Reviews
‘The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil in Me’ Review – A Satisfying Season Finale That’s Still Rough Around the Edges
Supermassive Games has positioned itself as the face of choice-based survival-horror. Since its 2015 smash-hit, Until Dawn, the studio has teetered the line of triumphs and mishaps with its Dark Pictures Anthology, as well as Until Dawn’s spiritual successor, The Quarry. The games are essentially horror movies where you’re placed at the helm of deciding who lives and who dies–a formula that has been explored in other games like Telltale’s The Walking Dead or Dontnod’s Vampyr. The first three entries of The Dark Pictures Anthology have been divisive: while praised in many ways, they’ve also each carried unique flaws as well. The latest entry, The Devil In Me, which is dubbed the “season one finale” of the anthology, is certainly an anthology highlight; however, it has some quirks of its own that can’t be overlooked.
Stepping away from psychological scares and supernatural creature features, The Devil In Me is the most true step in the traditional slasher direction for the anthology yet, and the closest to replicating the campy slasher tropes of Until Dawn. A ragtag crew of five filmmakers desperate to save their company are serendipitously invited by a stranger to film in a replica of serial killer H. H. Holmes’ famous Murder Castle. The catch–which oddly doesn’t seem to bother the crew–is that they don’t know much of anything about the person who has invited them, that they’re forced to forfeit all of their phones, and that the hotel is in the middle of an isolated island.
The tropeiness is a bit on the nose, but it’s fun and classic–the sense of tension is palpable, and Supermassive took extra care to fully lean into the slasher genre. Like previous entries in the anthology, a continued highlight is how The Devil In Me takes inspiration from seminal horror classics and incorporates it into the cinematography. Expect POV shots from the killer watching the characters that you’re controlling a la Black Christmas or Halloween, which is incorporated seamlessly for a setting like a booby-trap laced mansion and a killer molded to be as sinister as H. H. Holmes.
In terms of gameplay and performance, it’s a bit more of a mixed bag that may be more reliant on personal preference. On the plus side, Supermassive has implemented expansive accessibility options that range from easier to read audio and visual queues, to more simplified versions of quick-time-events (QTEs), which had been scrutinized for being a bit too unforgiving in the past.
When it comes to actual gameplay, the verdict sits more on middle-ground. In an effort to combat linearity, The Devil In Me is the most interactive title of the series to date–for better or worse. Personally, I enjoyed the interactive additions. Simple puzzles, like moving a dumpster to help me climb up a wall or hunting through documents to find a numerical code needed to advance, made it feel more like a classic horror game and helped maintain my attention. However, I could see how this could be a hindrance for folks who are seeking out the more choice-based-movie angle of the game who don’t want to get slowed down by having to solve puzzles. I preferred the slowdown that the puzzles provided, as it allowed tension to build again after narrowly avoiding being killed, but again, I can see this being a divisive aspect.
Unfortunately, I was surprised with the lack of polish that The Devil In Me had in comparison to its predecessors. As someone who has played both single player and multiplayer modes of every previous title, this was by far the glitchiest experience I’ve had with the anthology to date. These glitches ranged from minor quirks, like characters levitating through crevices that they should be squeezing through, to one character appearing in a cutscene alive and well despite being crushed to death by a wall just moments before.
Other times, in multiplayer, the game would arbitrarily decide that one player had “failed” certain QTEs despite being completed properly, leading to some frustrating deaths that felt unfair. There’s also a noticeable decline in character graphics–while the vocal performances are fine, the character expressions look notably more stiff and awkward, which is jarring given that this wasn’t an issue in any previous game. I can’t help but feel that The Devil In Me was more of a rushed product than the previous entries, but this could potentially be fixed with near-future patches.
Rearing back to the plot and characters, they’re some of the best of the anthology thus far. The killer is the most viscerally frightening antagonist to date (which is no surprise given the serial killer he’s based off of). He’s an omnipresent predator that likes to chase and play with his food, leading to some devastating traps with near impossible choices, and some pretty gnarly death scenes. Even if you don’t vibe with the entire cast of main characters, you’re sure to pick out at least one or two members of Lonnit Entertainment that you’ll fight tooth and nail to keep alive through the night. I resonated most with the girls of the group (including Kate, portrayed by Academy Award nominee Jessie Buckley), who each exhibited Final Girl qualities in one way or another when they weren’t running away screaming down the halls Scooby-Doo style with the killer chasing them.
Without spoiling anything, some of my favorite aspects of The Devil In Me involve its lore and endings, which I’d argue will be very satisfying for fans of the series who have felt prior titles had trouble sticking the landing. There’s quite a few possible endings, each with interesting implications, including an extremely devastating ending that can only be achieved through specific means. I’d argue The Devil In Me has the most alluring replay value of the entire anthology.
The Devil In Me is an effective and satisfying conclusion to the first round of games in The Dark Pictures Anthology. It’s been an exciting ride seeing how each new game builds off of its predecessor, and The Devil In Me is a clear amalgamation of Supermassive Games’ lessons learned of the past three years since the anthology’s inaugural release of Man of Medan. While it did have some surprising pitfalls in terms of performance and polish, I can easily see The Devil In Me sitting firm near the top of many fans’ rankings of the anthology.
If you’re eager to book a stay at the Murder Castle, The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil In Me is available on Playstation 4 & 5, Xbox One, and PC.
Reviews
“AHS: Delicate” Review – “Little Gold Man” Mixes Oscar Fever & Baby Fever into the Perfect Product
‘AHS: Delicate’ enters early labor with a fun, frenzied episode that finds the perfect tone and goes for broke as its water breaks.
“I’ll figure it out. Women always do.”
American Horror Story is no stranger to remixing real-life history with ludicrous, heightened Murphy-isms, whether it’s AHS: 1984’s incorporation of Richard Ramirez, AHS: Cult’s use of Valerie Solanas, or AHS: Coven’s prominent role for the Axeman of New Orleans. Accordingly, it’s very much par for the course for AHS: Delicate to riff on other pop culture touchstones and infinitely warp them to its wicked whims. That being said, it takes real guts to do a postmodern feminist version of Rosemary’s Baby and then actually put Mia Farrow – while she’s filming Rosemary’s Baby, no less – into the narrative. This is the type of gonzo bullshit that I want out of American Horror Story! Sharon Tate even shows up for a minute because why the hell not? Make no mistake, this is completely absurd, but the right kind of campy absurdity that’s consistently been in American Horror Story’s wheelhouse since its inception. It’s a wild introduction that sets up an Oscar-centric AHS: Delicate episode for success. “Little Gold Man” is a chaotic episode that’s worth its weight in gold and starts to bring this contentious season home.
It’d be one thing if “Little Gold Man” just featured a brief detour to 1967 so that this season of pregnancy horror could cross off Rosemary’s Baby from its checklist. AHS: Delicate gets more ambitious with its revisionist history and goes so far as to say that Mia Farrow and Anna Victoria Alcott are similarly plagued. “Little Gold Man” intentionally gives Frank Sinatra dialogue that’s basically verbatim from Dex Harding Sr., which indicates that this demonic curse has been ruffling Hollywood’s feathers for the better part of a century. Anna Victoria Alcott’s Oscar-nominated feature film, The Auteur, is evidently no different than Rosemary’s Baby. It’s merely Satanic forces’ latest attempt to cultivate the “perfect product.” “Little Gold Man” even implies that the only reason that Mia Farrow didn’t go on to make waves at the 1969 Academy Awards and ends up with her twisted lot in life is because she couldn’t properly commit to Siobhan’s scheme, unlike Anna.
This is easily one of American Horror Story’s more ridiculous cold opens, but there’s a lot of love for the horror genre and Hollywood that pumps through its veins. If Hollywood needs to be a part of AHS: Delicate’s story then this is actually the perfect connective tissue. On that note, Claire DeJean plays Sharon Tate in “Little Gold Man” and does fine work with the brief scene. However, it would have been a nice, subtle nod of continuity if AHS: Delicate brought back Rachel Roberts who previously portrayed Tate in AHS: Cult. “Little Gold Man” still makes its point and to echo a famous line from Jennifer Lynch’s father’s television masterpiece: “It is happening again.”
“Little Gold Man” is rich in sequences where Anna just rides the waves of success and enjoys her blossoming fame. She feels empowered and begins to finally take control of her life, rather than let it push her around and get under her skin like a gestating fetus. Anna’s success coincides with a colossal exposition dump from Tavi Gevinson’s Cora, a character who’s been absent for so long that we were all seemingly meant to forget that she was ever someone who was supposed to be significant. Cora has apparently been the one pulling many of Anna’s strings all along as she goes Single White Female, rather than Anna having a case of Repulsion. It’s an explanation that oddly works and feeds into the episode’s more general message of dreams becoming nightmares. Cora continuing to stay aligned with Dr. Hill because she has student loans is also somehow, tragically the perfect explanation for her abhorrent behavior. It’s not the most outlandish series of events in an episode that also briefly gives Anna alligator legs and makes Emma Roberts and Kim Kardashian kiss.
“Little Gold Man” often feels like it hits the fast-forward button as it delivers more answers, much in the same vein as last week’s “Ava Hestia.” These episodes are two sides of the same coin and it’s surely no coincidence that they’re both directed by Jennifer Lynch. This season has benefitted from being entirely written by Halley Feiffer – a first for the series – but it’s unfortunate that Lynch couldn’t direct every episode of AHS: Delicate instead of just four out of nine entries. That’s not to say that a version of this season that was unilaterally directed by Lynch would have been without its issues. However, it’s likely that there’d be a better sense of synergy across the season with fewer redundancies. She’s responsible for the best episodes of AHS: Delicate and it’s a disappointment that she won’t be the one who closes the season out in next week’s finale.
To this point, “Little Gold Man” utilizes immaculate pacing that helps this episode breeze by. Anna’s Oscar nomination and the awards ceremony are in the same episode, whereas it feels like “Part 1” of the season would have spaced these events out over four or five episodes. This frenzied tempo works in “Little Gold Man’s” favor as AHS: Delicate speed-runs to its finish instead of getting lost in laborious plotting and unnecessary storytelling. This is how the entire season should have been. Although it’s also worth pointing out that this is by far the shortest episode of American Horror Story to date at only 34 minutes. It’s a shame that the season’s strongest entries have also been the ones with the least amount of content. There could have been a whole other act to “Little Gold Man,” or at the least, a substantially longer cold open that got more out of its Mia Farrow mayhem.
“Little Gold Man” is an American Horror Story episode that does everything right, but is still forced to contend with three-quarters of a subpar season. “Part 2” of AHS: Delicate actually helps the season’s first five episodes shine brighter in retrospect and this will definitely be a season that benefits from one long binge that doesn’t have a six-month break in the middle. Unfortunately, anyone who’s already watched it once will likely not feel compelled to experience these labor pains a second time over. With one episode to go and Anna’s potential demon offspring ready to greet the world, AHS: Delicate is poised to deliver one hell of a finale.
Although, to paraphrase Frank Sinatra, “How do you expect to be a good conclusion if this is what you’re chasing?”
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