Why My Standards for Interactive Horror Are Now Impossibly High

I love. Love love. Love love love. Interactive entertainment. I love escape rooms, I love ARGs, I love crazy theatre experiments. It’s the closest you can get to safely living all your weird daydreams, and the more I see, the more I want.

That’s how I fell into following YouTuber Nick Nocturne. His Night Mind channel pieces apart everything from Wham City’s experimental Adult Swim vids to indie-created horror series — but his focus is absolutely on the latter. (Apologies right now. If you hang out with me or read anything by me regularly, you’ve already heard me go on about Nick’s work ad nauseam. I’m not stopping, because he’s doing the Lord’s work.) His work helps bring attention to and educate up-and-coming creators. And it casts light on new advancements in the horror genre.

Many — in fact most — of the really intense ARGs Nick covers are over, or onto new phases. Things like Marble Hornets and the second half of the BEN Drowned saga. Yeah, there was a game attached to that. A few had low-level interactivity, but nothing like earlier projects. No one was getting mysterious packages wrapped in purple duct tape like the EverymanHYBRID days. There were no geocaches or treasure hunts. Nick expressed a sadness that he’d probably never get to do “field work,” and I was just as sad that I’d probably never be there for something that major.

Until Jack Torrance woke up.

Come Play with Us

At the beginning, Jack Torrance (FoundMedia23 on YouTube) seemed to be an art installation of some sort. Despite the name, there were no obvious references to The Shining. It was a mix of creepy Super 8 “found footage” and modern videos. Nick covered it, but it pretty much went dormant, with no game elements that anyone could see.

Then this summer everything went absolutely banana sandwich. The channel woke up. It sent a request to “find me.” Nick, excited about the anniversary of his channel and an old channel waking up, threw down. The channel owner responded cryptically, but enough to indicate that, yes, the throw-down was accepted. So Nick flew out to Texas to work in the field, and find whatever it is Jack wanted found.

I could go into a summary of what went down, but it’s much more satisfying to see it for yourself. Start here and watch how it all unfolds.

Part of the Action

Nick made the fantastic decision to report his occasional findings in the form of live streams. As a “creature of the night,” he almost always uploads in the wee hours. So being on hand for his reports meant I’d be staying up ’til 2 am some nights. Freelance life let me do that almost consequence-free. But given the size of the chat, there must have been some 9-to-5ers risking it all for the adventure.

Live streams went from fun to insane . . . as it became obvious that Jack was also watching. They (we assume the character is male, but we don’t know about the actual creator) sent Nick a video of someone watching his live stream one night. Then, he’d start uploading during it, right around the time when everyone had the most questions about Nick’s findings. We’d watch and dissect together. The upshot was a “curse jar” — clearly only meant to be functional “in-game” but creepy nonetheless — stuffed with our tweets to Nick. We were part of the game now.

In the Moment

Despite my love of magical girls and guinea pigs and cuteness, I’m pretty grim under the surface. I love dark weird horror. And like I said before, I love interactive things. This was so much of both.

It was an overall Experience for me, which I think people believe can’t happen in an era of Netflix. I watched the stream on my iPhone, sitting in the recliner in the den because the Wi-Fi won’t reach my bedroom. It was 2 am, my eyes stinging as I chatted with another friend who was in for the long haul. We theorized in the stream chat and to each other. There was an excitement to every late night, knowing that only one person in the world knew what would happen next, and it wasn’t any of us.

And it was happening in real time. Not a movie that had been in the can for months, not a rehearsed play or a coded video game. It was the most organic thing I’ve ever witnessed, with Jack’s videos only having been made hours before we saw them. And obviously so, as they were reliant on current events.

This is why I’m constantly begging people: if you like horror, try indie horror. Try ARGs. There’s a lot of not-great ones out there because anyone can make them. But that’s why Nick made his channel: to feature the outstanding ones, and to help learn what makes them outstanding. Not everything out there is Slenderman and haunted video games (not that there’s anything wrong with those).

But seriously. I am so spoiled by this now: by this genuine moment-to-moment interplay between two creators. There was so much creativity, so much daring, and I’m only sad because I don’t know if I’ll ever get to witness something like this again firsthand.

But maybe you will. Maybe you’ll find the next amazing horror creator who keeps you awake at all hours just to see what they’ll do next. Here’s a good place to start. But, you know. Try to get some sleep sometimes.

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