Crypt Killer Ps1
Agalia Valcin
Crypt Killer (known as Henry Explorers in Japan[a]) is a 1995 arcade video game produced by Konami. It was also released in 1997 for the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation home consoles, and in Japan for Microsoft Windows. The Saturn version makes use of the Saturn's various light guns,[1] while the PlayStation version is compatible with the Naki Lunar Gun[2] and the Konami Justifier. The game's scenery and characters are all 3D polygon models, while most of the enemies and their projectiles are 2D sprites.[3]
The players are "crypt raiders" guided by Galazon, the spirit of travels, who resembles a floating head to travel through variously themed caves, temples and crypts in search of the "Eyes of Guidance" which would open the doors of fate. On their journey they are armed with a shotgun to fend off many mythical enemies, such as mummies, skeletons, fish-men, gargoyles, and an array of other monsters.
One, two or three players simultaneously travel through levels "on rails", as in the vast majority of light gun shooters. At certain points on each level the players choose their path by selecting to go one of two different ways. The opening screen allows the player to choose from any of the six levels.[4] There are three areas (besides the boss area) per level. At the end of each level, the player encounters a boss guarding the "Eyes of Guidance" needed to progress. The player can temporally upgrade their weapon by finding concealed more powerful guns such as a Gatling gun, grenade launcher, a more powerful shotgun, and an automatic hidden behind breakable objects. In the console versions, for each life the player has three bombs which can destroy all enemies on screen.
Every time the player finds two Eyes of Guidance, an ending is revealed, although Galazon tells the players to keep playing until they clear all six levels. All endings start with placing the Eyes of Guidance in the statue. The eye obtained is either red or blue depending on the path chosen at the end of Act 2 in each level. Depending on the color combination of the two eyes that are obtained, the endings are:
Reviewing the arcade version, a Next Generation critic praised Crypt Killer's ending but summed up that "besides the free-moving, hand-held sawed-off shotgun, enabling pump-handle reloading (a nice element), this game blends in quite well with the pile of new laser-gun shooters with little distinction."[7]
The Saturn and PlayStation versions received overwhelmingly negative reviews, with critics deriding the heavily pixelated and blocky graphics,[5][6][1][9] the lack of scariness in the enemies' appearance,[5][6][1] the numerous cheap hits,[5][9] and the player character's overdone acrobatics, which cause the perspective to spin and bounce around frequently in a nauseating manner.[5][9][10] Lee Nutter of Sega Saturn Magazine was particularly vehement in his criticism, remarking that "more fun could be derived from the Virtua Gun if you were to spend an entire evening pistol whipping yourself with it". A sidebar on the seven light gun games which had been released for the Saturn in the UK up to that point showed that Crypt Killer had the lowest rating from Sega Saturn Magazine.[1] Dan Hsu of Electronic Gaming Monthly defended the game, saying it "deserves a look" due to its unique mythical theme, but his three co-reviewers gave firmly negative assessments.[5] GamePro remarked that "Although the action gets frantic, it never intensifies to the point of hysteria, the way a good shooter like Area 51 does."[10] GameSpot's Jeff Kitts found the game's poor quality especially unforgivable since it came from the same company as the seminal light gun game Lethal Enforcers.[6]
Thanks presumably to an early childhood viewing (OK, probably a few viewings) of Poltergeist, I suffered from a mild case of Coulrophobia as a kid, as that damned clown doll terrified me more than anything else in the film. The 1990 miniseries of It didn't really help much, nor did Clownhouse when I saw it at around 13. But over the years that fear went away, for a number of reasons, the main one (I think) being that I just grew out of it, same as I did my fear of the dark and Ninjas knocking on my window. It was also replaced by other fears, which by now are largely centered on my son (what do you call a fear of your kid choking on literally everything that requires chewing? I have that), making things like being afraid of a guy in facepaint carrying around some balloons feel rather silly when I think about it. But every now and then those old fears resurface for a bit thanks to some other solid entries; Pennywise may be the king, but it's not like he's all alone in the killer clown hall of fame.
Back in the Horror Movie A Day... days, I would check out all the killer clown movies I could find, hoping to find a really good one that could join the titles I saw as a kid - was it possible for one to scare me as an adult? Or was it just my nostalgia putting those few entries in such high regard? A quick perusal of the HMAD archives shows that I watched about a dozen, though that includes dreck like Amusement, where a killer clown was showcased on its marketing but didn't really play much of a part in the film itself (alas, I don't remember any of them being as scary as the new It, natch - but some were pretty damn good, and I'll be getting to them below). But I am surprised there weren't more, actually - I checked IMDb's "Killer Clown" tag and it turns out I didn't miss much either; most of the list is devoted to various Batman movies and episodes of the '60s TV show (yeah, Cesar Romero was always murdering people on that one).
I also noticed how obscure most were, as they almost all went DTV or limited release here in the US. After It, the most famous of the lot is probably Killer Klowns from Outer Space, and that's probably largely due to the catchy title (and even catchier Dickies theme song). It's also more of a comedy than a horror film; there are a couple of moments that might unnerve a young kid (the finger puppet scene freaked me out when I was like 8 or 9) but it's largely a loving tribute to movies like The Blob and Invasion of the Body Snatchers than something that could be considered an It rival. It wasn't a huge box office hit, but it's lived on; the Chiodo Brothers' designs for its various clowns have become T-shirt/toy/etc. staples at conventions, and there seems to always be a remake or sequel attempt in the works.
Then there's Clownhouse, which unfortunately is more famous for its production history than its ticket sales (for those unaware, it was the film that Victor Salva was making when he molested its young star), but if you, like me, managed to see it before knowing that horrid info, you might agree it was effective for what it was. Focusing on three young brothers (including Sam Rockwell in his first film) who go to a circus and attract the attention of a trio of murderous clowns (escaped mental patients who have killed/replaced the real ones), the film is a bit slow to get going, but the back half, starting with a chase from the circus back to their home, and the subsequent home invasion, is an incredibly suspenseful and occasionally terrifying chunk of horror, on par with the much lauded first act of Salva's later Jeepers Creepers. But, you know, it's not like you can recommend the movie (or even find it, as the DVD is long OOP and I can't imagine any distributor having the desire of putting it out there again), so let's move on from it.
Rob Zombie has contributed a lot to the sub-genre, with varying degrees of success. His first two films, House of 1,000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects, focused on Sid Haig's Captain Spaulding (though he doesn't use the clown getup all that much in Rejects), the foul-mouthed patriarch of a group of backwoods killers more or less swiped from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre series. Then, following the original film, his Halloween remake had young Michael Myers wearing a clown mask before switching for the Shatner, though he still has the clown suit on when he kills his family. Zombie gave clowns a break for his next two films, but then came roaring back to the field with 31, which depicted a sort of Running Man-style "game" where a group of hapless carnies had to survive for twelve hours against a group of, you guessed it, psychotic killer clowns (their names, for the historical record, were Sick-Head, Psycho-Head, Schizo-Head, Death-Head, and Sex-Head). I didn't mind it all that much, but as a few people noted, it was almost like Zombie had decided to make the exact kind of film his critics often lambasted him for, and it was a big step back after his woefully underappreciated Lords of Salem. He's currently making a 3rd entry about the Firefly family, but since Spaulding and the others were shot and killed at the end of Rejects, I assume they will be undead demons of some sort, and thus Sid Haig is not likely to get the facepaint on again. But who knows? I'll be there to find out, that's for sure.
The others I enjoyed aren't as well known, but should be. Stitches is famous (to me) for being the last new movie I watched for Horror Movie A Day before calling it quits on the "A Day" part of the site, and it was something of a victory as it was the best killer clown movie I watched for the site, allowing me to go out on a high note. The film is about a party clown who is tormented and then accidentally killed by the obnoxious brats at a children's birthday party, and as horror movie villains are wont to do, he rises from the grave to take his revenge. Alas, he doesn't do it like, the next day, so we don't get to see the guy mowing down ten year olds - he waits six or seven years to get them when they're traditional slasher age, i.e. high school seniors. It takes a while for his revenge mission to really kick into gear, but the kills are fantastic, and much like Dr. Giggles used medical instruments in all of his attacks, Stitches kills everyone with a clown-like trick. So he'll pull a rabbit out of someone's throat instead of a hat, or turn them into a balloon animal - and all of the kills are done practically, so *swoon*. I ran a Twitter poll about people's favorite ones besides the above standards, and was dismayed that only one or two people name-checked this one - I can only assume it's because folks haven't seen it, so please track it down.
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