Although modern horror games are extremely popular, there are many players who miss “the classic way” of being terrified on the console or PC. That explains the enormous success of the ‘remakes’ of Resident Evil, the recent new version of Silent Hill 2 and the emergence of games that imitate the visual style and gameplay of the ‘survival horror’ of the 90s and 00s. These include titles as admired as Tormented Souls, Signalis, Crow CountryHollowbody and the game we are going to talk about in this review, Fear The Spotlight.
This title has the honor of being the first published by Blumhouse Games, the video game arm of the well-known horror film production company that we know for M3GAN, La Purga, Insidious and many more.
Vivian Singh is a young nerd in love with her friend, the sexy and gothic Amy. To impress her, he agrees to visit her school at night for a seance with a Ouija board. But something strange happens. Amy disappears and Vivian must now search for her in a hellish version of her own school where something is chasing her.
Fear of the spotlight
Fear The Spotlight does not hide the influence it receives from Silent Hill. Its inventory system is copied from the Konami game and even makes direct references to the cursed town in its story, but it plays in a very different way. Vivian and Amy have no way to defend themselves from the monsters and all they can do is hide or run. There are no weapons and although there is a “combat” against a boss at some point, it works more like solving a puzzle than a traditional confrontation.
It is possible that knowing that this is really a game with stealth elements has discouraged them a little, since crouching behind objects to go unnoticed is something that has saturated both AAA and indie games. Fortunately, this title is used very sparingly and due to its short duration – less than four hours – it did not bore or bore us. It also offers a good variety of puzzles.
What it did do was keep us tense. The brief appearances of the searchlight-headed monster—and later a ghost who looks straight out of The Hoop— can give us some good scares. But above all, knowing that they are around helps maintain the atmosphere of terror even though most of their appearances are predefined. They are not the only ones that cause fear, because while we walk through the scenes we can observe some ghosts that, although they do not harm us, gave us chills every time they appeared.
The story of two (three) rejected…
The story of Fear The Spotlight is divided into two. During the first couple of hours we control Vivian, who enters the hellish school after the girl of her dreams and ends up discovering the truth behind the horrible events that occurred many years ago. Through documents and a bit of environmental storytelling we learn a story of bullying that takes a sinister turn. It relies a lot on the clichés of the genre, but there are interesting things in it.
The second half is less interesting in terms of what happens, but it is more emotional and personal. Here we control Amy in the personal hell she must face when she is imprisoned by the searchlight-headed monster, we learn about her sad family history, what her relationship with her brother is like, and we hide from the ghost of a movie that scared her when she was just a child. .
Due to this format split in two, the way in which the plot is delivered to us is somewhat irregular. All major reveals are only in the first half and character development is limited to the second. While we meet the long-suffering Chrissy of the past through her notes, Vivian is relegated to second place and is nothing more than a secondary character in Amy’s story. everything that counts Fear The Spotlight It is very interesting, but it does not link all its narrative elements well.
…Stuck in the past
The school Vivian explores and the house Amy is imprisoned in are relatively small settings that don’t require a map, but exploring them for clues about the story and the tools we need to solve the puzzles is exciting. Still, there are elements that make the exploration less than perfect.
Although the camera is at an adequate distance from the protagonists when we explore, it is too clumsy in the moments when we have to flee or hide. If we hide under an object we go to a first-person view that is suitable for the atmosphere, but very inappropriate for the moment when we have to continue moving.
Fear The Spotlight It is a pleasant horror adventure with an interesting story and a very good setting that serves as a retro homage to the past of ‘survival horror’. With a more elaborate narrative and a more polished stealth system, it could have become one of the greats of the season. Still, we highly recommend it to all horror game lovers because it serves as an excellent weekend distraction.
This review is made with a digital copy of Fear The Spotlight for PlayStation 5 provided by Blumhouse Games. This game is also available for PS, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam.
