Dumb Survival-Horror Fun Streamed Directly to your Living Room

I don’t know what the general consensus out there is, but I’ve personally been really enjoying Netflix’s experimental forays into the cloud game streaming scene lately. The collection of quality party titles they offer are always a huge hit at any gatherings I have. Meanwhile, surprising gems like the excellent Happy Gilmore Golf Mayhem ‘98 Demo (what a mouthful) and now this are showing their interest in bringing the same type of fast, easy-to-access entertainment straight to the living rooms of the single-player crowd as well.

Unhinged is far from a deep experience. This extremely linear, first-person point-and-click adventure doesn’t provide any opportunities to get off the beaten path and mess around as it quickly funnels you from one set piece to the next for around 30 minutes before the credits roll. Yet, while its ridiculous writing will seriously test your suspension of disbelief—man, do these characters make some baffling decisions—there are enough B-movie thrills here to deliver a schlocky fun time regardless if you’re in the mood for one.

The manner in which you use your phone as both a Wii-esque motion controller and to simulate the protagonist’s own cellular device leads to some cool dual-screen action, and my goodness did they not skimp on the production values. The graphics are of the same caliber as the average modern triple-A title you could get on home console or PC, there’s some shockingly great gore, and the amount of legitimate Hollywood talent in voice cast is genuinely impressive (our leading lady is played by freaking Zoë Kravitz!). I did encounter some minor hitching at points, but nothing that significantly affected the gameplay.

I think what might be most special though, is that there remains a social element despite the lack of an actual multiplayer component. It’s a blast to introduce this to other people and riff on the sillier moments with a group of friends. A fact that easily makes it worth revisiting with the right audience.

Overall, I quite enjoyed this. Don’t get me wrong, I am in no way suggesting that anybody should go out and signup for a Netflix subscription just to try it for themselves, as if I would’ve been pretty ticked if I had been required to pay anything extra for it. As a cool addition to a service I’m already paying for, however? Well, I have very few complaints. Consequently, I would love to see the video-on-demand platform do further stuff like this in the future.

7/10