Editorials
Why ‘Control’ is at its Best When it Puts the Guns Down
Ever since the release of Max Payne, it was clear that Remedy Games was capable of creating a satisfying combat loop. Control (Bloody Disgusting’s Game of 2019) is no exception, giving players a delightful combination of tight gunplay and entertaining powers that keep the combat encounters fresh even when the enemy variety isn’t the strongest. There’s a smart design decision that ties both the gun ammo and powers to separate meters that recharge individually, forcing you to swap between them while waiting for one to refill, creating a symphony of chaos. Throwing up a shield, blasting away with your Service Weapons, then hurling a desk at a crowd of people while levitating away to a higher ground will always be satisfying.
As much as I love that loop, it’s not my favorite element of Control. What stands out to me the most is the unique mood it creates through a combination of setting and world-building. Your journey through Control takes you to strange parts of the seemingly boring brutalist building known only as the Oldest House. In my opinion, Control is at its most interesting when these missions take your gun away and force you to contend solely with the weird and wonderful world it presents.
—–SPOILERS FOR CONTROL—-
Even though the game grabbed me right out of the gate, the first time I sat up and said “this game is something special” was the first time I pulled an out of place light switch cord and was transported to the simple, yet enigmatic Oceanview Motel. It’s one of the first times where the game takes away your powers and gun, instead, focusing on puzzle solving. It’s a jarring move at first, but eventually seeing that light switch cord elicited a Pavlovian response in me, getting me ready for another moment of brilliant surrealism.
In fiction, the Oceanview Motel is a “Place of Power” that acts as an interdimensional travel hub. Notes in the game describe how it was first accessed during an Altered World Event in 1992 when the aforementioned light switch cord was discovered to be at the center of a series of disappearances in Butte, Montana. Agents discovered that the cord transported them to the Oceanview after being pulled three times, and performing a ritual there allowed them to open a mysterious door with an inverted black pyramid, transporting them to the Oldest House.
The Oceanview operates entirely on dream logic, creating some of the most interesting puzzles outside of early Silent Hill games. Much like P.T., you revisit this same space over and over again, with things subtly changing, challenging you to figure out the obtuse ‘ritual’ needed to get the key for the black pyramid door. With no combat possible, it’s clear that you can only progress by observing and interacting with the environment. It never explicitly tells you how to get through, but it does a smart job of communicating solutions without being obvious.
The first time you go there, the only thing you can touch is a bell at the front desk. Since you got there by pulling the cord three times, you can make the leap that maybe everything here operates by threes. Ring the bell three times and a door opens giving you the key. A later iteration, one of my favorite Oceanview puzzles, involves you going between nearly identical rooms, adjusting things to make them the same, again without communicating directly that this is what you need to do. In a world where most “puzzles” involve just finding the right key for the right door, it’s refreshing to have a game not only give you something to rack your brain, but also trusts you to be able to make logical leaps. If you still had access to your powers here, you would likely be searching for a solution with those, so limiting your verbs lets you engage with the surreal setting in a direct way.
The final chapter in Control uses these limits to outstanding effect, playing with the conventions of the video game medium itself to make its point. After the rollercoaster ride of the Ashtray Maze and the seemingly climactic release of Polaris, the player is transported to an average, day-to-day version of the offices in the Oldest House, casting protagonist Jesse as an office assistant. Sticky notes on a corkboard tell you to do menial tasks like picking up coffee cups and scanning forms, which is oddly reflected in your mission log. As the player, you know this is wrong, but you perform these tasks anyway as Jesse slowly comes to the realization of what’s going on, changing your objectives as you go. It’s a beautiful illustration of how you can take the language of video games to communicate something about the mindset of the character.
Control is a rare game that can do different ends of the spectrum extremely well. While the Ashtray Maze is a memorable adrenaline rush likely to end up on several “Best Gaming Moments of 2019” lists, quiet moments like the Oceanview Motel are what end up staying with me the most. The lore notes of the game communicate a strange and wonderful tone, and the moments where they take away the action and force you to interact with the world directly allow you to fully live out that tone through gameplay, rather than getting the information secondhand.
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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