During my years of being a very gullible and impulsive teenager, out of all of the games
that I ended up borrow from kids that were a couple of years older than me, there was
a certain game that hit me harder upside the head than ever I could've imagined it doing;
that game was Haunting Ground.
Poor unsuspecting teenage Sophie didn't know what she was about to experience and although
she should probably have respected the game's mature rating, she was also way too curious
for her own good.
Which lead to many sleepless nights but also one of the most immersive video game experiences.
This video will contain spoilers for the game so heads up if you haven't played it and if
you are planning to do so in the future.
If you've already played the game or if you simply just don't care, feel free to safely
keep on watching.
The one area where Haunting Ground really shines is in its ability to make you feel vulnerable.
Of course making you feel helpless is a huge part of a lot of horror games, so I'm not
exactly praising the game for doing what a horror game is supposed to do; which is make
you feel scared and uncomfortable.
I want to praise it for how well it utilizes the objectification of its main character
to hit all the right, or I guess ''wrong'', notes.
''Bad'' notes?
Uncanny notes?
Yucky notes?
Who knows, I'm sure you catch my drift.
For a bit of backstory - Haunting Ground, also knows as Dementio, is a 2005 survival
horror game published by Capcom.
Fiona Belli, the game's main protagonist, is a wide-eyed 18-year old who one night,
after being involved in a car crash whilst in a car riding together with her parents,
wakes up in a large mansion only to quickly realize that she's been kidnapped following
the events of the crash.
Right off the bat, we're bombarded by unsettling elements.
Fiona wakes up alone in a place that's completely foreign to her.
She has no idea where she is and she has no one to ask for help, which is already an unnerving
situation.
Only made worse by the fact that she's also put in nothing but a sheet.
Meaning that her clothes and any valuables she might've had on her were stripped
away from her when she was unconscious.
Which is another scary factor, the idea of someone moving you around and undressing you
while you are unconscious.
And she doesn't exactly wake up on a king sized bed but rather inside a small iron cage
in what looks like a rogue butcher shop.
From here on out, it's up to Fiona to traverse the mansion in order to find her way out as
she escapes from the multiple stalkers inhabiting the mansion.
So the game not only forces her into an unknown location but it also adds the element of being chased.
Fiona is continuously objectified and dehumanized.
Each and every one of the game's villains show a different and very twisted desire and/or
lust towards Fiona.
Although his true intentions are a bit blurred due to his inability to properly communicate,
Debilitas keeps mentioning how he wants to keep Fiona as his doll.
His intent for chasing Fiona could arguably be seen as the least malicious as it's not
made clear whether he understands that he is hurting Fiona whenever he captures her.
If he only sees her as a doll or a toy it could imply that he doesn't understand that
she's a person that can feel pain.
Which could be why he's often seen throwing Fiona's body around like a rag.
So either he doesn't understand or he has the full intention of picking Fiona apart
with joy.
But regardless of whether Debilitas is aware or not, it doesn't make the situation any
less terrifying for Fiona.
All she knows is that a large man that could snap off her spine in a matter of seconds
is chasing her around, calling her his ''doll'', picking her up and throwing her on the ground
like she's a stuffed animal.
The second antagonist that Fiona comes across is Daniella, the resident housekeeper.
Although Daniella certainly isn't normal at any point during any encounter, initially,
her intent does not come across as malicious.
She's unsettling, for sure but she's not chasing you right off the bat.
It isn't until later that the player finds out about Daniella's deep-set jealousy towards
Fiona.
As it turns out, Daniella is unable to feel anything.
She has no sense of joy or sadness, she cannot feel either pain or pleasure and despises
Fiona for being so human - and therefore what is essentially her opposite.
Because Daniella herself is infertile, she hates Fiona for her ability to carry children.
That along with her beauty and how desired she is by Lorenzo, who is Daniella's master, it doesn't
take much to see how Daniella's jealousy came to grow.
She calls Fiona a ''pretty little princess'' and accuses her of ''luring men into her body.''
She calls Fiona filthy and shames her on numerous occasions without remorse.
After taking Daniella down, Fiona soon runs into Riccardo.
A clone created from the same man as Fiona's own father; essentially making him her uncle.
In general, Riccardo has a disregard for both emotion and any life that isn't his own.
He only sees being understanding of others and being compassionate as obstacles on the
track to obtaining knowledge and only wants to use Fiona's for his own gain.
Repeatedly threatening Fiona to give herself up to him and become ''the lady of the castle.''
Claiming he owns her and treating her being like his property.
Lastly, Fiona's final enemy is Lorenzo; a man who sees Fiona as one thing and one thing
only - a vessel for him to become immortal.
Much like Riccardo, Lorenzo only wants to use Fiona for her Azoth in order to become
immortal.
That is all that Fiona is to him; an offspring of his clone for him to use as he pleases.
Both Lorenzo and Riccardo see Fiona as their own property rather than an independent human
being.
Rather than seeing her as a person, all Fiona is to them is just the Azoth.
She's reduced to being the carrier of the one thing that'd benefit them.
So throughout your Haunting Ground experience you'll not only be dehumanized, objectified
and body shamed but also both physically and mentally abused.
Needless to say, this was a bit much for mid-puberty Sophie to take in.
I remember finding this game exhausting to play when I was younger because I'd always
be so on edge.
Where the game shines is in its ability to make you feel like a rat trapped in a labyrinth
with a group of scientists peeking down on you to observe your every move.
Very few games are as good at emulating this feeling as Haunting Ground is.
Although Haunting Ground is considered a spiritual successor to games like Clock Tower and there
have been many games that have come afterwards that have emulated a similar claustrophobic
setting, to me personally, none have ever made me feel as trapped as Haunting Ground
has.
It's made abundantly clear that although you can hide inside the mansion, you're never
really safe.
You're always in enemy territory with no one to help you get out.
Not to mention that Fiona is, not only just a teenager, but she's also a normal art student.
She's not a bounty hunter or an undercover detective out on a job to investigate the
mansion.
She's a very gentle girl, who is more than likely suffering from some sort of anxiety disorder.
She's physically weaker than the stalkers, she doesn't have access to their weapons and
she doesn't know the layout of the actual mansion; constantly putting her at a disadvantage
to everyone else.
So why would I still want to talk about this game?
Well, cause I strongly believe that the reason that Haunting Ground not only scared me as
much as it did but also left such a strong impression was because of when I played the
game.
People saying how playing a certain game at a certain point in their life lead to a very
special experience isn't anything groundbreaking.
Although I would probably still have been properly creeped out playing it at my current
age, it wouldn't have hit the same notes for me due to the fact that I'm just more matured.
Not in a sense that I've somehow grown out of being scared by horror games or that you
can suddenly just outgrow being scared of the horror genre but I've been desensitized
in a sense.
Which leads me to my point and why Haunting Ground managed to leave such an impression
on me.
Because I experienced it as a teenager; specifically a teenage girl.
I'm speaking from experience when I say that it was incredibly easy to relate.
Playing as someone like Fiona who was only a few years older than I was at the time,
running around a huge mansion being chased by people you didn't know if they were trying
to either kill you, sexually abuse you, eat you or maybe even all three, was a panic-inducing
scenario to say the least.
If you know the bad guy is just planning on shooting you in the back of the head and ending
it then and there, it's not as scary as opposed to someone who you don't know if they're going
to kill you, eat you and/or assault you.
Although you'll surely be able to put yourself in Fiona's shoes regardless of if you're 16
or if you're 35, you know as long as you've got the imagination, nothing's stopping you.
Being chased by a stalker who, very aggressively mind you, demands to be let into your womb;
I think is bound to hit harder for a teenage girl than it is for, let's say a guy in his
mid-twenties.
You know, in my mind that's not an unreasonable hypothesis.
In games like Amnesia or Alien Isolation or SOMA it's easier to relate regardless of where
you find yourself on the gender spectrum because the gender of the main character isn't really
relevant.
But because of how much Haunting Ground emphasizes Fiona's sexual attributes and fertility in
very explicit ways, it's not unreasonable to imagine that it'd hit harder for a girl.
Without having been trapped in a murder mansion stuck with ruthless killers, most young girls can
relate to the fear of being reduced to being nothing but your body.
And having that kind of fear amplified in a horror setting is not only scary but it
also gets under your skin because although it's only by a long shot, it still hits home
to a certain extent.
A good example of an opposite situation that comes to mind would be the Whistleblower DLC
from Outlast.
No, surely no one finds the idea of having their genitals mutilated comforting but specifically
having your ding dong almost cut off unwillingly is bound to be a bit more frightening for
the people that have one.
Although Whistleblower does again loop back to the main character running away from possibly getting
impregnated.
Anyway, I do realize that I am indeed outing myself by making this video because yes, I
did play Haunting Ground despite being underage.
That is just one of the glories, or I suppose horrors, of borrowing games from older friends.
So although mid-teenage girls aren't exactly the target demographic for a game like Haunting
Ground, I do earnestly think my experience was heightened by the fact that I did play
it as a teenager.
Don't misunderstand though, I'm definitely not advocating for under-aged kids to ignore
mature ratings on video games.
But in this particular case, I only really had myself to blame.
I saw the mature rating and full-on ignored it.
And although it was positively terrifying to go through it for the first time, it ended
up paying off as it's now one of the most memorable games I've played.
I can't recommend that anyone underage play it though with a clear conscience, but then
again, I did play it when I was underage myself so who am I to talk.
I can only assume that as a teenager, I found the idea of being forcibly separated from
my parents only to be treated like a piece of dog meat by weird strangers inside of a
big mansion even more scary than I would do now as someone who is of age.
Losing control and being objectified isn't a good feeling for anyone but as a teen I
found it to be way more scary.
Haunting Ground uses its perverse and grotesque nature to continuously make the player uncomfortable.
Outside of this horror game about a crazy old alchemist trying to use this poor young
woman to his own gain in order to become immortal, the game explores themes like mental illness,
emotional and sexual abuse, body dysmorphia, incest and of course gore.
It goes beyond ''just'' having Fiona be the eye-candy to get the player interested.
Fiona is undoubtedly eye-candy, but the people that are trying to get at her can and will
kill her if she's captured.
The fact that you are playing as the eye-candy is what is stripping all of your power from
you.
Haunting Ground doesn't treat Fiona's sexualization as something positive but it emphasizes
how desired she is by a group of people that want to either kill or impregnate her.
Of course there's the argument that it's only obvious that I would feel scared playing Haunting Ground
as I wasn't of age to play it.
But Haunting Ground wasn't the first horror game I played at that point in my life.
I had played multiple titles before even touching Haunting Ground but none of them stuck with
me in the same horrifying way that Haunting Ground did.
As an adult now although I do find it very strange to say it, I think the ideal way for
the game to really transfer it's disgusting take on horror is for it to be played by late
teenage girls.
That's not to say that I would encourage underage people to play it but if you are in the same
age range as Fiona, there's no denying that the game is definitely more terrifying.
In short, I can safely say that after having played Haunting Ground all those years ago,
I did regret it.
There were times I wish I hadn't started it and that that one older kid hadn't recommended
it to me.
But as an adult, I'm still so happy that I went through with it because it still stands
out in my memory 'til this day.
So although all experiences may not be fun when you're going through them, it might be
worth it in the long run.
And please remember to pray to Capcom for a Haunting Ground remaster!
I hope you enjoyed this video, thank you so much for watching.
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