Madison Review – Snapshots Of Potential

What do a murderous witch, a grandmother’s mysterious death, and demonic possession have in common? An old Polaroid style camera. Madison is an indie horror film that falls within the post-P.T. category. First-person haunted home. Players explore an impressively rendered home solving puzzles and avoiding apparitions armed with a camera that’s more than meets the eye. The experience is flawed in its presentation and core mechanic.

A demon, Luca has manipulated your mind into completing a sinister ritual in the haunted home. Along the way, you’ll learn of Madison Hale, a practitioner of witchcraft who committed a series of grisly ritualistic murders before being killed herself. While she sits at the center of your plight, the story also weaves in your family’s history with the demonic in ways that sometimes feel disconnected to the main plot, making it unclear how, say, a supernatural trip to a 1950s church directly relates to present events. Luca’s panicked, eye-rolling ramblings also became a distraction, so I’m thankful a Silent Mode let me turn him into a muted, subtitled protagonist to raise the creepy factor.

The supernatural camera is your main interactive tool, as well as a weapon. Key locations are often photographed to break down barriers and open up new possibilities. Many photos can serve as clues. It’s a neat mechanic, and I like the tension of shaking a Polaroid to see what big revelation appears. Since there’s no visual indication of when to take a photograph, I learned to snap a picture of something whenever I hit a wall.

When the camera isn’t the answer, you’ll be rummaging through a limited inventory of items for the right tool to pry open floorboards or snap chains. Resident Evil is a way to invoke puzzle solving. Some riddles are clever, but others can seem too complicated, so it’s easy to get lost in the details.

After receiving a new item, I wandered the house for over an hour looking for a way to use it, only to learn I had to return to a room I’d thoroughly explored to find an unrelated item that had appeared in the corner of the floor. A notebook that conveys your next objective threw in a vaguer waypoint; the solution required such a giant leap in logic that I yelled, “How would I know that?!” These situations occur more than I would have liked, so don’t be afraid to keep a walkthrough open because re-running the house multiple times to find a metaphorical needle in a haystack nullifies the sense of dread. 

The oppressive ambience and outstanding lighting made it difficult to explore this haunted house in the first hour. A shadow-covered corner or stairway always gave me pause, and the game’s ambient bumps and camera tricks had me second-guessing each step. Unfortunately, the longer I explored, the more I noticed Madison’s excessive use of its looping soundboard of creaks, moans, and thunderclaps. I eventually stopped jumping at the same door-closing sound effect because I knew it wasn’t threatening, and it made Madison’s home feel closer to a county fair haunted house with a broken record player.

That isn’t to say that Madison doesn’t have terrifying moments; activating a series of record players while being stalked by a demonic creature from a children’s book freaked me out, and the game features its fair share of “nope” moments. I believe that less is more when it comes to horror, and Madison’s at its best when it teases a big scare and follows through sparingly. The adventure becomes too indulgent as it progresses. The room-hopping creature spooked my sanity a few times, before appearing at random in absurd places like bathtubs or on furniture. This made me smile and dispel its threat.

Madison starts to rely too heavily on cheap jumps scares during the back half. I was greeted with an almost constant barrage of them. In fact, I experienced two jump scares in one place within minutes. After the fourth “surprise” in a row, I became frustrated by them more than anything. Madison could be a huge hit among the streaming audience because of this. But I think it should show more control and creativity.

Madison is still a decent evening of horrors. Despite my reservations, it’s worth checking out for those who enjoy psychological terror. The game succeeds at building tension and variety. However, it can get a little too obsessed with bluffing players with mind-numbing solutions or stopping them with bizarre jump scares. But when the game hits right, you’ll be glad no one caught the look on your face.