Black Mirror — Playtest: The Horror of Real Fear
I was planning on writing about the newly-released Cabinet of Curiosities series, but I only watched 2 and a half episodes. I wasn’t wild about the two I finished and one I turned off. Maybe I’ll like the other five episodes more? So, left without something to write about, my wife reminded me of this gem. “Playtest” hails from Black Mirror Series 3, back when people were excited about what fucked-up new things each season would explore. This episode isn’t my absolute favorite or anything, but if we’re exploring different kinds of horror, then this one fits the bill.
“Playtest” stars Wyatt Russell as Cooper, an annoying young man who leaves home to travel the world. We see glimpses of his adventures, but the plot really kicks off when he’s in England with his trip winding down. He’s clearly distressed about the prospect of going home and he’s ignoring calls from his mom. So, what’s he running from? The morning after a hook up, he tells Sonja (Hannah John-Kamen) that, before he left, he was taking care of his father, who was suffering with early-onset alzheimer’s. Cooper’s dad was his best friend and, when he died, he didn’t know how to connect with his mom, so he left.
Cooper’s plans take a turn when he finds his bank account depleted by fraudulent charges. Instead of calling home for help, he retreats to Hannah’s and hatches a plan to use an odd-jobs app to raise funds. One promising ($$$$) gig is seeking test subjects for a game designer and Hannah informs him that he could make even more if he’s able to snap some covert pictures.
So, we find Cooper in a white room at the gaming company’s compound getting prepped for an experimental augmented reality experience. With a temporary implant at the base of his skull, he is told that his own fears will be mined to make for a more intense playthrough. Cooper is then taken to a creepy mansion to spend the night and face the (entirely harmless) horrors that present themselves to him.
Things start off mildly enough with virtual spiders and an old-timey ghoul with the face of Cooper’s high-school bully — stuff to elevate his heartrate, but nothing he can’t handle. A giant spider with that same bully’s face is a little escalation in intensity, but still manageable. It’s not until Cooper’s radio connection to the game tech is severed that things start to go off the rails. Hannah shows up at the mansion’s front door trying to rile him up about a potential conspiracy at the gaming company. Cooper is convinced she is not part of the AR, but still a plant by the company sent to scare him. When things devolve into a struggle and Hannah stabs him, Cooper feels it, but her face also melts away, so what’s going on here?
After this, Cooper is justifiably upset and wants to end the experience. With his radio connection restored, he’s told he has to make his way upstairs to leave the game. Once there, the tech in his ear begins to taunt him, while also making him aware of the fact that his memories are being erased. Look in the mirror, Cooper, do you even recognize yourself? By the time the company’s real staff bust down the door, the damage is done. Cooper no longer knows where he is or what is happening to him. With the apologies of the game’s designer, the techs start to drag him away to be with “the others”. He cries one final time for everything to STOP, at which point he is finally pulled out of his (apparently virtual) nightmare.
Nothing that’s happened from the time he received the implant has been happening to his physical body. He’s still in the chair in the facility’s white room. Again, he has the apologies of the game designer. Apparently, they need to tone down their experience a bit. Cooper, relieved to be alive and in his right mind, finally makes the trip home…only to find his mother in throes of some sort of mental episode not dissimilar from something someone with alzheimer’s might experience. He’s still in the damn game!
His experience finally comes to an abrupt halt when his mom again calls his phone. It was supposed to be off, but he secretly turned it back on to snap some pics. Big mistake. The interference from the phone causes the implant to fry his brain and Cooper dies — for real this time.
The ending is a bit of an amusing shock, but I more want to focus on Cooper’s experience in the game. As it begins to dredge up his fears, we first get some superficial scares, before layering in some existential ones where he’s questioning his physical reality, but then we start to get to the real deep stuff. Clearly, Cooper’s experience with his father’s illness was traumatic for him and he, too, fears the same fate, which is why the implant starts to erase his memories. When he thinks he’s finally clear of the whole horrifying mess, he goes home to find his mom is now showing signs of mental illness. It’s an upsetting twist, but isn’t it exactly what you’d expect this technology to do? Without getting into the horror of a device that could erase (or shut down, I guess) your memories, we should examine what was actually terrifying about this episode. Were you more upset deep down by the spider monster or by Wyatt Russell’s convincing performance as man who suddenly didn’t know who he was anymore.
People can say they’re afraid of clowns until they’re blue in the face, but I’m willing to believe the things they really fear are a lot more personal — death of a loved one, sudden onset of severe disability or mental infirmity and the effect that would have on your family, abandonment, financial ruin, etc. To me, there seems to be a clear line between horror as entertainment and legitimate everyday fears. Viewers will often say that they like being scared, but I think they’re more referring to things like the wolfman and not reminders that they’ll probably die alone. Sometimes film and television do a good job of using metaphor to combine the two, but the result is sort of a cheat, if you ask me. In any case, you’re still a bit removed and just watching someone experience tragedy instead of experiencing it yourself. I’ve played VR games where I’ve battled hitmen, trolls, and zombies. It can be scary, yes, but I’m still having a good time. I remember playing a truly terrifying game called The Evil Within that rattled me so much I couldn’t progress. I’d rather be plopped into a VR version of that than be forced to experience what Cooper is in “Playtest”. I’ll save that for my nightmares.
Is it scary? I’d borrow a line from an Entertainment Weekly review and call it “viscerally upsetting”.
Streaming: All of Black Mirror is available on Netflix. Season 6 is currently in production.
