488 words about: DOOM and Physical Comedy
Chainsaw goes “brrr.”
Shotgun goes “Ka-Chunk.”
Demon goes, “Bleargh!”
Player has fun.
These are my sounds-thoughts about Classic DOOM.
I’ve played a lot of Doom in the last few months, mostly because I was reading Masters of DOOM by David Kushner, I watched Tim Rogers Action Button Review of the game(multiple times), and also because I had spent a lifetime being afraid of it. I went to a private Christian school, I played the part of a good Christian boy, and naturally I was not supposed to equate violence with comedy. When several of the boys in my class installed DOOM on the various computers in my school and spent their free time playing the game I was intrigued, but I stayed away from it. Shooting demons seemed like it would be frightening, but beneath that was a deeper implication created by the laughs my schoolmates always made while playing.
DOOM wasn’t just a violent game; it was also funny.
Horror and comedy are two genres that are dependent on timing and execution. A moment in a horror film if pushed too long or too short can become hilarious to the viewer who, all but a second ago, was terrified of what they were viewing. Anyone who has bothered watching any Horror franchise knows this, and I’m no exception. The first Halloween film remains a beautiful example of everything that can and should make a great horror film, while Halloween Resurrection includes a moment where the rapper Busta Rhymes fights Michael Myers with Kung-Fu and utters the line, “Looking a little crispy over there, Mikey. Like some chicken-fried motherfucker.”
When I heard this line it wasn’t scary, it was funny; laughing at something obviously disgusting was a way to lessen its power.
For that, I say thank you Busta Rhymes.
DOOM was always meant to be funny, and John Romero’s design sensibilities ensured this. The auditory elements and the over-the-top gore were designed to make players laugh because the game was, at its core, a physical comedy. Watching an Imp get pumped full of buckshot would be horrifying were it not for the over-the-top explosion of gore and his body being blown back several feet. Watching Soldiers accidentally shoot each other and wind up killing themselves or blowing each other up by shooting nearby barrels is almost vaudevillian. And all of this is punctuated by a shotgun blast, and the satisfying reload “thwunk” of the barrel cocking back into place. DOOM’s humor lands because it balances the physical comedy of its aesthetic with a beautiful collection of sounds that are almost cathartic. There are times while playing I half expect a Baron of Hell to slip on a banana peel.
Simply put, the violence of DOOM is akin to the dildo-canon of JackAss 3. Though seemingly violent, it betrays a sentiment that it isn’t taking itself too seriously. In fact it doesn’t take itself seriously at all.
Joshua “Jammer” Smith
2.26.2024
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***UPDATE***
I’ve uploaded a video on YouTube of myself reading this essay. You can listen to me read it by following the link below: