The characters of Svankmajer’s Alice (Něco z Alenky)

Jan Svankmajer’s Alice (fka Něco z Alenky; 1988) is a dark reinterpretation of Alice in Wonderland made with a great use of stop-motion. In this case, the poor Alice, instead of finishing in a whimsical and colourful world, will be trapped in a profane taxidermic hell. From an abandoned room to an empty chicken box, Alice will face difficult situations, while the decadent atmosphere is embodied in every aspect of her travel, specifically into the characters. The silent tale almost lack any music or dialogue, and every character is dubbed by the same Alice, that gives a voice to their thoughts.

The movie uses real objects and puppets combined with stop-motion to create a bizarre series of situations and a grotesque set of characters. Alice is the only human in the movie, while every other creature is made using a combination of old objects and puppets, like for example socks becoming worms. The most nightmarish detail is when real stuffed animals or bones are used in the creative process. The result is something truly disturbing and will probably visit you in your nightmares. Still now the nightmarish level of Alice is something truly difficult to outmatch.

If the words are not able to give an idea of the creepy creatures living in this dark wonderland, the images should do the job. I will list now the several characters of Jan Svankmajer’s Alice, focusing on the most disturbing ones. If it is not a character directly related to Alice in Wonderland, I will use an invented name.

• The White Rabbit

Oh the White Rabbit, if there were words to describe how disturbing this character can be. He is a stuffed and tall rabbit, walking on two legs and properly dressed. He really likes to chatter with his teeth and to lick his own blood… made of sawdust. The rabbit hides his famous watch  inside his own body, for this reason every time he needs to watch the time, his hands will finish covered in sawdust.  Probably he also has a son, that of course is a real pig, the only alive creature other than Alice in this taxidermic hell. The rabbit is prone to be evil, attacking Alice several times. He is also in charge of the Company of Bones, a group of creepy servants made of the bones of several animals. The rabbit also works as the executioner of the Queen, decapitating her enemies with a pair of giant scissors. Alice has no idea in which sort of decadent nightmare she is living in.

• The Chariot

The chariot is composed by the driver, a sort of monkey made of bones with giant eyeballs, and some kind of fish skeletal horses that are towing the cart. The creatures come to help the rabbit to catch Alice, bringing new reinforcements. From the belly of the chariot many creatures made of bones will emerge: the Company of Bones (invented name).

• The Company of Bones

The company of bones are a multitude of characters made of bones, briefly appearing in the movie. They will jump out from the Chariot to hunt Alice, following the order of the White Rabbit. There are many characters appearing in few minutes during the movie, and their nature is vague and unexplained. I will anyway provide pictures and descriptions for some of them. They are mostly based on the animals appearing around the pool of Alice’s tears in the book.

It is easy to recognize a walking fish with eggs inside the “stomach”, a turtle with another skeletal creature on the back, a dodo bird made of feathers and bones and a crab, a crawling monstrosity with two heads. Some creatures are not so easy to characterize, or they appear very briefly. Feet-and-skull is an aggressive giant skull with two human legs that will bite Alice, luckily only catching her dress. Long-neck is a skull with long spinal bones half-hidden inside a metal pot, that moves around accompanied by a distinctive metallic sound.

the turtle

the bird

long-neck

feet-and-skull

the crab

the fish

• Billy

Billy is the only creature with a proper name, as in the book. The main body is the one of a stuffed iguana, while the head is made of a skull with big glass eyes. The lizard tale ends in a sort of spike made with spinal bones of another animal. He is the champion of the Company of Bones and all the others are relying on him.

• The Harpy-Bed (aka the Pigeon)

This creature clearly jumped out from a nonsensical nightmare. In fact, it is a combination of a hospital bed with some kind of predatory bird. It has wings and skinny legs with sharp claws, like a proper bird of prey. Not only this is weird and disturbing on its own, but also worth to remember that everything in this movie was made using real object or stuffed animals, and this is also true for the Harpy-Bed. The monster is very aggressive and ferocious, regarding is weird nature, and will not hesitate to directly harm Alice. Probably the creature is based on a pigeon that will attack Alice in the book, to defend her eggs. However in this movie, the Harpy-Bed will attack the girl without any apparent reason.

• Bones from the Marmalade

The skeleton of a sort of duck coming out from a pot, that looks like full of jam. The creature is aggressive and will try to bite Alice. In the body are present big bolts, probably to keep the bones compact. The scene is disturbing and grotesque, a reminiscent of a sort of hellish birth.

• Eggskulls

When an egg hatches and, instead of a little chick, there is a small skull inside, you know that you are in a very weird place. Everything in the food room is disgusting, dangerous or just plainly surreal. The skulls will escape very fast, without having any interaction with Alice.

• The Caterpillar

If in Disney’s Alice the caterpillar is a weird blue worm addicted to smoke, in the dark version of Svankmajer it is a far more disturbing creature. The caterpillar is in fact an old and used sock, living in a room full of other worm-like socks. They dig holes in the wooden ground, while happily jumping around. The caterpillar seems the only one able to speak and gifted of a finer intellect. He will use glass eyes and false teeth to be able to see and to communicate. The creature is peaceful, regarding is creepy appearance, and will help Alice. Before going to sleep, the caterpillar will summon a needle and a thread to self-sew his own eyes. This is a really disturbing way to sleep…

• Mad Hatter

The mad hatter was never a really pleasant character in any version of Alice. He is literally mad, and this is something really not funny. In this version of Alice, the hatter is something so simple but yet so disturbing: a human-size wood puppet. Even if his appearance can be quiet raw,  the dumb and void expression in his eyes is enough to provide a deep and uncomfortable feeling. Each time he drinks tea, he gets completely dirty, since inside he is completely void. For this reason he always decides to change places in the table, to avoid the dirt.

• March Hare

What do you think about giant stuffed animal with a void expression in their eyes? Because this is what the hare is, a giant and creepy toy. It will often finish its energy and the hatter will be the one recharging it. When it comes the moment to change places, the hare will jump on a sort of wheelchair to move around, apparently unable to move in any other way.  The hare likes to spend time putting butter inside watches to “fix” them.

• The Fox Cleaner

This creature is made in a very simple way since it is just a fox fur. However, the animation and the sound effects are able to give to the fox a touch of pure sickness. The creature crawls around the tea table like a fast snake, cleaning all the cups used by the hatter and the hare. The strong licking sound that accompany the cleaning act is really disturbing and unpleasant. This is a really bizarre way to wash the dishes. After fulfilling its job, the fox will crawl back inside a teapot.

• The Frog-footman

This is just a sort of humanoid frog dressed as a french noble. There is just one creepy and disturbing detail about him: the tongue. In one moment the creature will go in a sort of berserk and will jump around the room smashing his tongue in every insect that is around. I don’t know of which material the tongue is made, but it is truly repulsive.

• The Fish-footman

Well I put this here just for a matter of completeness, but the fish-man is the same as the frog, just a well dressed fish-humanoid. He works as attendee for the Queen, specialized in delivering letters.

• The Queen and the Cards

The Queen and all the cards are simply two-dimensional characters cut out from paper. They follow the same personality and rules of the Carrol’s Alice, with the Queen obsessed with decapitation and cricket.

Red Haze: nudity, drugs, surreal abominations and multiple endings

Red Haze is an indie surprise of the last year. It is incredibly original and somehow really addicting, while it is able to create its own mythology and setting without stealing ideas from other horror games (maybe just a little from Silent Hill, but who doesn’t). And if you look in STEAM between the hundreds of uninspired copies of P.T. and Amnesia, you will have an idea of how much a rare quality this is right now. The game is really harsh, mature and disturbing, so surely it is not for everybody.

The protagonist of the game is Rockette, a homeless girl escaped from home and forced to prostitute to pay for drugs. Not a nice start, but from here on everything becomes more twisted and surreal. All the things that will happen in the abandoned building where she is living are far more difficult to explain by simple logic, painting a plot based on abandon, regret and grudge.

The gameplay is simple and based on exploration and puzzle solving. The game also feature several enemies, able to kill the main character with a simple touch. Rockette can evade the enemies sprinting or trying to hide, but a hidden stamina bar will make more difficult to outrun an enemy without slowing down. Not always, but usually being caught by an enemy means to restart the game from the beginning, without the possibility to load a save. Also there is only one save slot available and, combined with the permanent death, it makes the game very frustrating in some moments.

The game is build on trial and error, but in an effective way. Red Haze right now has around 20 different endings and multiple replays are necessary to discover everything. Some endings are very straightforward and the player can obtained them in few minutes of gameplay, or just by failing. However, other endings are incredibly difficult not only to achieve, but also to just figure how to get them. Exploring and experimenting allows to discover many endings, but for others a guide is necessary. However, the constant feeling of surprise, the joy to discover and to achieve a new ending is always able to keep the interest high. In the picture below you can have an idea of how much creepy and disturbing the game can be by watching the icons of the STEAM achievements.

Red Haze is also full of secrets, even without considering the 20 endings. Secret areas, random events, hidden monster, there is really everything. Sometime you can pass for the same room twenty time, and the next time something really unexpected will happen. If you want to discover everything, it will be necessary at least around 12 hours of gameplay (using guides).

The atmosphere is interesting, disturbing and innovative. A constant sense of uncomfortable dread will always follow the player around, while exploring the bizarre and surreal guts of this abandoned building. Every new room is a terrible and disturbing surprise, a new grotesque character or an unexpected enemy. Everything here is original and unique. The game is able to create its own personal mythology without stealing ideas from other games, creating a new and unique way to scare and to make feel the player uneasy. A surreal-horror mythology based on drugs, grotesque nudity and disturbing but bizarre entities. As I already mentioned the game is strong and explicit in every possible way and will always make you feel uncomfortable.

The sound effects play a fundamental role to keep an oppressive atmosphere. Whispers, maniac laughs, demonic sentences, everything is perfectly placed to build a positive pressure. It is also crucial to keep track of the noises to understand the pattern of the enemies, because this is the only way to effectively survive.

The enemies give a big contribution to define the sick and malevolent atmosphere. If at the beginning the main enemy is just a simple “killing frenzy” custodian, while advancing in the game and unlocking new endings, also the enemies will become more disturbing and interesting. If for example a hole where should live a hobo will be empty the 10 times you visited it, you should not be so sure that the 11th time should be empty again. Also the enemies act with weird and characteristic patterns. If some enemies will actively hunt for the player, others will try to reach him moving one step at time, like in a chessboard, while others will not directly harm, but will mirror the player movement making very difficult to advance.

The game is very brilliant and it always provides new and interesting situations, especially in some ending. Accept to play hide and seek with a mysterious entity and the game will change to first person perspective, for example. Also be prepared for really weird stuffs, like a godlike being living in a bathroom, another entity awarding the player with the possibility to actually being birth by it (with the actual act playable in a sort of first person “womb maze”), dolls controlling the weather, a woman living behind the walls to rebirth as a moth… and the list is really long.

As I said before, the core mechanic of the game is build around playing multiple times to achieve new endings. This can create lot of frustration, especially while watching the same scene over and over again, or when the search of a specific ending will prematurely end for an error. Luckily the game has a very active and supportive community, with very well done guides and support to new players.

The graphic is very simple, but has its own personality and fits very good in the personal atmosphere of the title. However, the art style during the cutscenes is really of bad quality, making me wonder if was not better to just use the same art style of the game.

Red Haze is a really unique game, with a personal mythology and an interesting concept for an intense and fresh surreal-horror experience. It draw inspiration from very few things, creating something very unique and self-referenced. This is also a game not for everyone, with many strong, delicate and graphical contents and themes, so definitely it is not a game for children. The game is long and always enriched with new and interesting discoveries. If you are not afraid of a bit of repetitiveness and a rough art-style, Red Haze is a game that can really surprise you.

Worth to say that the author will add a future big update including new areas and endings, that will reach a total of 26.

Red Haze is available on STEAM: http://store.steampowered.com/app/428860/Red_Haze/