There’s a time and a face

This is the game where you peel a dead womans face off.

Apart from poor writing, these excessive, brute force attempts to disturb define Martha Is Dead.

For the most part Martha just made me frown and go ew.

A black and white photograph of Martha, the titular girl from Martha Is Dead, is hung up to dry in a dark room by the player character.

Were in rural Italy, 1944, towards the end of WW2.

Youre Giulia, the daughter of a fascist general, though thats just backdrop.

Cue the face-peeling nightmare.

Cover image for YouTube video

It keeps going like this.

The most uncomfortable part was worrying that someone might walk into my room and ask me to explain myself.

At least they wouldnt be exposed to the writing.

A screenshot of Martha Is Dead showing Martha lying in an open coffin in the family living room for her wake, the twins' father sleeping in a char in the corner

You get an ew, not an argh.

While the plot itself veers about wildly, the pacing can feel ponderous.

Its charming the first time, dull by the third.

A screenshot from Martha Is Dead showing the bloody corpses of a man and a woman lying in the bottom of a boat. The player character Giulia is holding up what appears to be a mask, facing it away from the camera

It tripped me up, even though Id only taken a couple of accidental extras.

Bafflingly, time-wasting repetition is also baked into parts that are supposed to be actively scary.

Again, the scariest prospect was someone walking in.

The player uses their 1940s camera to take a photograph of Martha, lying in her open coffin in the family living room, in Martha Is Dead

There are technical faults, too.

Some quest markers never appeared, while completed ones stuck around.

Even without them, stuttering persisted, especially whenever I went down a certain staircase.

That is not the way you want your horror game to be jarring.

There are small, fleeting glimpses at what could have been.

In any case, though, those scenes dont build towards a satisfying conclusion.

A parade of ghost sharks, clumsily jumped.