Reviews
[Review] ‘Remothered: Tormented Fathers’ Fumbles in the Dark Despite its Initial Promise
Remothered: Tormented Fathers starts off on an existential level. “A name is a trace,” says Madame Svenska, and old woman recounting a tale to one Mr. Manni. “It presents us to the world. But does it tell our story or really describe who we are?” Before cutting to black, Madame Svenska mentions how bizarre her confused memories are to describe — and I couldn’t agree more.
At this point, developer Stormind Games already set the stage for a horror noir. Quick and poetic dialogue, an investigator, a crime, smoking, and bleak, oppressive lighting to present it all. Despite the detail washed out from the darkness emanating from the environments, the game exhibits sweeping cinematography tied to a killer soundtrack composed by Nobuko Toda (Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid) and Luca Balboni (Mine, Watch Them Fall). Both music and visuals pair together well from the start, but presentation alone only holds so much water (or blood).
After the intro, you gain control of Dr. Rosemary Reed investigating the case of a missing child from years ago. Your task? Reach the residence of Dr. Richard Felton. Who’s that? Great question, and one I found myself still asking after the credits rolled.
A small, ominous stroll through the outside grounds of the house captures a chilling sense of tension that echoes through the very corridors of the house you’re approaching. Your attempt at entry is denied by Gloria, Richard’s caretaker, but the house says otherwise. Moving forward, the sound of an old, rusty gate creaking open is the most resistance you’ll encounter.
Once you meet Gloria face-to-face at the door, she lets you in long enough to discover there’s something not quite right about…well, all of it. You manage to meet Richard and ask about his missing child, Celeste, before being escorted out of the house. Rosemary later uncovers the keys to the estate hidden by Gloria and sneaks back into the house after the caretaker leaves for the day.
Upon entering the house, you’re left with one objective: investigate Celeste’s disappearance. Memories of You, the song featured here, sets up an eerie dichotomy between sound and visual design. After hearing that music play over and over again on a loop, it created an odd familiarity while exploring the house for the first time, but it never felt welcoming. You are not meant to be here.
The world Felton lives in is dark. Too dark. Whatever disease he contracted disrupted his eyesight, so he lives out his days drenched in darkness. A lot of the environmental detail in the house is drowned out by the lack of light, but there doesn’t seem to be a lot in the house to examine. Most interactive objects you find are objects thrown for distraction, but you can find some melee weapons (knife, hatchet, whatever you can find) to be used for self-defense. If you don’t have one, things can get real gory real quick. Eyes gouged in, nail gun to the face, impalement — even moths get in on the potential murder spree. Well, if you could see them. There’s so much terror hiding in the dark, but the darkness often dampens their impact.
Throwing your distraction object can stagger enemies, giving you plenty of time to find a hiding place. Hiding adds a complementary tension and often requires your input. None of them ask much more than spamming shoulder buttons or moving the analog stick around, but their approachability lets you focus on the environmental and cinematic storytelling.
The house is comprised of four floors with an elevator connecting each one. Of course, the elevator doesn’t work, so you’re resigned to creep up and down the stairs surrounding the elevator and leading into each floor’s main hallway. The middle two floors are the largest but are plagued by locked doors that open via story completion, making the house feel a little more linear than it looks. The top floor is by far the smallest; be careful not to trap yourself up there.
While nowhere is completely safe, the basement is the only place I felt any semblance of “safety.” There are enough hiding places and reasons to go down there throughout the game, so that was where I ran — and I ran there often, but not for fear of death, for lack of care. Even with just one measly sewing needle, Rosemary feels a bit too strong to feel any real fear.
You can dodge enemy attacks, given the stamina. You can heal your health at save points (at the cost of a cracking mirror); you can even outrun most enemies you encounter, creating a momentary game of cat-and-mouse before rolling under a couch. With that, Remothered: Tormented Fathers relies on a combination of jump scares and narrative delivery to creep you out, and the introduction of The Red Nun is a haunting first impression I won’t soon forget.
Rosemary wearing high heels while sneaking around is inherently fantastic, if not a bit mood-breaking. Sneaking around comes in handy once you know what you need to do and need to outmaneuver an enemy to do it. Otherwise, it’s a rather slow and cumbersome way to navigate the house once you learn the layout (and the idea that you’re…kind of hard to kill).
But what exactly is it that you’re doing this whole time? You rarely know. In all this darkness, you must tackle a mystery through puzzle-solving while avoiding death. Putting item A in slot B will unlock key item C, which you can use to…you get the idea. You’ll eventually discover a couple documents that help shed a little light on the story, and, possibly, a hint about where to go or what to do to progress.
Solving one in-game puzzle multiplies the amount of information needed to put the story together. The game’s narrative is impossible to condense, and its delivery can be cryptic to the point of confusion. As the first part of a trilogy, Remothered: Tormented Fathers offers an intriguing, obscure tale smothered by its own mystery.
PC Review code provided by the developer.
Remothered: Tormented Fathers is out now on PC, PS4, and X1
Movies
‘Recluse’ Review – Harrowing Haunted House Horror With Lots Of Skeletons In Its Closet [Tribeca 2026]
A haunted house story is tense, terrifying storytelling when it’s properly executed. There’s been a growing tendency in horror to blend together harrowing haunted house stories with traumatic homecomings. A family member’s illness or death triggers a return to something dark that was intentionally left behind. Recluse hits all the tropes that one expects to find in this type of horror film, yet it manages to push this story in a daring, disturbing new direction that uses sound as a superpower.
It’s a unique lens to experience a familiar story about family secrets, generational trauma, unresolved grief, and the importance of not just legacy, but preservation. It’s a hell of a directorial debut from Henry Chaisson that’s guaranteed to get under the audience’s skin as they’re dragged through this painful, toxic tale.
Recluse is a gothic haunted house story where an isolated audio engineer, Joan (Sasha Frolova), returns to her family’s estate to check in on her father after he suffers a terrible accident. Joan suddenly discovers something much more sinister that paints her family’s tragedies in a very different light. Chaisson’s debut functions as a fascinating companion piece to this year’s undertone, which does a lot of the same things.
These two films make for a fascinating case of parallel thinking that tackles comparable subject matter through a similar lens, albeit in a bigger, less claustrophobic story in Recluse’s case. In fact, it’s the perfect horror film for anyone who was let down by undertone and didn’t feel like it brought enough to the table. It’s a considerably more conventional horror film, but this isn’t meant to denigrate its high quality. Recluse may hit some familiar notes, but it’s a scary, well-crafted haunted house horror story that goes for the jugular.
A gripping mystery that involves the tragic, unresolved circumstances that surround Joan’s mother teases a chilling connection to the recent horrors that have afflicted her father. Joan desperately tries to put these pieces together and give her family some sense of grander peace before she’s pulled under and becomes another victim of this festering curse that’s systematically worked its way through the Wyatt family. By doing so, Recluse digs into some deeper commentary on collective trauma, a very literal look at the “sins of the father” adage, and how one selfish decision can ripple through generations and fracture off into different dilemmas. By the end, Recluse has brilliantly flipped the powerful concept of legacy on its head by illustrating the horrors and sense of entitlement that can be born out of this idea.
A legacy is just another name for a curse under the right context.
”Listen” is a simple but powerful command from Joan’s father that she briefly obsesses over. In a way, it becomes Recluse’s grander mission statement, whether it’s in response to Joan listening to the people in her life, the signals that her body and mind are telling her, or the world’s greater whims. It’s important to reconnect with these grounding pillars, especially when it feels like control is slipping away.
Recluse excels with how audio and soundscapes can create entire universes that are full of rich details that transport individuals to these environments. There’s also a level of objectivity when it comes to audio recordings and the evergreen permanence that they’re able to provide. Joan’s career as an audio engineer makes sense for someone who wants to cling to hard evidence and proof of existence. It provides great insight into Joan without ever getting lost in contrived exposition.
Joan’s entire life is built around audio engineering, and so it makes sense that Recluse features excellent sound design that really goes above and beyond with its production elements. All of the sound design is expertly handled and turns the film into something special. These auditory elements intuitively keep the audience on edge so that they’re more susceptible to the actual scares that eventually strike. The smallest sound effect gets turned into a crushing, cacophonous assault. It’s a really effective way to build terror. Writer/Director Chaisson also handles the film’s music, which achieves a sublime, unnerving dissonance that further heightens the free-floating anxiety.
The story at the center of Recluse is slightly generic in some respects, but the film’s visual language and tone make it feel distinctly memorable. It also doesn’t hurt that the home that Joan returns to is basically an eerie art studio that’s full of contorted paintings. Recluse never struggles to generate mounting dread and terror that pump through every scene. Powerful, thoughtful cinematography consistently reinforces the film’s themes. Joan is constantly reflected in different surfaces or viewed through mirrors. She’s also often confined to tight, constricting framing that all speaks to her refracted identity during this moment of loss and her attempts to regain agency and control by making sense of something that’s seemingly unexplainable.
Recluse is full of truly disturbing visuals that make it seem like Joan is lost in a dream that turns out to be an extended nightmare. It’s a surreal journey reminiscent of invasive psychological horror like Silent Hill, with a touch of Sinister and Hereditary thrown in for good measure. There are so many individual frames that could endlessly fuel urban legends and creepypastas.
It does a great job with how it presents Joan’s fragile state of mind, where chilling flashes of the past sneak up on her and unresolved trauma manifests into unsettling imagery. There are endless shots that are obscured in darkness, or shadow is creeping in from the corners of frames like a suffocating force of nature. It’s very rare that a scene is fully lit. It leads to a very lonely, isolating atmosphere that’s easy to get lost in.
Chaisson’s debut stands out from the many other high-minded haunted house horror films without succumbing to the same pretensions that often drag down these stories. It’s a grief-stricken character study that’s full of upsetting visuals that scratch at something visceral and raw. The horror elements connect, and the answers to its grander mystery provide an appropriate and believable sense of closure. Those who are looking for an atmospheric horror film that isn’t afraid to be different while still channeling something real will appreciate Recluse.
Recluse made its world premiere at Tribeca; release info TBD.
You must be logged in to post a comment.