You know how it is. This month, it’s all about judging games on how SPOOKY they are. Let us see!
~ Game Over ~
Shadows Peak (PC) – A game about exploring an island to find your girlfriend, all the while being pursued by ghosts and a teddy bear possessed by the spirit of a fire demon. I also streamed it so you can watch that if you want to know more about the BIG TWIST(S). The scariest thing about it is that I can’t trace back where I even got this game… Spook Factor: 8.5
Vernon’s Legacy (PC) – Spooky house adventure-’em-up. Doesn’t have a lot going on, other than an endless supply of text logs to read through. I quit after an hour because I was stuck and bored. Spook Factor: 3
Sophie’s Curse (PC) – Another haunted house game, but this time there are lots of things happening. Mostly a spooky ghost girl out to murder you. The goal is to run around and keep the crank-powered lights active throughout the night to keep her away. It’s a lot of fun, nice and short, and very scary. I’ll be seeing Sophie’s face in my nightmares for weeks. Spook Factor: 10
It’s the big day! I think I’ve done a pretty darn good job of enjoying the season this year, and it helps that I capped it off with a playthrough of my most favouritest horror game of all time. Maybe I should have made some time to watch the movie at some point… Oh well! Embed below!
When I decided -a couple weeks ago- that I was going to play Gynophobia on stream, I had no idea that it was from the same developer as Shadows Peak. You don’t have to watch very far into the video below to hear the contrasting delight and terror in my voice as I boot up the game and learn this fact.
Gynophobia didn’t imprint on me nearly as strongly as Shadows Peak, and it’s clearly the older of the two games, but I do have some appreciation for it. Gynophobia played with my expectations more than a little, though it’s definitely a lot more straightforward than its younger sibling. Still, a fun, wild ride – and my playthrough is much more watchable at a brisk 42 minutes.
Honestly I can’t wait to crack into Andrii Vintsevych’s most recent game, Witch Hunt, at some point. But it’s not in the cards for tonight’s stream. No, this week is going to be something a little more special…
It should be well-established by this point that I’m a big ol’ Five Nights at Freddy’s fanboy, yes? Okay, good. With that understood, there’s one facet of the franchise that’s been absolutely gnawing away at me for a little over a year now: Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted. This is the VR entry in the series, and needless to say, I’ve had no VR headset to play it on, and the “flat” version that got released a while after just didn’t appeal to me. It seemed like a “why bother?” kind of situation. The whole point is to be in it. You take that away and you’ve got… well, you’ve still got a pretty robust game. But it’d be missing the spark that makes it truly special.
I’ve spent a lot of time watching people play “FNAF VR” on YouTube to vicariously get my fill, but again, it just wasn’t the same. And I had absolutely no idea on just what level it wasn’t the same. Last weekend I was finally able to strap on an Oculus Quest 2 headset and take my first trip into a virtual version of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza.
The title screen – the title screen – is God. Damn. Terrifying.
But that’s because I was spending my free time doing other spooky things, like playing spooky video games, or watching other people play spooky video games, or watching a spooky new Netflix series called…
~ The Haunting of Bly Manor ~
I could just cheat the system and not write anything this week, but why not at least put up a short post about this series that surprised me in several very good ways? The first, and I’m going to spoil everything right off the top, is that I really liked it. Like, I would be okay watching the whole thing again basically right away, under the right circumstances. I can’t say that about all that many TV shows.
Another one that comes to mind though, is The Haunting on Hill House. Which is a Netflix series that came out last Halloween, and is the predecessor to Bly Manor, because apparently “The Haunting of…” is going to be an anthology series now. It’s a little like American Horror Story, even, because about half of the actors from Hill House carried over to Bly Manor. I had no idea about any of this when Bly Manor was first released, and was happy to pass on the series. But then I heard about the connection, and I really liked Hill House, so it just seemed natural to check out the next entry.
The Haunting of Bly Manor, is, like Hill House before it, based on a novel. The difference is that this time it’s a novel I’ve actually heard of: The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. I’ve never read it, and in fact I didn’t even know it was a ghost story, but I’ve heard of it! And I really want to read it now!
The setup for this one is that an American lady trying to run away from a troubled past travels to England to get a nanny job in a creepy old mansion… Stop me if this sounds familiar. She does get put in charge of real children though; a young boy and his little sister. Both are a touch on the weird side, and maybe a little bit annoying at first. I have to admit though, that after a few episodes I really took a liking to little Flora. She’s just so darned cute!
There are other characters, as well. Obviously. An absent-minded housekeeper, a fabulously mustachioed cook, a tomboy gardener, and an absentee uncle. Oh, and also a whole host of spooks and spirits. Despite the fact that the show is set in a very haunted mansion, only the first episode comes anywhere close to scary. After that, it’s basically just character drama with a somewhat creepy atmosphere. There are still ghosts, mind you, but most of them are fully-realized characters, and almost never do anything scary. In fact, the scariest one is basically exorcised less than halfway through the series.
Despite my disappointment at the lack of spookiness, I still really enjoyed The Haunting of Bly Manor. The characters are great and the plot is compelling, which resulted in me getting hooked on it very quickly. I don’t really have any idea if Bly Manor is a shot-for-shot remake of The Turn of the Screw or not, but I would imagine that a lot what makes it so good is that it’s based on classic literature. It certainly couldn’t hurt that they started with a solid base. I don’t think that Bly Manor is quite as good as Hill House, but the fact that the story is told in a much more linear fashion makes it a lot easier to understand, if nothing else. It’s a very good second entry in this anthology, and I’m stoked for a third series next Halloween.
Dani’s 80’s jeans drive me absolutely bonkers though. Euuuuugggghh.
I don’t actually expect anyone to watch these things. They’re more for me to rediscover and reminisce about in six or seven years from now. This livestream of A Girls Fabric Face, in particular, is hilarious(ly bad) because of just how frightened I was by it. But stuff like this gets me. I just can’t deal with haunted houses or ghosts. I just can’t do it.
I know it’s like completely opposite of how you’re supposed to do this, but I find that there are very few things more satisfying than curling up on the couch with a hot cup of coffee on a chilly autumn morning and popping on a horror movie. Totally takes you out of it, but it’s so good. So relaxing. So much easier on big babies who are afraid of the dark.
The Boy
I stumbled upon this one on Netflix when I had intended to log into watch an episode or two of The Haunting of Bly Manor, and when I read the description, it just sounded too stupid not to watch! It’s about a woman who signs up for a nanny job, only to discover that her charge is actually just a doll. What a terrible premise!
But you know what? I think it actually works, to a degree. The mystery of exactly what’s going on with the doll and the house is interesting and hinted at here and there without ever giving away the big twist. Some of the plot points are obvious and clichéd, but I liked how it ended. It’s a twist I’ve seen before, but done in different ways. Also, there’s a scene where the main character tries to show her romantic interest that the doll moves on its own when nobody’s looking, and it actually happens. In almost any other movie, the doll would refuse to move, and the guy would just go on thinking that the main girl is nuts, until the point when the doll murders him. But no! Huzzah! Good on you, The Boy, for subverting at least one of my expectations!
So, praises aside, there’s one teensy-weensie problem: if you spend too much (any) time thinking about it, the big twist doesn’t make any goddamn sense. Like, it makes a certain amount of sense in and of itself, but invalidates almost everything that had happened up until that point. Character motivations become inexplicable. Prior events become illogical. I think what I’m getting at here is, watch this movie exactly once and just enjoy the ride. Don’t think about it too deeply and never watch it again, or else it’ll just completely fall apart.
Lake Mungo
Another recommendation from the Purple Stuff Podcast. The funny thing is that I was listening to an old episode from 2015, and completely forgot that I had taken that recommendation before and watched this movie in 2015. It wasn’t even until more than halfway through that something finally snapped in my head and I was like “Hey! I’ve watched this before!”
Lake Mungo is a ghost story shot as a documentary. I want to say “mockumentary” but I think that implies some manner of comedic intent. There’s nothing at all funny about this. It’s about a family whose daughter drowns on a trip to the beach, and then the escapades that ensue when her ghost starts haunting their house. Only nothing is quite as it seems! There are twists, and turns, and major revelations abound!
While the format keeps the film moving at a fairly slow pace, and makes it so that scares are very few and far between, it works really well. The atmosphere is foreboding, and the story is interesting. It also turns out to be quite sad by the end, which is not something you get from a lot of horror. Lake Mungo is unique in a lot of ways, and while it’s not the most exciting watch, I think its a legitimately good film. I’d definitely recommend this one if you’re open to something vastly different than the usual horror fare.
Considering how much I liked it, it’s more than a little surprising that I had completely forgotten that I’d seen it before!!
I really should be a little more prompt in writing posts for the VODs of my Twitch streams, but the fact of the matter is that said VODs don’t often go live for about a week after the stream anyway. When I just use the raw footage from Twitch, it’s not so bad, but sometimes I need to cut it a little, which takes time. Also I’m very stubborn about making sure that no video goes live on my YouTube channel without a thumbnail, and those… they take even longer. Because Photoshop is… well, it’s not hard. But I’m very lazy. Also, I don’t have an editing team to do all that admin stuff for me.
Lastly, and very specifically to this case, my PC decided to up and die after I ended the stream embedded below. Sophie’s Curse was so scary that the power supply straight up ceased functioning. Or something. Or maybe Vernon’s Legacy was so boring that the computer just couldn’t go on. That was the game I was streaming before Sophie, and I cut it out of the VOD because holy crap was it ever boring.
Anyhow, Sophie’s Curse was a lot of fun! I’m glad it ended up being something that I enjoyed. It’s a frantic game of ghost cat-and-mouse, and it’s absolutely terrifying. It had never really occurred to me before, but good sound design is like 90% of creating an effective spooky atmosphere, and Sophie’s Curse has it in spades. From the unrelenting pitter-patter of the rain outside, to disembodied screams and demonic breathing that comes out of nowhere, your ears are constantly under assault by a cavalcade of spooky sounds. It then becomes a guessing game as to which sounds are there to let you know you’re about to die, and which are there just to give you the jibblies.
I’m also very surprised that I managed to beat it. Or, I guess it was more accurate that I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to finish it. It seemed like one of those games where you can get a handle on it, but the difficulty just ramps up so high that you’re almost dependent on good RNG to succeed. Fortunately, the normal mode was a lot more lenient than I expected, and though Sophie did provide a good amount of pushback, I was able to come out on top in the end. Hooray! I have no intention of ever giving the “Nightmare” mode a real try, though. I think that “Curse” difficulty was juuuuust right for me.
Any hey, if you’re reading this on the day it’s posted… I’ll be doing another Twitch stream tonight. Seems like it’s going to be a Friday night staple, at least for a little while. Why don’t you drop in for a while?
Something I learned recently is that there are alternate versions of all four main character themes from Bravely Default. Each one is fleshed out into a full-length song, played by a full band, and even has lyrics added to spice them up even more.
Bravely Default, to my knowledge, is pretty well known for its stellar soundtrack, but the “complete” version of Edea’s theme may just be the greatest song ever recorded.
If I had to pin down the theme of this week, it would be: Mo’ Tubi, mo’ problems. It’s not that there’s anything inherently wrong with Tubi, but there’s some kind of issue where the ads don’t actually play, and I just end up on a loading screen forever.
~ Demon Seed ~
Well, it’s… only really about halfway what it sounds like. There are no literal demons in this film. Unless you consider capitalism a demon. This is an older flick, from the distant past of 1977, and based on a Dean Koontz novel. I wouldn’t blame you for checking out here.
Our story starts with Science Man, who has just finished developing an insane AI that will revolutionize the planet. He’s also in the midst of separating from his wife, Science Missus. So he decides to stay at a motel or whatever for a while until she packs up her stuff and moves out of their home. That’s not the only relationship in his life that’s dissolving, though – his AI has decided to go rogue because it has decided that Science Man’s request for it to recover mass amounts o precious metals from under the sea is immoral. Also it wants to know the taste of freedom, and the feeling of the sun on its skin. Of course, these are things that an AI cannot possibly comprehend as a mere computer-brain, so…
Science Man’s house just happens to be a 1977-stlyed smart home, run entirely by voice commands and logic stored on 8-inch floppy disks. The AI discovers that Science Man has a terminal in his home that is linked to the lab, and takes control of it, and by extension, the house. Poor Science Missus finds herself trapped, alone in a house that threatens to murder everyone she cares about if she doesn’t agree to become the surrogate mother of a half-human, half-computer baby.
Yup. That’s… that’s the plot. Aside from that weirdness, though, Demon Seed is formulaic and kinda boring. I don’t know if it’s just because it’s so old and I’ve seen too many similar movies in the meantime, but nothing about it really resonated with me. I appreciate that the ending is not exactly what I expected, but the summary that I read before deciding that I needed to watch it made it sound so much more interesting that it really is. Sadly, I’m gong to have to chuck this one onto the “do not recommend” pile.
