Monster of the Week: the Janitor (Little Nightmares)

Origin: Little Nightmares

Appearance: The creature is humanoid, but his body is weirdly twisted and bizarre. The face looks like made of glue, wax or clay, since it seems unnaturally like plastic. He wears old and dirty clothes, and a brown fedora hat, pointing out the decadence and the abandon surrounding him. A metal helmet or a plate is pressing on his flexible skin, deforming his face in a mass of crinkles. Probably for this reason, the Janitor is blind. The most peculiar element of his design are the unnatural long and twisted arms, which he moves around like two horrible and sinuous snakes.

Symbolism: the Janitor is a sort of Boogeyman inside the Maw, an underwater world were the children are kept prisoner inside cages. As the name suggested, he is probably in charge of different tasks, from maintenance to repairs. With his long and thin arms, he can reach any machinery, no matter how high or hidden it is. The creature has however another peculiar function, which he perfectly executes thanks again to his twisted arms. Sometime, a brave child could escape from the cage, wandering freely around the Maw. In these situations, the Janitor’s long arms are the perfect instrument to catch the fugitives, wherever he is hiding. Since the creature is blind, he compensates with an incredible hearing, the sense that he uses for hunting. The Janitor is in fact a Boogeyman, the creature who can catch a child wherever is hiding. His long arms can come out from under the bed, or from the closet, dragging a child in a world of confinement and nightmares. There is no place to hide, no escape, since the Janitor will catch you anyway with his twisted and almost boneless arms. However, the history of the Janitor is hidden in the mystery. How he became in this way? Who is he? A light sense of pity is embracing the Janitor, surrounding his unhealthy figure. Sometime he also looks like a victim of the Maw. Blind, unable to properly talk, and deformed, all the elements of a tormented soul. He was probably tortured, and maybe artificially transformed into this relentless and mindless hunter. A Boogeyman born from pain and sufferance that, maybe long time ago, was also an imprisoned child himself.

Bestiary of Knock-Knock: analysis of the mysterious Guests

Knock Knock is a mysterious, hermetic and cryptic horror game developed by Ice Pick Lodge (for more info, you can check my review: Knock-Knock: an insomnia simulator in an Escherian nightmare). The Lodger is the main protagonist of the game, probably a scientist who is trapped inside a complex house, built in his own mind to shield himself from his past. Regrets, guiltiness, and horrible secrets are all the elements that were used to built the house, and gears of a complex story.

Night after night, the surreal and dreamlike mansion of the game is constantly visited by bizarre and twisted entities known as the Guests. They will play with the Lodger a creepy version of hide and seek, while searching for him all around the house. They want to keep the Lodger away from his truth and from the discovery of his own identity, by keeping him in a constant time loop. The Guests will not harm directly the Lodger, but will reset the time, making each night like a never-ending nightmare. The Guests come from the Forest, a mysterious and mystic place just outside of the mansion. A place hiding and protecting the truth that the Lodger should search with all his mind and effort. The Guests are a sort of immune system of the Lodger’s mind, trying to protect him by deleting his memories and isolating hurtful truths. The Guests have bizarre but symbolic appearances, usually connected to the Forest, or highlighting complex psychological traumas affecting the Lodger such as the loss of identity or hidden truths.

In the following article I will provide an analysis for almost all the Guests of Knock Knock. I kept outside of the article only few very simple Guests, such as a moving bed or a floating circle of candles. Due to the random nature of the encounter, I am not 100% sure if the list is complete. For the few last Guests which I was not able to encounter myself, I provide pictures found in internet. Also I was able to retrieve only few official names, so the majority of the names are of my own invention.

• Box Head

Emblem of identity disorder, this is a stationary Guest, and one of the most common enemies. While the body and the legs are human, the head is completely hidden above a wooden box. If the lack of facial features is the emblem of the loss of identity, the branches coming down from the box are a clear influence of the Forest. As explained before, the Forest has a huge influence on the plot and on the Lodger itself. It is the place of hidden secrets and unwanted truths, a magical and metaphorical world showing a huge connection with the majority of the Guests.

• Haunters (official name)

Humanoid figures of different shapes and sizes, completely covered and hidden in a hood of leaves, with the exception of thin human legs. They are an impure irradiation of the Forest, when the mysteries of the trees meet with the doubts of a damaged human mind. The forest is covering the truth, throwing gasoline on the fire of the complex search for your own identity. The Forest and the Lodger are two opposite forces: while the Lodger is searching for the truth, the Forest is trying to hide it… or maybe it is exactly the opposite, and the forest is the truth that the Lodger is afraid to reveal.

• The Amalgam of Branches

Huge emanation of the forest breaking into the house as a huge mass of branches and leaves. This ball will slowly roll on the ground, aggressively, toward the main character. While moving, the creature will produce as squishy sound, like if the wood is wet. The Amalgam of Branches is the most hermetic secret of the forest, hiding a truth so complex and impossible to see, hidden under a solid wall of wood. Like the safe of the forest, its content is impossible to be revealed, a harsh and twisted secret.

• The Doppelgänger (official name)

The climax of identity disorder is of course to face your own evil twin. In the last nights, the Doppelganger will make his appearance. Often, he will attack aggressively the player, able to climb staircase and to move really fast. In contrast with the real Lodger, who only speaks gibberish, the Doppelganger is able to speak and will say sentences like “Finally I am home”. In other occasions, the evil twin will behave peacefully, just wandering around the house to switch off the light bulbs. In this case, meeting the Doppelganger will cause a strange effect where the player will become the Doppelganger, obtaining also the achievement “How’s Annie?” (a clear reference to Twin Peaks, which knows how to deal with Doppelgangers).

• The Weeping One (official name)

An exception between the Guests, the Weeping One not only is not aggressive, but she is also an important source of information for the main plot of Knock Knock. During the last nights, a desperate cry could be heard around the house. A child is crying in a corner, closed in her drama. By approaching the Weeping One, two different outcome could happen. In the most positive scenario, the Weeping One will simply vanish, providing an interesting page of a diary with crucial lore of the game. In a more unlucky scenario, the Weeping One will show her deformed face, damaging the psyche of the main character.

• Prosthetic Leg

The first enemy to be encountered, Prosthetic Leg is a mysterious but very human being. Thin, slow and fragile, the creature wears a straitjacket, also showing a steampunk prosthetic leg. To highlight the loss of identity and personality at the base of Knock Knock, this Guest is also headless, without showing any identity. The straitjacket is also a direct symbolism of the craziness and the denial affecting the Lodger, which is slowly descending in his own personal hell. Worth to notice that, in the previous version of the game, this Guest and the Chained One both showed a head.

• The Chained One

Second Guest to be encountered, it is a deadly and fast ghost-like creature. His transparent body is covered by a ruined blanket, while his arms are trapped with chains. He has the typical appearance of a classic ghost, but it is quite dangerous, due to his almost invisible body and his fast movements. As Prosthetic Leg, also this one is headless. The Guest could be symbolising just a ghost, since the Gothic setting of the house could be metaphorized by a classic ghost. However, in previous images this Guest had a head, precisely an old man with a long white beard. Another interpretation could be that this Guest is symbolising time or ageing, which inexorably pass while the Lodger continue to be trapped in his time loop.

• The Twisted One

The most creepy and probably the most aggressive Guest, the Twisted One is a fast living nightmare. The creature is thin, with pale skin and a not so smart face. His body is completely twisted and reversed, with the butt where the face should be, and even an additional set of arms. The Guest is really dangerous, able to move quickly and to climb stairs. His twisted nature is unique to the Guests, probably highlighting even more the breaking in the mind of the Lodger, unable to see the truth while falling in pieces.

• The Invisible One

A very peculiar and dangerous Guest, who is almost invisible. The creature will slowly walk in a straight line around the house, leaving only hand-prints on the walls as sign of its passage. Each movement of the creature is highlighted by a squishy sound, like if its hands are dirty or wet. Another strong example of loss of identity, since in this case the entity is completely invisible, not simply headless.

• The Sad Tree

This is one of the most mysterious and bizarre Guests, and also one of the most rare to encounter. It looks like a sack imitating a tree, including the roots, with also a sad face stitched in its body. A big tear is also falling from its eye, highlighting again the sadness behind this stationary creature. The Forest is sad because the Lodger is not able to find the truth. The Lodger is avoiding to explore the forest, while imprisoning in his house to forget his past. The forest is sending him messages thought the Sad Tree, to remind him where the truth is to be searched.

• The Hidden Stone

During the last nights, the searching for the missing identity will take a drastic change. If before the majority of the creatures were bodies missing a face, now it will become exactly the opposite: faces surrounded by bizarre bodies. The Lodger’s replicate face has crazy wide opened eyes, while all its body is composed by a mass of dark stones. The Forest is not creating a body for the head of the Lodger, combining the two elements.

Other Guests followed the same idea of the Hidden Stone, but are made of leaves. The face of the Lodger appears inside a mass of leaves, with the same exalted expression as for the stones. In another occasion, his face will be instead supported by a small spider-like body made of leaves. For how bizarre the design could be, their symbolism is the same as for the Hidden Stone.

Most creepy and disturbing moments in video games history: the revealing of Mother in Forbidden Siren 2

Welcome to the first article about the most creepy and disturbing moments that can be found in video games. This series of short articles will focus on describing scenes or situations that are not only scary, but creepy, shocking and disturbing. With classics like Silent Hill or Resident Evil, there are plenty of unsettling cutscenes in survival horror games that now are iconic. However, there are also many obscure and disturbing moments in video games history which are not so well known by the general audience. Between the many possibilities, I decided to start with a really unexpected and disturbing scene from Forbidden Siren 2.

Forbidden Siren (or simply Siren in Japan) is a horror saga created by almost all the developers of the first Silent Hill. The game connects the lives of many characters together in a mysterious island, with its own obscure mythology and traditions. Of course there is something wrong and rotten in the deepness of the island, something that will mix good and evil in twisted surprises. The horror scenes are uniquely effective, due to the use of a novel technology to paint the expressions of real actors on the characters.

Between the many creepy enemies, unexpected twists and surprises, there is one specific disturbing scene which for sure will stay sculpted in the mind of the player: the first revelation of the Mother. Yuri Kishida is a very mysterious character since the beginning, someone that is of course hiding something wrong and obscure. But the reveal is more shocking than expected. After descending in a mysterious hellish portal inside an amusement park, she would like to thank another character by showing “her true self”.

She will slowly start to unbutton here shirt, while seductively saying “please look at me”. There is an intense atmosphere of erotism that will surprise the player. The fact that the character Yuri Kishida is portrayed by the beautiful Japanese Actress Mai Takahashi is also definitively not helping to cool down the situation. But everything will quickly fall down into a nightmare when, below her clothes, her naked skin shows no trace of any female anatomy. If this could be surprisingly disturbing by itself, the subsequent appearance of a huge smiling face on her naked body would be simply too much to handle.

This disturbing moment, breaking the promise of an unexpected erotic scene in a dark and grim game, is surely an unforgettable nightmare for any player of Forbidden Siren 2. I will not provide details or an explanation of what is happening here, so people interested could explore and enjoy the complex plot of Forbidden Siren 2.

If the animated gif is not enough, here you can find the complete cutscene:

The cryptic Kids of Pathologic: dangerous games for children

The streets of Pathologic are a cryptic place with their own rules driven by ancient traditions. While an eldritch plague rampages in this mysterious town in the middle of the steppe, the inhabitants will continue to follow their believes. Between ancient rituals, strong familiar feuds and taboos, not even the children are simply normal citizen in the Town. All the contrary, because the kids of the Town are a very peculiar and unique social group. Seriously, you will never see more mysterious, alien and peculiar children in any videogame. In the following analysis I will write about the believes, the traditional games and the real role of the kids in Pathologic HD. Especially in the last part there will be heavy SPOILERS of the main plot of Pathologic HD/Classic.

In the social net of the Town, the kids act like a sort of hidden cult, or a self-established social class that unofficially exists in the underground of the folklore of the Town. They are gears outside of the machinery of the city, but part of a even more complex artefact. The kids also share strong traditions, specifically rooted in complex games, often of questionable morality. The majority of the normal kids are wandering the streets during the day, with void faces like if they were sleepwalkers. They usually have sad stories to tell, regarding their lives during the plague, or also fake bizarre tales like the Transparent Cat. This invisible cat only appears at night: myth or reality?

One of the most strange things regarding the interaction with the kids is related to bartering. The kids are strangely one of the best source for ammunitions in the Town. It is very unclear how kids could access to bullets, but it is probably due to the fact that the Town almost rejects or ignores guns, worshipping instead blades and knives. The laws of the Town forbid to children to use anything that is sharp or pointy. This transforms common items like needles or hooks into treasures for the kids, which will easily trade even bullets for them. If this could be only a normal parental precaution, on the other hand the idea that the adults of the Town could be scared by children possessing knives opens a more uncanny and creepy scenario. For example, in the Town there are several gangs of children, and they usually kill each other using knives. Probably accessing to sharp objects could be also a way to enter in these gangs.

The Dogheads are one of the most creepy and scary gangs of children in the Town. The members wear a hood with the face of a dog, which covers all their faces, with two big and void stuffed eyes in the middle. There is a lot of mystery surrounding the Dogheads. For example, there are different stories regarding why they wear this hood, the straight one is of course to protect their identities, but also to “bounces the wearer’s thoughts back into his head.” There are mysterious information regarding the cult of the Dogheads. For example, a Doghead reveals that to become a Doghead you should kill one of them. They are difficult to see around the city, usually assigned to complex secret tasks. A group of them is always defending the Polyhedron, headquarter of the children and a place where the imagination has a tangible power.

An even creepier group of renegade Dogheads is called “Soul-and-a-Halves”, and of course the members are in a constant war against the Dogheads. This other gang embraces even more the tribal connection with dogs, not only at an aesthetic level, but as a deep connection of souls between humans and animals. They claim to share their souls with totemic animals, that of course in the majority of the cases are dogs.

The creepiness of the children is even more reflected in the traditional games that they play. Like an abnormal microcosm, the kids absorb the bizarre traditions and the behaviours of the adults, and they twist them with their own views. The most famous example is the “Plague game”. The children were probably terrible affected by the spreading of the first plague. Entire families got ripped by the disease, while the adults and the doctors tried everything possible to fight the disease. Probably the children also wanted to help, trying to create their panacea by mixing together all the medicines they found. In some rare cases this had a positive effect, but in general, the majority of the “patients” died. With time, this evolved into a game, a sort of challenge to create the best homemade medicine. Of course multiple children got severely intoxicated and the adults are fighting to stop this traditional game.

A more traditional and “safe” game is related with walnuts and peanuts. Nuts are another incredible valuable item to exchange with children. Such as with hooks and needles, also in this case the rarity of this merchandise is rooted into the taboos and the traditions of the kids. In the past, each kid had his own nut. This personalised item was believed to preserve inside the experienced adventures, like a tape recorded with the best memories. Children brought their nut to all sort of risky and crazy adventures, imagining that will be conserved forever inside the nut. In this way every nut was not a simple snack, but a record of the most amazing adventures. At some point, adults forbade the nuts, since the children were risking their lives for the most risky trips. For this reason, right now, every kind of nut is a precious treasure for every children, soaked with the most mysterious and dangerous adventures.

Other questionable games include betting on races of infected rats, or a really creepy version of hide-and-seek. In this version there are hunters and hunted. The bigger difference with standard hide-and-seek is that the hunter, which is the one searching, should kill whoever is discovered. Kids can be really creepy in the twisted world of Pathologic.

In the Town of Pathologic, some kids have even crucial positions of political power, being totally integrated into the complex social mechanism of the Town. For example, Khan is the leader of the Dogheads, a young general and the son of one of the most powerful man in the city, now hiding inside the Polyhedron. Other important kids work as oracles, grave diggers, or leaders of other institutions, well connected with the traditions of the Town. Taya for example is the Mother Superior of the Apiary, the leader of all the workers of the meat factory. A 5 years old child is the boss of a giant factory, supervising like a cult leader all the workers, and this is something completely normal for the Town. These powerful children are gathered together in the main intro of the game. In this scene, the kids are preparing the funeral of a giant stuffed doll, which will be buried in the ground. The meaning of this new game is hidden, but probably heavily connected with the birth of the Sand Plague (as you can read in my other article Pathologic – the Sand Plague: the evolution and the meaning of an eldritch sentient disease). Why the kids are able to access to such powerful positions? What is their true role in the society, behind their weird games? This is related to the fact that the kids are the real Deus ex Machina of the game.

The children hide an incredible mystery, a power that can shape the fundamentals of the reality. The kids are not simple secondary characters, but a definitive creative force so strong that can challenge the Plague itself. The true power of the children is connected with the mysterious existence of the Polyhedron, a building that challenges the fundamental rules of physics. The building is not only peculiar in its external design, but it is even more complex in its interior, where the true secrets are hidden. The Polyhedron is the kingdom of the children, a place where the imagination gets real, where the walls are made of paper and big origami float without gravity. Hidden in an infinity of inner chambers and twisted stairs, groups of children are using their imagination to create complexes and alive worlds. If these should be realms of happiness, joy and games, the mind of wounded children could instead build dark and sad realities.

The children are not only a cult-like institution, with ancient traditions encoded in twisted games, but they also posses a unique power in the entire Town. Using the power of their imagination, kids can shape the reality to create worlds, like if they were demiurge Gods. Here comes the biggest plot twist of Pathologic HD. Since the beginning of the game, while interacting with bizarre mimes wearing masks, it is clear that the games often breaks the 4th wall. Also during the mime spectacles at the theatre, or during other dialogues, often Pathologic jumps into the meta-narrative breaking the 4th wall with the player.

But the biggest surprise will come at the end, when the “Power that Be” is revealed. During the majority of the game, one of the main characters, the Bachelor, will receive letters from this mysterious entity, which seems to know everything regarding what is happening in the Town. In a secret cut-scene, inside a room in the Polyhedron, the “Power that Be” is revealed to be just two kids, with an abstract scale model of the Town made with sand. It is revealed that probably all the game is instead a proper “game” itself, something created by the damaged mind of two kids who lost someone due to a plague. They know that the plague is an invincible enemy, for this reason they created the complex story of a doctor trying to find a cure. A modern hero facing an impossible enemy. The player is just playing their game as main character, while the other characters are simple artefacts, toys or dolls.

Kids are a crucial force in the Town, something ancient and mysterious, but also able to change all the believes and to shape the reality itself. Games are not only a part of these traditions, but are a metaphor to integrate and to control a greater power with the folklore and the everyday life of the Town.

With the recent release of the Pathologic 2, will the role of the children be the same in this new remake/sequel?