If you haven’t played Unhinged on Netflix yet, clear 30 minutes of your schedule today. It is a brief, intense horror experience that will stick with you long after the credits roll—and it might just have you checking your locks twice tonight. Developed by Night School Studio, the creative team behind the Oxenfree series, Unhinged features a star-studded cast including Zoë Kravitz, Sadie Sink, and Troy Baker.
The premise is simple but effective: you are tasked with surviving the night in your apartment building during a hurricane, only to find yourself the target of a home invasion. However, the true draw of Unhinged isn't just the narrative; it’s the way it forces you to engage with your hardware.
A New Way to Play
Rather than relying solely on a controller, mouse, or keyboard, Unhinged integrates your actual smartphone into the core loop. You point your phone at the screen to control an in-game flashlight, a mechanic that feels like a more refined, modern take on the motion-control concepts of the past. Beyond movement, the phone is essential for narrative immersion: you receive calls and text messages directly to your device, and audio is split between your screen and your phone speaker. When a character like Claire calls you, the sound comes from your hand, not your TV, effectively pulling you out of the living room and into the apartment with the protagonist, Ava.
It’s a refreshing change of pace for mobile gaming, turning a tool we usually use for guides or second-screening into a primary interface. While the experience is short, it manages to be gory, bloody, and genuinely nerve-wracking, proving that the concept of phone-integrated gaming has massive potential for the horror genre.
The Future of Interactive Horror
Night School Studio has crafted something that feels like an opening act for a larger movement. While Unhinged is a standalone experience, it highlights how developers could utilize mobile devices to create more immersive, interactive horror titles. Much like how Supermassive Games established a specific style of interactive drama, there is a clear path forward here for studios to iterate on this phone-as-controller mechanic.
My only regret is that I played it in the middle of the day. For the best experience, you’ll want to wait until it’s dark. It is a short, scary-as-hell experience that leaves you wanting more, and I’m already hoping Night School Studio returns to this format with an even longer, larger-scale project. If you're looking for a fresh way to be terrified, this is it.