw on the floor. I thought it looked really good, and I’d like to look more into how they pulled it off.

Fatal Frame, while a terrifying game has also taken a time to craft human stories around the horror using spirits as a way to explore human emotions. The Fatal Frame movie follows this strong human story telling focusing on the theme of finding connections be it friends, family, or a lover. When I first watched the Fatal Frame movie, I thought it was another video game movie that has nothing to do with the source material that inspired it. Sitting on it though, the Fatal Frame movie earns its spot in the Fatal Frame universe with its story telling and proper references. If you enjoy a slow burn horror and are a Fatal Frame fan with the chance to see this movie, I recommend not missing it.