Horses is an absolutely cursed horror game from the creators of Saturnalia
Being at once repellent and compelling is some kind of criterion for Real Art Status, and Horses - developed by Saturnalia developers Santa Ragione and directed by Andrea Lucco Borlera - certainly earns that accolade. Out later in 2024, this first-person horror game takes inspiration from the Surrealism art movement and from silent cinema, with monochrome visuals, speech cards in place of spoken dialogue, and rickety live-action footage for certain animations and transitions. But it's also, I think, a meditation on the unique kinds of grotesque only videogames can produce, one that goes beyond the mere portrayal of squalor and bloodshed to explore particular generations and traditions of videogame graphics that are intrinsically cursed. It stood out amid the breezy action games and cosy life sims of this year's Day Of The Devs expo in San Francisco like a bell-tolling plaguebearer in a crowd of Tellytubbies.