High School Horror On VHS
HIGH Superb atmosphere and aesthetic — it creeped me out!
LOW Some of the spotlight placements felt unavoidable.
WTF What is it with survival horror games trying to make us put our hands in toilets?
Lately, there have been a ton of survival horror titles experimenting with old-school formulas. Some have adopted aesthetics reminiscent of past eras, while others try to nail down older gameplay themes. Fear the Spotlight attempts both, and succeeds wonderfully.
Fear the Spotlight is a survival horror experience where players control high schoolers Vivian and Amy, who get caught up in alternate worlds after a séance gone wrong. Each character will navigate the world while looking for items needed to progress to the next area. At the same time, they’ll dig into a unique story in each chapter (two total) related to either the school itself or Amy’s past.
As I traveled throughout the high school and other areas, navigating these places felt both familiar and strange. For example, a gym decorated for an anti-bullying fair suddenly felt very hostile as it was abandoned, and some objects had been strewn across the room. This was symbolic of the reasons events like these are held, as discovered in many of the notes in the school — they’re a hollow attempt by officials to evade the responsibility of taking care of students properly.
Graphically, I loved the filters that let Spotlight feel like an undiscovered VHS tape playing on an old CRT television — it definitely feels like a forgotten gem from the PS1 era. However, for those who don’t care for it, the filter can be reduced or turned completely off, ideal for players who want greater visual clarity.
The titular spotlights are indeed things to be feared, and one of the worst is the roaming Spotlight Head — a walking monstrosity both of man and stage light. It excels in dialing up the horror and keeping encounters tense. As neither character has weapons, I had to evade Spotlight Head and hide from the other moving, sentient spotlights that would appear from ceilings to patrol the area. This meant taking refuge under tables or behind walls and objects — such as trashcans — and, importantly, being wary of open spaces where I could be caught.
Each time I did get caught, Vivian or Amy would lose health, and they can only take a couple of hits before hitting a game over. Each character can restore health with healing items, but these items were always in short supply. This scarcity increased the tension and made me feel extremely vulnerable. Don’t fret, though — Spotlight features a pretty generous save system, so players generally won’t lose much progress.
While there’s no combat, there are puzzles, and they can be tricky to solve, but never obtuse — most can be figured out with a bit of thought and some clues, such as finding a diary entry or an item to help decipher something. The developers aren’t interested in bringing the proceedings to a halt with brain-busters, so the pace is good overall and there’s never much backtracking. It’s a fairly short experience, but this is not a bad thing. Each chapter lasts exactly as long as it needs to, and they’re both about the length of a classic horror film — Spotlight never overstays its welcome.
As for the story itself, it’s fantastic. Each of the two chapters focuses on different traumas, either those that occurred in the school many years ago, or in Amy’s messy home life. Each excelled in creepiness and dread. For Vivian, it was the dread of navigating a high school hellscape, alone and scared. In Amy’s case, it was exploring a long forgotten former home, punctuated with sour memories and trauma.
Both settings are twisted, and they created a sense of anxiety that hit home for me in a lot of meaningful ways. I had a similar experience to Amy, moving around from house to house as a kid. The sense of the familiar and comfortable suddenly becoming alien and hostile, not knowing where any friendly faces or voices could be, was too real a feeling and thanks to this, Spotlight nails its sense of dread.
While what I’ve described is a fantastic horror experience, I do have a couple of small nitpicks with Spotlight, however. One was that in a couple of instances, spotlights activated quite suddenly, giving me very little time to react. As such, I would frequently take damage that felt unfair. This was a pesky annoyance in only a couple of areas, so thankfully such occurrences were limited.
There were also times when the visuals would get ‘fuzzy’ after taking damage. This could make it difficult to see some things when examining them closely, especially if the TV Filter in the options is set to max (which it is by default). This can make it tough to read notes that contain clues to puzzles, so it may have been better for the devs to set the default filter lower for the sake of readability.
Fear the Spotlight is a brilliant take on survival and psychological horror, instilling a real sense of vulnerability and dread in me — the developers took good lessons from classic titles and made something unique and fascinating. Players who love classic and retro-style survival horror absolutely must check this one out.
Rating: 8 out of 10
Disclosures: This game is developed by Cozy Game Pals and published by Blumhouse Games. It is currently available on PC, PS4/5, XBO/S/X and Switch. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on PS5. Approximately 5 hours was devoted to the game, and it was completed. There is no multiplayer mode.
Parents: This game has an ESRB rating of T rating for Violence. There is no official description provided by the ESRB. However, the game has a monster that will violently toss the player if discovered. There are also themes of bullying found in discovered notes. Finally, the story focuses around unraveling the past of a major tragedy that killed a number of students prior to the events of the game. There is also evidence to suggest one of the characters was a pedophile who filmed and killed innocent students.
Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind options.
Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: The game offers subtitles. Subtitles can be resized. However, closed captioning for environmental and sound effects are not present. This game is not fully accessible.
Remarkable Controls: Yes, this game’s controls are remappable.
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