A prolonged stay in the moody murder hotel – The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil in Me Review

Sherlock Holmes is a familiar name to most, but have you also heard of Henry Howard Holmes, or as he is more widely known, H. H. Holmes? In the prologue to The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil in Me, this nefarious hotelier and his murderous ways are introduced. In 1893, Holmes offered “shelter” to many visitors to the World’s Fair in Chicago at his World’s Fair Hotel...and many of these unfortunate guests fell victim to Holmes’s deadly traps shortly after check-in.

For many a moon, Holmes was considered America's first serial killer. He is said to have ended the lives of up to two hundred people (though he only admitted to twenty-seven), with most of those homicides taking place inside the hotel that late became known as the “Murder Castle.” Tabloids of the time of course embellished the details about the building’s insane constructions, including slides, movable walls, trap doors, peep holes, and torture chambers contained within. Most of these details were never fully verified, however. For the season finale of The Dark Pictures Anthology—a series of four horror titles from developer Supermassive Games, each exploring a distinct setting and story, and of which a second season has already been announced—The Devil in Me fuels the embellishments around H. H. Holmes’s vicious acts in a creative way.

After a heartbreakingly murderous tutorial set in the nineteenth century, the present day protagonists of this chapter are introduced: A five-person film crew has been invited to shoot a documentary at a replica of the notorious murderer's hotel. This crew is led by the slightly abrupt but nevertheless sympathetic director Charlie, who only hopes for the most spectacular shots possible. Presenter Kate and key grip Jamie can’t stop bickering with each other, and cameraman Mark also seems to be somewhat troubled. Sound engineer Erin has to assert herself as the youngest member of the crew and tries in vain to be more than just Charlie's gofer.

The character’s motivations aren’t particularly deep, but they at least transcend the typical horror movie stereotypes of Until Dawn or the recently released The Quarry. Instead of “The Bitch” and “The Football Player,” the characters in The Devil in Me come across as real people with concerns and ambitions who make understandable decisions. Especially in the third act of the game, I rooted for all of the characters and wanted to see each one get out alive if I could help it—mostly because I still carry the stigmatic memory of my daughter actually getting pissed at me for “letting” two characters die in Until Dawn.

It's a shame then that The Devil in Me takes so much time to get off the ground. I climbed over hill and dale with the crew for a full three hours until the action finally started to pick up. When I mentioning climbing, I meant it literally; for the first time in this anthology, the playable characters don’t move so sluggishly. They walk around faster, climb rocks, crawl under trees, and move mobile containers and shelves in order to solve environmental puzzles.

While the facial animations for each character still look pretty stiff, each one also has a unique item in their inventory that helps shake up the gameplay. Jamie can unscrew fuse boxes to solve little puzzles, for example, and Mark can snap photos of the area with his camera.

The narrative adventure presented here benefits significantly from the increased interactivity, but The Devil in Me is still plagued by pacing issues. The first few hours and the ending seem unnecessarily padded. After a lethargic opening and a truly exciting second act, the endgame just went in circles and unleashed the same tasks and opponents on me. As much as I wanted to see all the characters through, I was kinda glad that only a few survived, allowing me to roll credits a bit earlier. Just don’t tell my daughter...

While Dark Pictures is set up as a horror anthology, this season never really convinced me in terms of its fear factor. The other games that make up season one of the anthology (Man of Medan, Little Hope, and House of Ashes) offered up same-y jump scares and settings. The range of subjects showed a lot of potential—from ghost ships to witches to this game’s true crime history-tinged tale—but that potential ultimately felt wasted. I was all the more surprised that The Devil in Me turned things around again for the season finale and hit me with some really tense moments and tricky decisions.

I won't go into details for spoiler reasons, but look forward to atmospheric, gloomy hotel corridors, disturbing animatronic dolls, and numerous references to films such as Saw and House on Haunted Hill. The Devil in Me also falls back on a good amount of jump scares and doesn't quite reach the level of excellence of its filmic inspirations. But the interplay of hair-raising and incredibly stressful situations works well here. It's a pity that the story leaves too many unanswered questions. The tale of H.H. Holmes and his secretive “Murder Hotel” always piqued my interest, mostly because he was put on trial, jailed, hung, and buried in my birthplace of Philadelphia, PA. The Devil in Me never quite managed to put a definitive, new twist on his story that satisfied me.

Ultimately though, The Dark Pictures Anthology has made something of a “saving throw” here with The Devil in Me. This time, the cool location is almost a character in and of itself, it is staged in an atmospheric way, and the strong second act creates a superlative mix of horror and terror. The character portrayals and the new movement and interaction options also bring some freshness to what could have been a rather stiff narrative adventure, as the other entries in the anthology were for the most part. It's only the drawn-out beginning and ending that muddle the positive strides that were made overall.

SCORE: 3 STARS OUT OF 5

PLAY IF YOU LIKE:

• Just play the aforementioned other games in The Dark Pictures Anthology (Man of Medan, Little Hope, and House of Ashes) if you haven’t yet. And why start at the end if you are already playing The Devil in Me? What are you, some kind of kooky anarchist or someone who eats their dessert before the main course?

💬 Does anyone remember the Cinemaware games from back in the day? I think someone should do a “demake” game like the Devil in Me or The Quarry with Cinemaware style presentation, graphics, and music. Would you buy a game like that? Let me know in the comments below!