Horror is so hot right now<\/a>. There\u2019s Obsession, Evil Dead Burn and Hokum in the cinema, Widow\u2019s Bay, From and Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen on TV, and, of course, a rotting smorgasbord of horror games including Resident Evil Requiem<\/a> (pictured top) and Reanimal<\/a>, soon to be joined by Silent Hill: Townfall, Silver Pines and Dreadmoor. We\u2019re also seeing weird cross-pollinations, with horror movie studio Blumhouse making games, while games themselves become horror films and the whole backrooms genre<\/a> infects every medium it touches.<\/p>\n So it was fascinating to attend last week\u2019s horror and gaming conference at Falmouth University, in Cornwall: a gathering of students, researchers and lecturers, all engaged in the academic study of horror games. There were brilliant talks on zombies and posthumanism, the gothic in games, and the role of monstrous little girls in survival horror (there are a lot of them!). Subjects as diverse as masculine fragility, disability and ageing came up; Will Doyle, creative director at Supermassive Games, gave a great keynote on the art of creating horror in games using tools such as revulsion, spatial alienation and the human instinct of apophenia<\/a>. I learned a lot about theorists such as Julia Kristeva and Mark Fisher, and about the technical similarities between indie horror games and film noir (for example, the use of darkness and creative camera techniques to \u201chide\u201d budget restrictions). It was incredible fun.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/2f116a00429f53f98089f81556be0b453e54947b\/602_0_2700_2160\/master\/2700.png?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=aea917979d8711cdc98bed87ffffcd4c\" "\\"Zombies,")
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