THE EVIL WITHIN: Chapter 6: “Losing Grip on Ourselves”

Story and Cinematography

Chapter Six begins with a POV shot from Castellanos’ perspective as the screen alternates between black-and-white, red, and negative images. The Beacon Mental Hospital nurse stands over him, next to a doctor who raises a knife as Castellanos wakes up inside the hospital. A bell tolls as he regains consciousness, and he’s standing inside the file room of the hospital. Having gotten so much Green Gel from Chapter Five, I went in for a few upgrades: increased ammunition capacity, more health from syringes, increased melee damage, and things of that sort. Going back to where we started, in the files room, we find a collection of photographs. In one photograph, a large hand rises out of a gaping hole in a floor, and the screen shakes and fades to black. Castellanos’ lamp is the only light source as we trek around the hospital in one of the more eerie scenes of the game so far.

As we walk toward the mirror at the end of the hallway — the one that normally transports us back to the “real” world — we see a long-shot of the nurse standing in front of it, silhouetted by its shine. She turns and walks down a set of stairs to the right (which have not been there until now), and we follow her. Underground, the walls are bricked and crumbling. Ripples of sound waves flow through the hallway as Castellanos is disoriented once again. There’s a small cutscene of a Sadist-looking figure at the end of the hallway wearing something over his head that resembles the reverse-bear-trap from the original Saw. This is only an apparition, though, because he’s gone when we reach the end of the hallway. There’s a door to our right, and inside lies Leslie. The camera zooms onto him as he shakes and convulses on the ground. He eventually stops, in an close-up of the back of his head, as he mutters “Sebastian?” and turns his head. His face is a cracked mirror, and we see ourselves standing in front of him — an interesting shot that’s somehow a medium shot and an extreme close-up at the same time. Leslie’s face acts as the mirror that transports us this time, as we find ourselves inside a crumbling brick building in front of a cracked bathroom mirror.

Chapter 6 title card.

Climbing up a flight of stairs, we find ourselves standing in a large coastal expanse of land, brilliantly lit up by the evening sunlight with some stone buildings in the distance. Castellanos remarks that they resemble the buildings in the photographs at the hospital. We walk toward them and enter a gate. This prompts a cutscene of Castellanos finding Joseph lying on the ground, with a birds-eye-view shot of him running toward Joseph’s body. Joseph is fine, it turns out, and he claims he just blacked out. From an intense close-up shot, he says he hasn’t seen Kidman since they separated. The gate behind them begins to shake from the Haunted outside, who break in, and Castellanos and Joseph escape further into the village. Once they get inside another building, one of the Haunted throws a torch that catches it on fire. After dodging flames, disarming bombs, and blowing off heads, we make our way outside of the building and into an Uncharted 3-esque area of elevated buildings and plank bridges. Here, we’re forced to kill several dozen of the Haunted and make our way toward a large guard tower. We find a sniper rifle inside a chest, and we use it to take out some of the Haunted that are shooting arrows at us from above. After clearing this area (which took way too long) we go toward the tower’s entrance.

The guard tower.

Lo and behold, the Sadist comes through the door, his chainsaw blaring. (Note: Apparently there are multiple Sadists in this world, which raises the dreaded question: are there more Lauras, as well? Oy vey.) Finishing him was much harder than it should’ve been, mainly because I had very few bullets. Much like a three-year-old fighting an older brother, our tactic here was hit-and-run. Once we finally kill him, we take the 1000 Green Gel he drops and enter the tower. We ride up an elevator and walk onto a large bridge. This triggers a cutscene that begins with a low-angle shot of the Haunted cutting off a man’s head with a guillotine. Joseph sees them and runs to help, but he trips over a wire bomb and blows the bridge in half, separating him from Castellanos. From the river below, the camera cranes upward to the falling debris, showing the severity of the circumstances. The Haunted retrieve Joseph’s semi-conscious body, and we’re tasked with rescuing him. With our sniper rifle, it’s easy to pick off the Haunted before they can get Joseph to the guillotine. He drops a plank across a small gap between cliffs that we are able to cross. This triggers another cutscene of Joseph pulling Castellanos’ pistol from its holster and holding it against his own head. “It’s just a matter of time,” he says, before Castellanos wrestles the gun away from him.

Joseph realizes he’s possessed.

Through a gate down the path, we come to an outside marketplace full of much-needed Green Gel and ammunition. Joseph reinforces what I’ve been thinking this whole time — he says, “this architecture seems straight out of the Middle Ages.” Castellanos replies, “Yeah, but there’s electricity. This place can’t be real…” To which Joseph says, “It’s like jumbled up memories.” To adds some credibility to my assertion that the detectives were transported to a new time/dimension/what-have-you after the ambulance crash in Chapter 1. Hopefully we’ll get a further explanation of this later in the game.

After hearing a scream that sounds very much like Leslie, we enter a cemetery. From a vantage point, Joseph sees Detective Kidman carrying someone (Leslie, I presume) into a large stone church. We make our way through the cemetery, killing Haunted of course, and eventually come to a gate (Wow, this game loves gates.). Through the gate emerge two nine-feet-tall Haunted that chase us around with large clubs wrapped in barbed wire. Although I haven’t used the crossbow much this game, I’m forced to shoot exploding arrows to take them down. Once they’re stunned on their knees, we finish them with some head-shots. Making our way further into the cemetery, we come upon a stone casket that, when Joseph fiddles with its side, slides backward to reveal an underground passage. Inside, we come to a booby-trapped room in which we’re forced to solve a puzzle to get through. We only have to pull some levers in the correct order, so it’s easy to get past. Once we do, we enter an open courtyard within the cemetery, and this chapter’s boss fight begins.

A giant mutated dog bursts through a doorway and charges toward us. It knocks Joseph on his feet, prompting an extreme close-up of his glasses on the ground. The fight is a matador-type situation where we dodge the dog’s charges and shoot it from the back. We are able to beat it rather quickly, but once we make a getaway, Joseph makes us go back for his glasses. We finish off the dog and pick up the Green Gel it drops. The chapter ends with Joseph and Castellanos walking up the stairs to the church Kidman entered earlier.

Demon Dog battle.

Thoughts

This was one of the more fun chapters of the game so far, even though it was fairly long and difficult. Most of it was actual gameplay instead of cutscenes, which I appreciated. The cutscenes that were included were always great, too. The story is making its way along the rising action, but it does still feel stagnant in places. I expected a much more fast-paced story for a survival horror game like this, but I won’t fault the game for it just yet.

As always, thanks for reading. See you next week for Chapter 7: The Keeper.