The first time I encountered the multi-tentacled specimen living in the guts of the anonymous, unconscious woman lying on the operating table, I was genuinely creeped out. It was gooey, pulsating slightly, and clearly on the cusp of doing something startling and very gross. A few minutes later, it did, and it was—and I died horribly.
By the fourth time I laid eyes on the specimen, I was laughing. Not because it was no longer gooey and gross—it was—but because I’d started picking up what FMV “interactive horror movie” Dead Reset was putting down: Alien by way of The Evil Dead, caught up in a Stargate: SG1-style time loop. It’s earnest, serious, horrific, and absolutely goofy as shit—and, through the hour-ish runtime of the demo I played, an utter riot.
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Dead Reset puts you in the position of an unfortunate former surgeon named Cole, who awakens on the filthy floor of a rough-looking facility of some sort, and in the company of some very rough folks who aren’t in the mood to explain. Instead, you’re given a choice: Perform an emergency monsterectomy, or die.
Actually, it doesn’t matter what you do—you’re going to die.
Go along willingly, refuse to play ball, pick your moment to fight: The only thing that changes is how and when you die. I won’t spoil anything except to say that Dead Reset’s a good time because it is 100% committed to that sweet slasher flick vibe. Buckets of red paint are thrown around, people are screaming and crying and flailing haplessly, somebody’s intestines explode outward with a loud bang, there’s gunfire and noise and slapstick pratfalls, it’s great, non-stop calamity, and every single time, you die. Horrifically.
The sets have a certain 1970s, Tom Baker-era Doctor Who charm to them, and the acting is up to the task—which is to say, competent, with just the right amount of over-the-top ham for a direct-to-video slasher flick. But the main reason Dead Reset works so well, I think, is that it’s very fast paced. There’s no exposition, no lingering conversations or examination of motives; you wake up, make a choice or two, and then die screaming. Each “lifetime” is slightly different than the ones before, because you—and only you—remember the previous cycles, but none last more than a few minutes before catastrophe strikes and you’re back at the beginning.
Like Evil Dead, Dead Reset is also very funny in places. Some of that is doubtless just me—inappropriate laughter is my thing—but I’m sure (or I hope, anyway) that at least a couple such spots have to be intentional.
It may not seem like it out of context, but trust me, this is very funny.
One final brilliant thing about the Dead Reset demo specifically is that it actually works really well as a self-contained game. The demo’s conclusion is very much a tune–in-next-time cliffhanger, and by the time it arrived the story had taken an unexpected twist that left me genuinely eager to know just what the hell is going on here. But it also lands as a sort of Twilight Zone-style full stop, wrapping things up not conclusively, but satisfactorily—and it’s pretty funny too. (This is one of the comedic moments I suspect is intentional. It’s just too good to be an accident.)
How Dead Reset will hold up over its full length is an open question. It might get bogged down or boring, or maybe the big mystery just won’t pay off satisfactorily. But the demo is an absolute hoot, and if the full game can maintain that level of splatterfest energy it’s going to be a genuine banger when it lands on Steam on September 11—something I never expected to say about an FMV game.
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