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‘Narcosis’: A Deep Dive Into Slow Burn Aquatic Horror

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Narcosis

I’m big on aquatic horror. Deep Star Six, Leviathan, The Abyss. These film titles really get to the claustrophobic reality of being trapped deep under the ocean, which is scary enough, then adding a monster or alien into the mix. Honor Code’s Narcosis completely lives in what we love about those elements of aquatic horror and adds in a heavy dose of the surreal in a game that has plenty of narrative strengths going for it.

In Narcosis you take on the diving suit of a of a deep-sea miner. While on the job, shit goes wrong leaving him stranded at the bottom of the ocean. It’s up to you to find a way to get back to the surface, while piecing together bits of vital narrative info and trying not to loose your mind due to hypoxia and well… Narcosis.

The experience is at its basics a walking simulator with some survival elements thrown in. The majority of the game is spent walking from structure to structure in pitch-black freezing waters trying to find additional oxygen rations and attempting to avoid the local creepy-ass deep dive sea life. These things are all kinds of nope and range from giant squids to monstrous spider crabs.

The game doesn’t rely on big combat set pieces when it comes to dealing with those things. Instead, you bat them away with a small knife or use stealth to avoid them all together. The first few stealth bits, are effective in the scares department. It’s horrifying just being that deep under the ocean then you throw in some hideous H.P. Lovecraft looking “bad guys” and it’s all out disturbing.

A lot of the gameplay elements become stale over the roughly 5-hour play through time. The game really shines when it comes to its strong voice work and its narrative structure and payoff. The non-linear storytelling has you jumping from your current situation to your training as a deep dive miner, as well as events leading up to the incident.

As the title of the game implies, there is a very hallucinogenic components at work. The longer your diver(s) stays down at the bottom of the sea, they begin to suffer the effects, leading to all kinds of creepy moments and jump scares. Narcosis does a great job of Freddy Kruegering you and bluring the line between reality and tripping the fuck out.

The intro to the game and its new gameplay style is best when fresh. After a while of getting used to the situation and knowing what to expect from its gameplay, the game begins to lose its edge and interest. For the second half of the game I found myself only playing to finish the narrative and didn’t care much for the about what was inbetween. A little more variety would have gone a long way here.

If you are into Jules Vern, Lovecraft and love aquatic horror as much as myself, then I say give it a try. It’s a quick play and if anything else, you will get a cool story and some serious claustrophobia. There isn’t a lot of action, but the immersion, structure and unique genre approach are worth a peek.

Narcosis is out now on PC and PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

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‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments

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It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.

We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.

Evil Dead Rise

“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”

That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”

Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:

High Desert Hell
The Gemini Project

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‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening

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Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.

Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.

Happy Sad Confused

Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.

Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.

Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.

The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.

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Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date

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Jake gyllenhaal presumed innocent

Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s in ‘Presumed Innocent’

Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.

These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:

According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”

Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.

Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.

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