The first work that I looked at was The Flat. The interactive game starts with you at the bottom of a flight of stairs. The screen almost looks like you are watching this through one of those old TVs, where the horizontal lines flicker, reminiscent of early 2000 televisions and electronic sets (from what I remember). Words flickered occasionally on the bottom, with hints of self doubt and generally just creepy sentiments. The music/ambient noise added to the suspense of the scene. There also was a clock in the upper right corner counting down how much time you had. I was initially confused on what the purpose of the clock was. Was I supposed to find something/someone? Was I supposed to escape the room? Some of the floating words talked about how the house was always stuffy/closed up, increasing the suspicion that something was going on. The “surprise” at the end added to the creepiness of the whole narrative/game. I found that this game really reminded me of The Blair Witch Project, where people go into the woods to look for a murderer and some of the film is portrayed through a handheld video camera. The creepiness of both the house in The Flat in woods in The Blair Witch Project were amplified by the lo-fi aspect of the filming. I think that this allowed the stories to seem more believable, as it could’ve been made by anyone. The idea that this could be real is what really terrified me. Without the authenticity and amateur style of the videos, these films/games wouldn’t have been as haunting. Another aspect that I found similar between the two was the lack of answers. Not knowing the full story increased the suspense.
This idea of creepiness in the mundane was something that Freud talked about in his essay Uncanny. The idea of something familiar being creepy directly ties to The Flat as at its core, the game is really just exploring someone’s apartment. There is nothing inherently creepy about the apartment itself, but the situation surrounding the apartment make it creepy.