I can't help but feel that because we followed the reflection's advice, and also gave the same answers when it was our time on the far side of the mirror, that we're perpetuating Alex's time loop. For a bit I thought they were going to break the 4th wall and point out that the main character's unusual behavior was evidence that she was somehow possessed, but nothing came of it. The commentary on the nature of eternity is interesting but serves no real role in the plot other than to permit the twist ending.
The temporal shenanigans aren't needed for the plot, it would work just as well if the ghosts had been trapped in limbo for 50 years instead of an asymptotically long time, time loops are effectively hallucinations, etc. The underlying plot really is a paint-by-number body snatcher story, but the writing, sound design and art are strong enough to carry the game. In Oxenfree's case, I don't know if it earns the existential horror it tries to evoke. deals with young adults coming to grips with the disturbing fact that some time in the future they are likely to go to sleep and never wake up which in the story they personify as a monster that haunts their dreams. Flipped it around and Oxenfree is yet another body snatcher story with a nice coat of Gilmore Girls while Nightmare on Elm St.
It really depends on how deep you are willing to look. I guess what I'm saying is that existential terror beats a dude with a knife any day.īacter fucked around with this message at 20:24 on Mar 21, 2016 There was never an end, not ever, because eternity is eternity, and isn't eternity a kind of torture, when you think about it? And it would get boring eventually, right? But there was just more time. And if there's infinite time, there's infinite repetition. But I was wrapping my mind around the concept of "eternity" for the first time, and realized in my childish way KIND of what Oxenfree is saying - given infinite time, eventually things will repeat. Which sounds weird, yeah? I mean, heaven's supposed to be pretty good. One of my earliest fears (that I can remember) was kind of like that - I remember being a kid and staying awake really late worrying about heaven. And once you fight back, you find they're just as afraid as you are, and possibly more. There's nothing to be angry at here, besides the ghosts a bit. Anger doesn't come until it's time to fight back, and then it's cathartic. In a slasher film, the characters are scared of Jason or Freddy or whoever, but they aren't really ANGRY at them. Fear implies lack of knowledge, and assessment of the abilities of The Other as infinite. One of the big twists in most horror films is the change from fear to anger. But maybe not? If the ghosts really saw innumerable timelines, why are we able to talk them down? Did they not expect that? Are they caught up in a greater loop still? What the heck is GOING ON? The game is short on answers, and frankly, I think it's spookier that way. what? Your past? Alternate timelines? It's like looking behind the scenery of life and seeing that it's all predetermined. It's kind of Lovecraftian in that way, except instead of a big wiggly squidman when you look Beyond The Veil, you just see. They have this very broad perspective and it drives them nuts. It's an open possibility that this has happened to other people, and these ones are just better at contacting us and interacting - again, maybe the nuke, maybe the weird research, maybe some island curse? The point is, nobody knows, and everybody is scared. When they died they met some weird boundary condition, and didn't either dissolve into nothingness OR go anywhere. Remember what their plan is? They want to inhabit us SO THAT they can be carried through this world and THEN DIE. In classic horror films the ghosts would be out for capital R Revenge, or the nuke would have opened a portal to hell, or something like that. "It Follows" is a SUPER thinly veiled take on the fear of sex and STDs and that kind of thing.Īnd Oxenfree seems to be about, in the end, existential terror. Movies like The Human Centipede, which I fully admit I have not seen, seem to be there to make us afraid of the director. You know, like it's always the ones who are doing drugs and having sex that get murdered, and the "pure" heroine ends up making it through alive or whatever. You could argue that some of the classic slasher films are about fears of sex, or judgement, or coming of age. When you break it down, lots of horror films are "about" some primal fear that's been gussied up and disguised. That reveal was something I really appreciated about the game.
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