Max Payne’s Movie Adaptation Rightly Aired The Game’s Underlying Horror Elements

Over 20 years later, I still cannot hear a passing police siren without thinking about Remedy’s 2001 shooter, Max Payne. On paper, the premise following a bereaved New York City detective-turned-vigilante doesn’t sound that impressive, nor does the Payne family murder by drug dealers strike a particularly emotional chord. However, the thriller’s thick atmosphere oozes grime from the city’s underworld making it unique, coupled with an eerie score to keep the heart racing during investigations. The game also has several underlying horror elements that are extremely subtle, which is why I was glad to see the 2008 live-action movie adaptation lean into those themes – even though the Mark Wahlberg-led feature was widely criticized and forgotten.

Sitting with a 31 Metacritic score – a far cry from the 89 score of its source material – John Moore’s neo-noir action movie took several liberties. Decisions such as downsizing the role of main villain Jack Lupino, adding surprising Valkyr hallucinations, and shoe-horning musicians like Nelly Furtado and Ludacris into throwaway roles were at the epicenter of fans’ backlash. However, the action and visuals were stylish for its time, inspired by Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City and the Kevin Bacon-led thriller Death Sentence (which needs to be talked about more), but where the adaptation failed to stay loyal to Remedy’s story, it made up for by letting the game’s whispers of horror breathe.

Max Payne’s Ambiance Made Your Blood Run Cold

Right off the bat, Max Payne’s game title screen framed a minimalistic profile of face model actor and Alan Wake creator Sam Lake, accompanied by a near doom jazz main theme (but not as sultry). The gut-punching minor chords returned throughout Kärtsy Hatakka and Kimmo Kajasto’s score, mixed with synth notes, noughties power chords, solemn piano melodies, and a terrifying cacophony of wails, screams, and heartbeats heard within the Drug Nightmare track. It’s fair to say the shooter’s score is a prominent source of the game’s horror quality, accompanied by the psychotic Valkyr users, Max’s nightmares, and the general unsettling vibe of true crime and the criminal underworld.

Lake is massively inspired by “Lynchian” horror – such as director David Lynch’s Twin Peaks and Eraserhead – in his work, and this surrealist aesthetic is present in Max Payne also – albeit not as prominent as later projects Alan Wake and Control. Lake penned the script for the Max Payne movie adaptation alongside Beau Thorne, deciding to ink a plot that was a massive departure from the original narrative but still tethered to the game’s mood. The grime of the Big Apple and a reimagined synth score that managed to retain the somber piano notes in the track “Payneful Piano” (a bit on the nose) identified this action feature as a Max Payne special, but the horror was surprisingly dialed up.

Moore’s live-action decided to take the name of the designer drug Valkyr and use its tie to the winged Valkyrie warriors of Norse Mythology to fuel the drug-induced hallucinations seen by the addicts and Jack Lupino. The visuals of these dark angel-like creatures preying on Valkyr abusers undoubtedly brought a significant horror component to the spun narrative, and whether this was a conscious decision or not, it aired the game’s underlying flirtation with the genre. This addition certainly enhanced the movie material and was strong enough to resurrect the shooter’s darker themes without becoming too far removed.

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Horror Haunts The Inbetween

Comparisons could be drawn between Max Payne and The Punisher. Both protagonists turn into vigilantes on a revenge mission to bring justice to their family’s murders, but Frank Castle’s story rarely turned supernatural unless he crossed paths with another fantastical Marvel character. The Max Payne movie, however, shared similarities with the unearthly nature of The Crow, which also showed Brandon Lee’s Eric Draven on an avenging escapade. The lack of this figmental element in Remedy’s game stopped the title from being cataloged as a psychological horror, and possibly put a halt on other expansions into the horror genre. Instead, it remained a crime thriller, but the live-action scratched that itch after myself and several others detected the game’s unnerving attributes decades ago.

Horror, and any genre for that matter, is a subjective interpretation, and the project in question doesn’t need to have Jason Voorhees cameos nor demonic possessions to be strictly considered a horror. Several movies and games, like Max Payne, often blur the lines between categories and borrow genre-classed elements for stylistic flare or edgy nuance. The horror elements present don’t even need to be tangible. Being coerced to feel unsettled, fearful, or haunted, as you were so often made to feel on Max Payne’s recce of Lupino’s Hotel or the Payne Residence, is enough to warrant a nod to the horror medium. Despite the movie lacking faithfulness to its source material, it allowed a horror-inclined niche of the Max Payne fandom to spread its wings.

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