‘Unhinged’: Netflix Game Is a Fun and Scary Choose Your Own Adventure

SPOILER ALERT: This post contains mild spoilers from the video game “Unhinged,” which is now available to play on Netflix.

When it comes to horror movies, I am a wimp. A coward, a chicken, a scaredy-cat. It’s my favorite genre, but without fail, you can find me jumping and whimpering, even at buttoned-up film festivals and press screenings.

When I heard that David Fincher and Zach Cregger collaborated to help develop the interactive Netflix game “Unhinged,” I was so excited to give it a test drive. Not only does it come from the minds of two of the best directors working today, but unlike horror games that devolve into mowing down hordes of zombies with machine guns, this project promised more of a “you’re living in a horror movie” premise.

Indeed, although it’s animated, the first-person feel of “Unhinged” makes it a believable simulacrum of a real-life nightmare. You play as Ava (voiced by Zoë Kravitz), who is woken up by her best friend Claire (voiced by Sadie Sink) when the power on their apartment block goes out. Soon enough, Ava finds out the exit doors on the floor are locked, her neighbor is missing and a serial killer (voiced by Troy Baker) might be rifling through her apartment.

Although the plot to “Unhinged” is razor-thin, it allows for a fluid tale with substantial scares that can be run through in about 35 minutes. Perhaps most impressive is the game’s visuals, bathed in darkness with your smartphone’s flashlight the only thing keeping clues and exits visible. You use your real-life phone as a tool in the game, fielding increasingly urgent calls from Ava and your put-upon building super (also voiced by Baker). The pointing mechanics allow you to grab onto objects — from a screwdriver to force open a lock to a nail gun to shoot at the killer — and move around the building with no substantial learning curve.

That’s helpful, given that the killer is quick, scary and pretty disgusting. From an early scene of him having fun with some long intestines to nailing Ava’s hands to a table, there are plenty of squirm-inducing moments which encourage moving quickly to get the fuck away.

Ironically, the biggest villain in “Unhinged” might be Claire, who is always blowing up your phone at inconvenient times and offers no real advice you couldn’t figure out on your own. Despite trying to ignore her calls several times, you need to interact with her to keep moving forward, which almost inspired me to team up with the game’s psycho killer to go across the street and pull her guts out instead.

Luckily, Kravitz is a great vocal lead, giving big emotions during her brief line readings. If you play your cards right, she can shepherd you to final girl safety. I ended up alive at the end the first time I played, thanks to sharpened reflexes as a result of my horror movie discomfort. That said, on a second playthrough I found the joy in getting butchered, as it adds another grisly moment, as well as conjuring two police officers who gloriously deadpan their thoughts about the crime scene.

The jury’s out if we’ll see a sequel, but in the meantime, “Unhinged” exists as a unique proof of concept of recovering audience attention spans. If your phone is otherwise engaged as a flashlight looking for clues in a ramshackle apartment building, you won’t be second-screening. Just as the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books could get even the lousiest readers to turn pages, interactive and gamified original content could be the next step to retaining audiences longer. If audiences respond to this hybrid model of movies and gaming, it could be a scary good way for Netflix to evolve its stranglehold on culture.

Watch the trailer for “Unhinged” below.