The Human Heart of The Psychopaths in ‘Dead Rising’ [Monster Mania]
Monster Mania is a monthly column celebrating the unique and varied monster designs in horror gaming.
It is a safe bet that fans of George A. Romero’s seminal 1978 zombie film, Dawn of the Dead, have at one point pondered how they would fare in a zombie-infested shopping mall. While it may be fun to daydream power fantasies of becoming the ultimate zombie slayer, the reality is that, sooner or later, we would all lose our goddamn marbles. Something that Capcom’s Dead Rising understood and reinforced with the game’s sinister Psychopaths.
The studio established their B-movie sensibilities early in Capcom‘s zombified history with Resident Evil. While an undeniably horrifying experience, a thick layer of cheese was slathered atop the game’s undead narrative and characters. Fast forward to 2006, and Capcom’s vision for the undead would evolve and birth an even schlockier rendition of their famed cheese with Dead Rising. Despite Romero’s blatant influence, Dead Rising, as a whole, was less concerned with serving as a biting piece of social commentary and more focused on letting players unleash DIY undead warfare.
This direction is smartly suited for a game that lets you put traffic cones on shambler’s heads. However, it does speak to Romero’s timeless influence on the zombie genre that despite Dead Rising’s direction, whispers of his socially conscious voice still echo slightly through the halls of the Willamette Parkview Mall.
While Dead Rising’s narrative is a bit too silly and grandiose for nuanced commentary, Frank West’s very alive adversaries, the Psychopaths—insane humans scattered throughout the mall—have personalities that reflect Capcom’s commentary on Western culture.
Psychopath encounters can be boiled down to discoverable mini-boss fights throughout various mall sections. While some are tied to story missions, some are missable due to not being as blatantly advertised. In our day and age of most mainstream games typecasting boss fights, something was terrifying about stumbling upon a Psychopath for the first time back in 2006. The unknowing nature of the mall and its dangers taught players early on that to venture from the safety of the security office, ill-equipped could be a death sentence.
The player’s first Psychopath encounter is with the prisoners, a trio of escaped convicts patrolling the Willamette in a repossessed military humvee. The trio hunts the player, attempting to run them down, smash them with a bat, or gun them down with a mounted .50 cal, all to the nu-metal tune of “Gone Guru” by Lifeseeker. I always interpreted the convicts as a commentary on the United States’ continued failure to rehabilitate felons, resulting in world-high recidivism rates. At the very least, this encounter filled my nu-metal meter.
Then there are two of the most memorable psychos of the series: Adam the Clown and grocery store manager Steven Chapman. These psychos are two sides of the same capitalist commentary coin, as Adam, a chainsaw juggling clown (coulrophobists eat your heart out), and the overly protective grocery manager Steven show the ramifications of our identities becoming interwoven with our jobs. Those who are, in Adam the Cown’s instance, literally laughed and belittled by others find their new zombified world as a way to lash out at those, generally speaking, who tormented them. Thus, the chainsaw juggling.
Likewise, Steven Chapman has no identity other than managing the store. He, therefore, treats it as his Thunder Dome, hunting and killing anyone who dares to enter, interpreting their presence as they are looking to “hurt” the store. It’s not a coincidence that in his final moments of life, Steven decries, “Clean up, Register 6!” before succumbing to his injuries. The territorial nature of both psychos, having a bond and connection with their locations and adoptive personas, showcases just how damning and unhealthy American’s relationship is with work.
In what is one of the most clear-cut examples of Dead Rising’s commentary, traumatized veteran Cliff Hudson patrols a hardware store hunting Frank like he’s back in the jungles of Vietnam. Cliff laments that his war never ended and that he is essentially reverting to his training, which is all he can rely on in his new zombie-filled reality. The character is not unlike that of John Rambo, a veteran who is conflicted with their place in the world after being turned into a state-sanctioned killing machine.
In Rambo: First Blood, Rambo heartbreakingly shouts at his former handler, “Nothing is over! You can’t just turn it off!” In his interactions with Frank, Cliff says as much, pre and post-showdown, “My granddaughter… Those damn zombies did in her. When I heard her scream… I just lost it. Everything went white suddenly. The war… It wasn’t over… Not for me… It… it never… ended…” Of the majority of Psychopaths, I found Cliff to be the most tragic, not only in his label but in the commentary and his overall design being the most indicative of his traumatic persona. The notion that a veteran is vilified under the label of Psychopath, despite being turned into a weapon that can’t be “turned off,” gives him an extra layer of tragedy.
These are just a few examples of memorable Psychopaths from the Dead Rising series’ now almost 20-year history. And while some may not think much more of them other than baddies with oversized health bars, they are an integral part of what I love about zombie media: The human cost. Not simply the amount of lives lost at the hands and teeth of zombies but the mental toll that the apocalyptic nature of zombie stories would have on average citizens. Dead Rising‘s Psychopaths serving as a commentary on the United States’ obsession with guns, mistreatment of veterans, police overreach, and working ourselves to death is the metaphorical cherry on top of what is already one of the best zombie games of all time.
Categorized:Editorials
