The Big Chill

The entrance to the Fun and Games arcade in Framingham, Mass. makes visitors feel like they’re boarding a spacecraft. Silver doors with nearly opaque window panels slide open to reveal a metallic catwalk, which is surrounded by strobing lights that suggest you are entering hyperspace. For a kid, it makes you feel like you’re blasting off from the drab strip malls of Route 9 on an intergalactic adventure. That’s before you step inside to find that the place feels like—well, like a dingy video arcade.

When I was young, the arcade had a dubious reputation. You didn’t go there after dark, and rumors of gang activity ran rampant among my classmates. Never mind that I never encountered so much as a raised voice in there—in the gloomy atmosphere of the place, the rumors felt true. The sensation was bolstered by the arcade’s collection of violent games, games my parents never would have allowed in our house. But in the darkness of the arcade, with three kids to track, my dad cast a blind eye.

Along the back wall, nestled alongside the rest of the old and forgotten machines, was the most gruesome and pointless videogame I have ever played. Chiller was an early light-gun game, made in 1986 and still lingering in Fun and Games in the early 1990s. To call it “horror-themed” would be accurate, but unduly complimentary. Cultural warriors would make hay in later years of calling games “murder simulators,” but Chiller was something even worse: a torture simulator.

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