WWGW - Lust For Darkness - an examination

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Published on November 30, 2018 7:57:43 AM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbnlAAtVrCk

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Minecraft (2011)

Duration: 2:07:41

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Lust For Darkness is a genuinely unnerving game, and it's a praise I don't offer lightly. I was raised on horror with my first love of King Kong to Hammer's Dracula to the Hellraiser before I could even spell it, so as you might suspect there's little in the genre that can elicit a strong response from me.

The actual thrust of the game plays more like a high-concept envisioning of HP Lovecraft's EYES WIDE SHUT, but it's less the unfathomable existential dread ala Lovecraft that evokes fear here as much as its restrained real world equivalences of madness and trauma in victimization that are so unnerving. Its fear more translatable to, say, Silence of the Lambs. So much of the game’s aesthetic works because of those otherworldly aspects, yet its horror & dread are more tangible and visceral despite those extra-dimensional elements. There’s an even greater accomplishment in even blending such divergent spices while neither overwhelms the other to the palate.

There’s still much to be said of those otherworldly aspects though, which are quite frankly a bold and unexpected deviation from the more common take lately. It's a unique contrast to the modern sewers & slime approach to Lovecraftian horror looking to the seas where “Lust For Darkness” plays out a foreboding “The Colour Out of Space” approach looking (thematically) towards the skies for that commonality of hidden threats lurking in all the dark, endless voids.. Though much of the aesthetics are HR Giger-esque “Alien,” so many others are clear and unabashed ‘alien’ designs playing off our modern perception of extraterrestrial grays and sleek, shiny machinery to evoke a human similarity (or at least pareidolia) in these ascendant ‘gods,’ but their physical manifestations are beyond human familiarity and much more alien. All this imagery elicits a sense of intrigue which helps shade the pan-dimensional aspects of the story with a depth similar to its presentation of hedonism & human suffering.

“Lust For Darkness” managed to evoke a sensation I've not felt perhaps since first seeing watched “Henry: Portrait of A Serial Killer” at least a decade back now. Though I'd LONG been aware of the film & its praises, it was an especially easy dismissal in the height of the torture-porn era, having expected yet another exploration of depravity eliciting titillation or whatever motivates the general public’s Dateline/Law&Order/serial killer obsession for the old ultra-violence. There's a thesis somewhere, but I digress. When I finally saw “Henry” there was an inexplicable quality and verisimilitude to the film I still can't describe. It’s a work that somehow escapes the standard-yet-exploitative allure, reaching into the matter-of-fact abyss of mundane ‘evil’, for lack of a better word. When the game's intro generated a similar sensation of all-encompassing malaise—maybe some tertiary manifestation of dread even---I realized I was in for something incredibly unique, and worth full attention.

Some reviews will undoubtedly chastise the game for being short, though the *length* is actually… pretty damn perfect. I think the more appropriate criticism---and what those critics are really driving at---is that the price is a somewhat hefty compared to the content offered. It varies person to person anyway, but the takeaway is caution when one issue might be substituted for another prevalent problem in gaming: bloat.

I actually found it refreshing how the game stayed trim and stuck with the fundamental beats. It’s neither underwhelming/incomplete, but nor does it draw things out like games do so often lately. Horror most of all should never leave the audience wondering when its going to finally end---the very heart of the experience has no greater nemesis than adaptation. More often than not, padding out these games driven by story and atmosphere isn't more bang for you buck, it's means meaningless filler. We see it all the time via inconsequential combat, convoluted puzzles (oh how I loathe the never-ending hallway), and repetitive story-beats. Fuck all that.

"Lust For Darkness" is as comfortable with length as it is gameplay in working towards the raison d'être. You may call it walking simulator (pejorative or not) with the experiences moving from beat-to-beat, though it dances with more direct "gameplay" at times. There's stealth, puzzles, fleeing, and even a quasi-boss fight, though it knows none of these are its central purpose. While none of those elements stand out as particularly good--more importantly--none inhibit progress or forcefully pad the game. Lust For Darkness doesn't do everything well, but it never lets the things it does poorly distract from its purpose which it performs superbly in a night of absolute madness.

Available now:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/523650/Lust_for_Darkness/?curator_clanid=32660416

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