Its hard to say what makes this “game” so scary.
I had some challenges grasping the rewind concept (playing on PC with the mouse) so I got to The One rather late, during a Two of Everything scene where she (it) swooshed in full black&white size on screen and scared the shit out of me since I wasn’t really expecting anything after so many attempts.
The layered and complex story seems to be impenetrable at the beginning, but as you progress, the pieces fall nicely into place – for a deeply sad, tragic story of the immortal spirit caught (willingly) in the violent fire of humanity.
Its one of those very rare situations where sound, cinematography, story and acting all fit together for an exceptionally charismatic and (scarily) memorable experience. I always had this tinge of a feeling that VCR rewind was a bit uncanny, a bit unsettling to look at, but telling to “rewind this tape slowly and you might see something strange” puts for quite a different quality of creepiness to that.
Funnily, to explain what this .. game.. is about and to do it a credit it deserves by that explanation is almost impossible. I tried to enthusiastically explain it to a few friends but I think they thought both myself and the game don’t make any sense.
(eerily, it looks as if she is looking straight at you, but she actually looks above the camera, I think, – rotate to see)
“Your candle is burning”, The One says
There were so many clips worth rewatching just for their own sake, I dont remember which one I liked best. But one is clear: the actress playing Marissa Marcel is simply phenomenal and I should keep an eye on all her future works. To be fair, just as everyone else from the Immortality team.