Editorials
[Editorial] ‘Days Gone’ is Dangerously Slow to Start, But Perseverance Pays Off
In spite of that initial and riotous E3 2016 trailer which saw our man Deacon St. John pursued by a monstrous army of Freakers, their vast number spilling through and tumbling over the environment in ways that would make World War Z blush, it’s fair to say that the response to Days Gone in the intervening years has been a touch less enthusiastic.
Much of the muted reception came down to the fact it was soon revealed that Days Gone would be an open-world adventure, that genre designation immediately conjuring cursed images of brain-dulling busywork, a range of content padding, pointless collectibles and more side-missions than you can shake a rotting femur at.
What didn’t help either was that, as launch day approached, it seemed like our worst fears would be realized – that somehow Days Gone had gone from this immensely exciting, zombie horde-style survival sim with a pair of massive, clanging brass balls to something much more pedestrian and, well, despairingly regular.
As it turns out, Days Gone very much does ascribe to that well-worn and frequently practiced open-world game structure that we’ve seen in everything from Watch Dogs to Red Dead Redemption 2, but what isn’t immediately obvious to the discerning eye is just how much nuance is concealed beneath its familiar veneer.
For its sins, Days Gone is not a fast starter. Indeed, it takes a good 10-15 hours of solid play before the Sony Bend Studios product really kicks into gear – something that, understandably, many folks, with varying degrees of open-world fatigue, may be reluctant to put in.
Once that threshold of play has been reached, however, Days Gone begins to yield and properly showcase its hidden depths, and nowhere is this better exemplified than in the Freaker menace that serves as the game’s chief group of antagonists.
Though clearly the labor of a creative melting pot that has frequently bore witness to Danny Boyle’s superb 28 Days Later, the Freakers are nonetheless very much unique nightmares unto themselves as the mutation which drives their homicidal tendencies branches out in a number of interesting ways.
For instance, it isn’t until someway into the Lost Lake map area of the game that players are exposed to the Screamers – an especially creepy variant of the standard Freaker whose melancholy, broken singing acts as a grim precursor to the ear-piercing shriek that follows, bringing down swarms of Freakers onto the player in turn.
Likewise, though the presence of the Breaker variant might seem unsurprising; the massively roided, burly zombie archetype being a staple in games of this ilk since records began, their attitudes to other creatures in the world might not be what you’d expect. Should you find yourself tackling a swarm of Freakers and one of these brutes is lurking nearby, you shouldn’t worry about incurring his wrath as the Breaker will furiously go after the lesser Freakers instead, decimating them with gleeful aplomb as you hastily make your escape.
Then there is the Horde itself – arguably Days Gone‘s star attraction and the one facet of its design which effectively brought it to the dance. Though you glimpse a Horde in the game’s opening minutes, it isn’t until a good few hours later that actually encounter one in the wild.
Most tellingly, when you do properly encounter them for the first time you realize that the terrifying spectacle of their original E3 2016 debut was not exaggerated. A veritable force of nature, each Horde is a murderous engine that consumes everything it touches; a violent and encroaching flood of torn flesh, gnashing teeth and bloody sinew that requires a keen eye and a tactical mind to surmount.
So grandly refreshing is it then that when you destroy your first Horde – utilizing all manner of tools, establishing escape routes and improvising environmental choke-points to funnel your foes into kill-zones for maximum damage, that Days Gone makes you feel like some sort of heady hybrid of MacGuyver and Ricky Grimes from Kirkman’s popular shambler fiction.
And this is the thing, that first handful of hours that you put into Days Gone will hint at none of this, instead, giving the impression that the game is absolutely the sum of its unambitious genre inspirations and nothing more.
Days Gone slow burning reveal of its deeper nuances and mysteries also expands to its storytelling too. What at first seems like a distinctly groan-worthy, Bros-On-Bikes post-apocalyptic jaunt, later on, begins to blossom into a meditation on the desperation to cling on to what came before, that quintessential need to revisit those Days Gone at the expense of everything else.
Days Gone isn’t perfect – that isn’t in dispute, but much like its relentless throng of flesh-torn antagonists, it has depths and sophistication which lurk beneath its vicious, and outwardly familiar face that demand investigation. You just need to put the time in – the apocalypse isn’t over in a day after all.
I first heard about The Mandela Catalogue through a couple of nephews who were obsessed with the ARG’s sinister mythology. It was only after watching Wendigoon’s in-depth analysis of the series that I realized just how deep this rabbit hole goes.
In fact, I’d already been exposed to the nightmarish visuals of Alex Kister’s YouTube creation for years at that point without even realizing that it was the origin of several viral “cursed images” and spooky memes that had leaked into the wider internet – with this viral element actually being a part of the Catalogue’s overarching narrative.
Flash-forward to 2026 and the unprecedented success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms has led to Hollywood betting on horrific internet properties with existing fanbases, which means that Kister’s unique hybrid of both religious and analog horror is finally headed to the big screen with a script written by Kister himself alongside Tyler Clifton.
While this news shouldn’t be too surprising if you’ve been keeping up with the ongoing success of The Mandela Catalogue (both myself and Wendigoon having previously predicted that the series would inevitably make the jump to theaters one day), plenty of horror fans are likely confused as to why so many folks are excited for what appears to be a Hollywood adaptation of a series of creepy .jpeg images under a VHS filter.
With that in mind, today I’d like to invite fellow readers to accompany me as I explore the origins of Alex Kister’s viral hit and attempt to explain exactly why we should all be excited about the Mandela Catalogue adaptation!
From High School Writing Project to Internet Horror Phenomenon
The first seeds of The Mandela Catalogue were sown when Kister was still in high school and developed a writing project subverting religious tropes in a world where biblical history had been altered by demonic forces. A little while later, Kister came across an analog horror contest on Reddit and decided to adapt his ideas into a standalone video where he would edit a religious kids’ cartoon –The Beginner’s Bible: The Nativity, to be specific- into something far creepier. This is how the iconic Overthrone video was born, with this viral short film taking on a life of its own as fans demanded more eerie content from Kister.
Though the video was originally meant to be a one-and-done sort of affair, with Kister actually regretting some of its primitive visuals and considering the editing amateurish and “YouTube-Poop-like” when compared to his current standards, fan reaction and free time during the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged the (then) seventeen-year-old filmmaker to continue producing content set in this same world. The Mandela Catalogue name was inspired by the Mandela Effect conspiracy theory, as the series would slowly begin to explore the subtle horror of alternate histories.
Inspired by existential dread brought on by extended periods of quarantine as well as a personal crisis of faith, Kister continued to expand his alternate timeline where the rise of Christianity had been prevented by what was presumably the Devil disguised as the Archangel Gabriel. This alternate course of fictional events led to the existence of certain paranormal anomalies that had come to be accepted as “normal” by the 1990s, which is why most of the series’ supernatural horror is presented in such a matter-of-fact manner.
Most of this background information and religious lore is delivered by increasingly cryptic broadcasts and in-universe PSAs, as well as the occasional found footage video, that often have to be decoded by clever viewers. Of course, it’s the consistently disturbing imagery that made the series so popular – much of which was originally created by Kister on a smartphone!
The Alternates: Horror’s Most Unsettling Modern Monsters
The show’s early episodes mostly take place within the fictional Mandela County in Wisconsin and depict life in a world where demonic entities are capable of using media to enter our reality. This process usually involves scaring victims into killing themselves and then repurposing their bodies as horrific doppelgangers referred to as “Alternates”. This terrifying phenomenon has become so common that local police already have specialized procedures in place to deal with the issue, though this usually consists of simply ignoring calls for help so as to avoid spreading so-called “Metaphysical Awareness Disorder” any further.
Over time, Kister would expand this mythology and incorporate different kinds of Alternates into the mix, though the story never stopped deconstructing religious concepts. The series’ second volume exponentially increased both video quality and the overall narrative scope as we began to follow the lives of characters who had already grown up in this dystopian hellscape where the government is forced to prohibit religion, television, and even mirrors in the hopes of mitigating the damage done by the ongoing invasion of otherworldly entities.
The really interesting part comes into play when you realize exactly how the Alternates make use of scary media in order to spread their demonic influence, with the analog horror of it all being a diegetic part of the story and something of a memetic trap orchestrated by the false Gabriel.
I particularly appreciate how some characters begin to suspect that there’s something wrong with their version of reality and that things weren’t meant to play out this way, especially when Mark utters the haunting line “who have I been praying to all this time?” That’s why I think The Mandela Catalogue is an effective piece of religious horror even if you don’t subscribe to the Christian worldview, as the mere idea of a world where evil has already won is a universally terrifying concept in and of itself. Not only that, but the series’ uncanny analog imagery alone is already worth the price of admission, as you’ve likely already noticed by looking at the pictures accompanying this article.
Why The Feature Adaptation Could Be Horror’s Next Big Success
It’s actually been a whole year since Kister first announced that he had been working on a feature-length screenplay for a Mandela Catalogue movie since 2022, with his proposed story following an ensemble of high-school graduates who uncover a supernatural conspiracy after the mysterious disappearance of a fellow student. This premise sounds similar to narrative elements present in the series’ second volume, but I’m pretty sure that Kister is going to go the Kane Parsons route and make the movie more of a spin-off than a re-imagining of its source material.
While notable Hollywood producers like Aaron B. Koontz, Scott Stuber, and Steven Spielberg himself are backing the upcoming project, I feel like there’s no one better to adapt this deeply personal exploration of faith and the dark side of communication than the person who first came up with it. That’s why I can’t wait to see Kister’s work on the big screen, as I have a feeling that this young filmmaker is the next one on the list about to make cinematic history – especially since this is clearly a passion project that has been in the works for years at this point!
That being said, there’s always a chance that the film could end up unleashing a fresh wave of Alternate incursions, but I guess that’s just a risk we’ll have to take.
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