So, there's this game that was on the XBox Live Arcade when I was a kid called Warp. You play as a little alien that can warp short distances and into things. You have been taken and experimented on by, presumably, the government. With the help of a telepathic floating alien, you escape from being helpless, and you save the floating alien (who I will refer to as Shard). The setting for the game is an underwater research facility, sometimes ascetic, sometimes messy, but a good locale for the game as water will take away your abilities (as long as you're in it or shortly after you're out). The ambience is quite good. I'm noticing that I'm making this sound like maybe a horror game or something serious. It's not. It's a dark comedy. You teleport into scientists and make them explode. Scientests run away and have lines that imply that they shit their pants. Guards might do a pelvic thrust after killing you. The game never feels very serious. Look at the main antagonist, a macho mililtary type that will destroy everything to stop you (granted, his experience with you has mostly been seeing people blow up). You face him a couple times. Anyway...
You save Shard from their cage and learn of a submarine. Great way to escape. After the submarine leaves the facility, you learn that Mr. Macho is on the sub, and he wants to sink it to kill you. Right before the final fight, Shard says that they're gonna try something and goes into the ships engine(?). You fight Mr. Macho. Water starts flooding the submarine. You're basically defenseless. But then, the sub is teleported to shore (a sort of cave type place).
Now, given this game is a dark comedy, I figured the ending might be a bit silly. I was wrong. It's raining outside. Mr. Macho takes his last breath as you see him die. Shard floats out of the submarine, onto the ground, and dies as you look down in sadness at them. You regain control of the alien. All you can do is go outside. You walk out. You, of course, lose your powers in the rain
I was rewatching some Xavier yesterday to keep out the dread and also because I like it. I like how many silly details there are. I like that an x-ray in S1E3 Weapons Grade Life is just the Mona Lisa's face. I really liked that a gag in S1E5 Pet Siouxicide where they treat injecting Native American blood into yourself as heroin-like has a joke where Xavier tells the injector/ee "Who taught you to do that?" and he responds with "You! Okay! I learned it from watching you!" has a double meaning of just being a dumb joke and also a thing about how Xavier appropriates from Native American cultures 24/7.
I feel like repetition is a really great thing in films for building a sense of dread and confusion and one that doesn't seem to be used too much. When I think of repetition in films, I mainly think of Perfect Blue and Jeanne Dielman. Perfect Blue's reuse of animation really gets you into Mima's headspace of not knowing what's real. Jeanne Dielman might stand out more as it's probably not intended to be a psychological thriller, but the repeated shots of practically the same exact space from nearly the same angle creates a feeling that something must be off. Is the camera in a different place? Have things been moved around? Is it exactly the same? Perfectly static? An hour into Jeanne Dielman, I was enraptured. It's so great. I also think of Straight Outta Compton. Towards the end, a character repeats himself in a way that feels like the same take was used twice in the edit. It really threw me off and it seems like it threw off other people too. I just think all out repetition can be really cool.