WWLTP | We Would Like To Play
Gaming News. Esports. Movies. Music. Culture.
Unhinged: A Brief Immersion Into a Psycho’s Wet Dream
Get your mind out of the gutter. It takes place during a hurricane. Netflix drops players into a storm-ravaged apartment complex, hands them a phone, and says, “Good luck, because that knife-wielding maniac is not here to discuss building policy.”
Mr. Netflix Enters the Horror Arena
Get your mind out of the gutter. I mean it takes place during a hurricane. Mr. Netflix has finally thrown his hat into the interactive gaming arena with a new offering. Unhinged is an interactive, choice-driven horror experience that places a lone woman inside a storm-ravaged apartment complex with no one except a friend helping her by phone.
This is more interactive horror movie than traditional videogame. These types of games are not new. We, meaning the thirty-five-and-up crowd, remember Night Trap, Brain Dead 13, and Dirk the Daring of Dragon’s Lair. The biggest difference here is that you are not just watching the action and making tiny little choices like you are deciding between mild sauce and medium sauce. You are in the action, and every choice could mean death.
The Phone Is the Controller, the Lifeline, and the Problem
Developed by Night School Studio, the game’s use of your smartphone as both controller and in-game lifeline is one of its smartest ideas. Every incoming call feels suspicious instead of merely annoying. That is an achievement, because most of us already look at unknown numbers like they are jump scares with area codes.
The presentation is fantastic. The lighting is moody, the sound design deserves to be played with headphones, and the voice cast elevates what could have been just another haunted-house sprint. If you have ever wanted your living room to feel like the least safe room in your house, congratulations, Netflix has you covered.
Play It With the Lights Off
Do yourself a favor: play with the lights off and crank up the sound. Even the storm sounds coupled with the lightning effects are excellent. They even went so far as to make outside scenes blurry at times to simulate water getting in your eyes.
That is the kind of nasty little detail I respect. It is uncomfortable. It is annoying. It is effective. The rain is not just background noise. The storm becomes part of the pressure. The lightning becomes part of the pacing. The phone becomes a blessing one second and a liability the next.
Where Unhinged Stumbles
Where Unhinged stumbles is in its ambition. Just when the tension reaches its boiling point, the credits roll. Finishing the game in around half an hour leaves you wanting more, which is both a compliment and a complaint.
Some players will appreciate the bite-sized format. Others will feel like they ordered a full-course horror meal and got served an appetizer with excellent seasoning. It tastes good, but now I am looking around the room like, “That is it? That was the whole plate?”
Some of the choices occasionally feel more cosmetic than consequential. The illusion of control is convincing enough in the moment, but once the curtain is pulled back, some branching paths begin to resemble a haunted hallway with several doors that all lead to the same basement.
The Good
- Immersion: The smartphone-as-controller idea is smart, tense, and perfect for this kind of horror.
- Sound Design: The storm, footsteps, calls, silence, and lightning all work together like a horror orchestra with bad intentions.
- Visual Presentation: Moody lighting and rain-blurred scenes make the apartment complex feel nasty and alive.
- Accessibility: It is easy to jump into, especially for Netflix viewers who do not normally play traditional games.
- Pacing: It moves fast and wastes very little time.
The Bad
- Short Runtime: Around thirty minutes is tight. Maybe too tight.
- Choice Depth: Some choices feel more like flavor than true consequence.
- More Please: The world, villain, and setup could have supported a longer experience.
The Ugly
The knife-wielding psycho and his hobby of playing with victims’ entrails. That is the ugly. That is the sentence. That man needs therapy, a jail cell, and a hobby that does not involve sharp objects.
Final Verdict
Unhinged will not replace your favorite survival horror classics, but it does not need to. It is tense, stylish, surprisingly immersive, and refreshingly easy to jump into. It is more of a haunted elevator ride than a full haunted mansion, but that elevator is stuck between floors and somebody with a knife is breathing on the other side of the door.
Fortunately, the pacing is brisk enough. And let’s be real: they have to squeeze all of this into a thirty-minute scenario that includes phone calls, text streams, storm effects, stalking sequences, and a psycho with cutlery issues. Given the time constraints, they did a hellified job.
