The best movies and TV that inspired the Alan Wake games

The long-awaited sequel to Treatment Leisure’s action-horror cult basic Alan Wake has lastly escaped the Darkish Place of growth hell, and it’s superb.

Choosing up 13 in-game years after the unique, Alan Wake 2 follows each the cult horror author and a brand new protagonist within the type of FBI profiler Saga Anderson as they battle the machinations of a deranged homicide cult and the possessed minions of Alan’s evil doppelganger, Mr. Scratch. Aside from brushing up on the occasions of the primary recreation and all that’s transpired since, the discharge of Alan Wake 2 provides an exquisite alternative to dive again into the flicks and TV reveals that impressed the story and characters of the collection.

Like Hideo Kojima, Treatment Leisure inventive director Sam Lake is an avid and omnivorous lover of books, movies, and tv, seldom neglecting a possibility to pay homage to the influences behind his work and speak at size about how they’ve knowledgeable his inventive course of. With that in thoughts, we’ve assembled a listing of among the greatest films and TV which have both impressed the Alan Wake video games or resemble them so strongly that followers can be remiss to not test them out or revisit them.

Let’s dive in!

Hannibal

Picture: NBC

12 months: 2013-2015
Showrunner/creator: Bryan Fuller
Solid: Hugh Dancy, Mads Mikkelsen, Caroline Dhavernas
The place to look at: Hulu

Saga Anderson, the deuteragonist of Alan Wake 2, is a gifted legal profiler very similar to Hannibal’s Will Graham, routinely diving into the minds of suspects to unearth clues and connections that may help her within the investigation of the brutal ritualistic killings surrounding the fictional city of Brilliant Falls, Washington.

Within the Mouth of Insanity

Picture: Scream Manufacturing unit

12 months: 1994
Director: John Carpenter
Solid: Sam Neill, Julie Carmen, Jürgen Prochnow
The place to look at: Criterion Channel, Tubi

Though not explicitly cited as an affect, Alan Wake 2 and this film share a shocking quantity in widespread when considered facet by facet. Each Treatment Leisure’s newest recreation and Within the Mouth of Insanity heart on investigations into the disappearance of well-known writers whose works have taken on a lifetime of their very own, blurring the road between fiction and actuality as their respective protagonists march on in a seek for solutions that will or might not destroy them within the course of. In addition they each enjoyment of shocking their audiences with fourth-wall-breaking scenes closely impressed by the cosmic horror of H.P. Lovecraft.

Misplaced

Picture: NBC

12 months: 2004-2010
Showrunners/creators: Jeffrey Lieber, J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof
Solid: Naveen Andrews, Emilie de Ravin, Matthew Fox
The place to look at: Hulu

Misplaced was a bona fide cultural phenomenon through the early 2000s, introducing an entire era of viewers to the fun and frustrations of their specific model of “thriller field” storytelling. It solely is smart, given the time when the unique recreation got here out, that Sam Lake and firm would cite the collection as an inspiration behind the thriller of Alan Wake’s universe. “They do the pacing very effectively,” Lake mentioned in regards to the present in a 2010 interview with GamesBeat. “That was one thing we had been speaking about when writing Alan Wake.” Misplaced additionally impressed the construction of the unique recreation’s story, which divides every of its ranges into six “episodes.”

Memento

Picture: Sony Photos Dwelling Leisure

12 months: 2000
Director: Christopher Nolan
Solid: Man Pearce, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano
The place to look at: Prime Video, Pluto TV, Plex

Sam Lake has cited a number of Christopher Nolan movies as influences on Alan Wake 2, together with Memento and Inception. Chatting with IGN, Lake mentioned, “Inception performs a job [in the dreamlike nature of the Dark Place]. Him struggling to grasp and keep in mind, I really feel Memento is a superb detective story form of attempting to grasp and attempting to piece collectively what has occurred. Him being the narrator and form of not a dependable narrator from the angle that he doesn’t have the total image. Even Combat Membership I feel is this sort of a reasonably anxious horror-esque, city story and a psychological thriller.”

Seven

Picture: Warner Dwelling Video

12 months: 1995
Director: David Fincher
Solid: Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow
The place to look at: Hulu

When it got here to bridging the hole between Alan Wake 2’s detective fiction ambitions and its supernatural horror roots, Lake and principal narrative designer Molly Maloney cited this serial killer thriller as one in every of their greatest inspirations. “Once I have a look at Saga, I see quite a lot of Seven,” Maloney mentioned in an interview with IGN. “She is a consummate skilled, she’s very gifted at what she does. She’s right here together with her accomplice, Alex Casey, attempting to resolve this more and more unattainable seeming collection of mysteries. I imply, it’s not that they’re being humorous, however there’s a pleasing back-and-forth that actually jogs my memory of Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt, didn’t really feel dissimilar.”

“Seven is certainly a very good instance of the merging of detective fiction with horror,” Lake added. “Serial killer tales total usually come actually near a horror movie whereas being very a lot a detective story as effectively.”

The Silence of the Lambs

Picture: Warner Bros. Dwelling Leisure

12 months: 1991
Director: Jonathan Demme
Solid: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn
The place to look at: Max

Each Lake and recreation director Kyle Rowley have instantly cited Silence of the Lambs as a chief inspiration behind the character of Saga Anderson. Early in manufacturing, the event workforce sought to create a brand new protagonist who may function a foil to Alan Wake and a gifted investigator and legal profiler not not like Jodie Foster’s Clarice Starling.

Taxi Driver

Picture: Sony Photos Dwelling Leisure

12 months: 1976
Director: Martin Scorsese
Solid: Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Albert Brooks
The place to look at: Obtainable to lease on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu

Taxi Driver instantly impressed the feel and appear of Alan Wake 2’s depiction of the Darkish Place, a malevolent shape-shifting dimension the place the protagonist has been imprisoned for over a decade. “I inhaled American popular culture as a child, and New York was the beating coronary heart of it,” Lake informed horror director Mike Flanagan throughout a panel dialogue at Tribeca Competition 2023. The “neon-y, borderline gothic vibe” and concrete isolation of Scorsese’s 1976 masterpiece had been an enormous affect on the feel and appear of the Darkish Place’s nightmarish imaginative and prescient of New York, which additionally derives inspiration from Alan Wake’s in-universe crime novels.

True Detective season 1

Picture: HBO Dwelling Leisure

12 months: 2014
Showrunner/creator: Nic Pizzolatto
Solid: Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harrelson, Michelle Monaghan
The place to look at: Max

“One of many first issues that got here to us after we had been enthusiastic about creating an idea of an FBI agent coming together with her accomplice to analyze these murders was season one in every of True Detective,” Rowley revealed to IGN. “The form of dynamics between the 2 detectives there and the way they work collectively to resolve that case was one thing that’s very compelling to us. After which clearly simply stylistically sensible, once more, it’s acquired quite a lot of ritualistic components to it that we may lean on fairly effectively.”

The sport additionally shares various aesthetic similarities to the collection, particularly Saga’s visions whereas profiling topics, which make use of double-exposure pictures that strongly resembles that of True Detective’s mesmerizing opening titles.

The Twilight Zone

Picture: Picture Leisure

12 months: 1959-1964
Showrunner/creator: Rod Serling
The place to look at: Paramount Plus

The affect of The Twilight Zone on Alan Wake and Alan Wake 2 is most seen in Evening Springs, a fictional in-universe analog for Serling’s personal collection that options a number of quick episodes which seem at varied instances all through the primary recreation. Evening Springs additionally serves as a bridge between Alan Wake and 2019’s Management, with the character of Alan Wake having written a number of episodes of the collection early on in his writing profession, together with the script for an episode referred to as “Over the Threshold Darkly” which eerily mirrors the occasions of Management.

Twin Peaks / Twin Peaks: The Return

Picture: Showtime

12 months: 1990-1991 (Twin Peaks); 2017 (Twin Peaks: The Return)
Showrunners/creators: David Lynch, Mark Frost
Solid: Kyle MacLachlan, Michael Ontkean, Mädchen Amick
The place to look at: Paramount Plus (Twin Peaks); Showtime (Twin Peaks: The Return)

Maybe greater than some other work cited on this checklist, David Lynch and Mark Frost’s supernatural thriller drama towers over all others as essentially the most distinguished affect on not solely the Alan Wake collection, however on Lake. The fictional Pacific Northwest city of Twin Peaks is a direct inspiration behind Alan Wake’s personal Brilliant Falls, the Darkish Place is a closely impressed by the extradimensional liminal area of Twin Peaks’ Black Lodge, and even the character of Cynthia Weaver within the unique recreation is instantly impressed by Margaret Lanterman, the so-called “Log Woman” in Twin Peaks. That’s not even delving into the parallels between Alan Wake 2 and Twin Peaks: The Return, which picks up 25 years after the occasions of the unique collection and follows its protagonist escaping from a sinister alternate dimension to face off towards his evil doppelganger.

Additionally, each Alan Wake and Twin Peaks function tons of espresso — with some rattling superb cups, in the event you ask the proper individuals.