Dead Take, a horror FMV game from Tales of Kenzera developer Surgent Studios, starts with a disclaimer that its story of unbridled Hollywood ego taken to its most terrifying extreme is a “work of fiction not intended to reference or depict any actual people, places, events, or other entities in the real world.” This is the same legal ass-covering that many artistic works employ to avoid lawsuits in the event that someone out there thinks the story reflects their own actions or experiences a little too closely, but it stuck with me when I played through the six-hour escape room psychological drama. Its tale of the cutthroat, vindictive side of the entertainment industry may be oozing true crime flair, but outside of the jump scares and darker turns, is the story it tells really that different from any real-life horror story you might have heard about the challenges struggling artistss sometimes face when they’re trying to make it?
If you want a game to talk about the trials and tribulations of actors, it’s worth having some incredible talent to get the message across. Dead Take stars Final Fantasy XVI and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 lead Ben Starr and Astarion from Baldur’s Gate 3 himself, Neil Newbon, as two struggling(?) actor friends(?), Vinny Monroe and Chase Lowry. Both actors auditioned for a role in the latest movie by visionary director Duke Cain, but Vinny was the one who landed the job. While Chase is clearly not thrilled by this turn of events, he and Vinny seem to still be on good terms, up until Vinny stops answering his phone after a party at Cain’s luxurious mansion. Chase, in an effort to find his friend, goes to Cain’s home and finds only the aftermath of a party long over.
Most of Dead Take plays out as a kind of large-scale escape room. Cain’s mansion is full of locked rooms with mysteries and unpleasant answers on the other side. The game is a mostly solitary affair, as Chase seems to be the only soul in the building, but Starr, Newbon, and a few other surprising big actors in the video game space get some real face time through found footage. So even if Chase is alone, every supporting character’s presence is still felt in their absence. There are plenty of text logs and environmental cues that give you a sense of what’s going on, but the bulk of the story is told through FMV video files you search for and watch in Cain’s lavish home theater. There are some puzzles even within that, some requiring you to use video editing software to find hidden footage within the files you’ve already discovered. It’s nothing as demanding as what you find in a Sam Barlow game like Her Story or Immortality, but it’s just enough to make you feel like even the videos you find aren’t the full story, and that there are hidden meanings to be found within even the most innocuous footage.
Starr’s performance is the standout for me. Vinny is a driven but privileged nepo baby who is drinking Cain’s Kool-Aid as if the man’s films were plopped into theaters by Christ himself. But that’s not even a character flaw that’s specific to him. Everyone in Dead Take is lapping up everything this man puts down, and they’re willing to sabotage others to bask in his light.
We’re seeing this all through Chase’s eyes, and his voyeuristic role in this whole ordeal means we see more of Vinny’s character than probably anyone else, with much of the footage we see of Chase being taken from his initial, unsuccessful audition. Dead Take has the perspective of someone who has been pushed out or denied entry into a sacred, elite space, and by god, it sure speaks to the feeling of trying to break into a competitive artistic field where certain auteurs are put on a pedestal by just about everyone. Yeah, this is the kind of shit Hollywood has to deal with, but it’s also universally applicable to most creative industries. Whether you’re an actor, an artist, a musician, or hell, even a journalist, there’s a perception that there’s an in-crowd and that some people are so legendary that they cannot be so much as be questioned. To say a word against them is to incur their wrath, and that of the people who stand to gain something by being in their proximity. Dead Take’s horrific vision of these ideas is extreme, but it’s rooted in something so real that I had as much of a visceral reaction to the notes I found as I did to any of the more straightforward horrors I encountered in the self-aggrandizing museum Cain calls a home. I won’t spoil some of the mysteries I uncovered, but suffice it to say, Dead Take’s rancid vibes don’t just come from the tense, isolating atmosphere.
All that being said, the more straightforward scares are my biggest issue with Dead Take. I can handle a jump scare. I can handle two, even. My problem is that Dead Take’s use of them feels incredibly cheap and artificial. I know it’s currently in vogue to point out that “good” or “elevated” horror doesn’t rely on loud bangs and creepy monsters jumping out of walls to scare a viewer or player. While I think those critiques are often overblown and can carry an air of pretentious elitism, almost all of Dead Take’s jump scares are sudden distorted visions of Starr’s screaming face that appear on the screen without warning or any real diegetic context. This happens over and over, with increasing frequency as the game goes on, and I got pretty sick of it by the time I reached the final sequence. Sure, I could charitably read these as manifestations of Chase’s gradually decaying psyche, but they become so frequent and yet impossible to anticipate or connect to anything specific happening in the game that eventually, they no longer feel like real scares rooted in the world you’re moving through. All they did for me was disrupt my nervous system to the point where I had to brace myself every time I walked into a room, and eventually, I had to pause the game before I moved on because I knew I’d probably get a random bit of Starr screaming at me while I’m just trying to find a key or a USB stick.
It’s a shame those stuttering screams are littered throughout a game I was otherwise drawn into. If you have the tolerance for jump scares, especially ones that have no real basis in the world, have at it. For everyone else, you might need to take some breaks walking through Cain’s mansion like I did, but once you’re past them, there’s a pretty compelling escape room mystery here, elevated by great performances from its two leads. Dead Take is scariest when it’s rooted in something real, and even if there’s a disclaimer assuring everyone it’s not based on anyone specific, know that Duke Cains walk among us.
