If I’m being honest, consuming any kind of horror media any time of year is always the best time to do so, but it really does just hit a bit different when it’s in October. I know that that’s as much an influence from capitalism, what with all those Brands trying to sell me decorations and themed candy I definitely don’t need, but also, I do just love getting into the Halloween season! There’s a weird sort of comfort that horror brings, even the most uncomfortable of films or games, and engaging in something like that as the leaves turn brown and weather gets cold just feels right.
There’s still the question of what to watch or play this particular Halloween season – sure you could go for one of the classics, but personally I can’t think of anything more appropriate and terrifying than Mouthwashing. Yes, seriously! OK, only sort of seriously, because while the act of mouth washing might be terrifying to some, the very real video game Mouthwashing isn’t terrifying so much as existentially horrifying, in all the best ways possible. Let’s set the scene.
Imagine you’re on a spaceship, one of five crew members, towing some kind of cargo halfway across the galaxy on a trip that’ll take the best part of a year (I know this sounds like the original Alien, and it’s clear some inspiration is drawn from there). Then, one day, the worst happens – you crash into an asteroid, leaving the ship in disrepair and enough power to keep the oxygen coming and the lights on, but the engines are totalled. On top of that, you’re left with complete burns across your body, wrapped in bandages toe to tip, as someone else, the actual main character, has to feed you pain meds so you’re not screaming the ship down.
That’s the central premise of the game, with the crew relying on the few months of rations they have left to get them through to a hypothetical rescue mission. Quite early on, you make the call to see what cargo you’re actually hauling and find that it’s… just mouthwash. All of it, every single box, thousands upon thousands of bottles of the stuff. And so the rest of the game is you learning more about the characters, and what actually went down, and the ways in which everyone kind of starts to lose their mind.
The vibes are quite quickly unmatched in this one, going for a kind of cross between a late PS1/ early PS2 look where everything feels grimey and dirty – like just picking up the controller will feel uncomfortable. You switch back and forth a lot between before and after the crash, helping you contextualise the extremely corporation-loving atmosphere (there’s a horse mascot with posters everywhere you’ll grow to hate), and how much worse that feels in the lengthy period of time post-crash.
For the most part, a lot of what you do is walking around the trip, trying to fix things occasionally, getting people to do their jobs, making cake out of water and gelatin. It’s almost walking-sim, but with pockets of survival horror moments that have made me more anxious than any other game has done in a long while – when you can make me afraid of cardboard boxes shaking, you’ve done something right (you’ll understand when you get to that point).
With it being so inspired by Alien, minus the alien, I can’t help but feel like it’s almost a forgotten ’70s horror classic. Mouthwashing is the kind of game where you tell your friend that’s mostly just watched Halloween or Nightmare on Elm Street who wants to broaden their palette that it’s one you really can’t miss. Pairing this with an evening of other slightly artsy-fartsy films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (it’s an arthouse film, trust me) or 1977’s House wouldn’t go amiss in the slightest.
It’s all wrapped up in this sad but necessary bow of feeling frustrated with your lot in life, beholden to a business that couldn’t give less of a s**t about you, and the ways in which you are forced to confront all of that. A lot of the game is funny, in a twisted sort of way, but you should expect some big feelings too. Mouthwashing is short as well, at only roughly 3 hours in length, so you really can just slot it in somewhere amongst your annual horror Halloween movie list. You just might never use mouthwash again.