Video Game / IMMORTALITY (2022)

aka: Immortality

What happened to Marissa Marcel?

IMMORTALITY is a Live-Action Cutscene Interactive Fiction game from Half Mermaid Productions, directed by Sam Barlow of Her Story and Telling Lies fame, and released in August 2022. It acts as a Spiritual Successor to the aforementioned games, where the player is once again tasked with piecing a story together from a given collection of video clips.

In the year 1968, a young-but-talented actress named Marissa Marcel is cast by famous director Alan Fischer in his new sexploitation film Ambrosio, adapted from M.G. Lewis’s notorious Gothic novel, The Monk. In the film - her first major role - Marissa plays Matilda, an alluring beauty who seduces the pious Ambrosio after infiltrating his monastery disguised as a monk. The movie is finished, but never released to the public for reasons unknown.

Two years later in 1970, Marissa co-writes and stars in Minsky: a gritty detective thriller directed and co-written as a vehicle for her by Ambrosio's director of photography, John Durick. In this, Marissa plays the muse of a high-profile artist - the eponymous Minsky - in New York City. When Minsky is found murdered, Marissa's character becomes the main suspect, and begins a torrid love affair with the greenhorn detective investigating the murder. This film is left unfinished and abandoned after an accident on-set, and Marissa vanishes from the public eye shortly thereafter.

Finally, in 1999, Marissa suddenly re-emerges from a decades-long hiatus to star in John Durick's Two of Everything, seemingly as part of a grand comeback to acting. In this film, Marissa plays both pop sensation Maria and her body double Heather, who agree to switch places for a few days to explore each other's lives. Once again, the film is never completed or released, and Marissa disappears again — this time, seemingly for good.

Now in the present day, the unedited footage of these three long-lost films has been rediscovered, along with numerous clips of backstage, rehearsal, interview, and candid footage. Due to a strange glitch, you are forced to unlock clips one by one via the software's "match cut" feature, which allows the viewer to select individual objects and people to jump to a clip containing a matching object or person. You are tasked with piecing together these unorganized and disparate clips to not only recreate the movies, but to discover the truth behind the mystery of Marissa Marcel, her disappearances, and why none of her movies were ever released.

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This game contains examples of:

• All There in the Manual: The Proteans are never referred to as such in the game itself - the name of their race is only mentioned in interviews and in the scripts as used by the cast and crew.
• Arc Symbol:
  • An invoked example - the primary mechanic of the game involves clicking on objects (or people) in film clips, which will bring the player to the same or a similar object reappearing in a different clip, potentially even from another film, in the form of a Match Cut. As such, there are multiple symbols that recur throughout the in-game trilogy.
  • Snakes appear as a motif in all three of the in-universe films - a snake bite in Ambrosio almost kills the titular character, Olga wears distinctive snake-shaped earrings in Minsky, and a snake-shaped pool-float plays a minor role in Two of Everything. This hearkens back to the serpent from the Book of Genesis, which the Other claims to have been responsible for. Both the One and the Other are seen as Adam and Eve in various clips, further hinting at their connection to the Biblical tale. Furthermore, the two Proteans could be compared to snakes in the manner in which they hunt and feed on humans by lying in wait to strike.
• Back from the Dead: The Other pulls this off when he reappears after being burned to ashes some twenty years previously, shocking The One. It turns out that that "dead" Proteans can Body Surf into humans that view footage of the moment of their death, allowing The Other to be reborn as Amy, the girlfriend of John Durick who watched old archive footage of Minsky.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted with Marissa, who gradually becomes more and more gaunt-looking as the filming of Two of Everything progresses, due to the One straining to be both her and Durick at the same time. Compare her fresh-faced look in the early rehearsals for the film to her tired, sunken-eyed appearance in the final scene shot, where she begins bleeding from the forehead before collapsing altogether.
• Betty and Veronica: Played with in the case of the female leads in Ambrosio - Marissa Marcel and Sofia Morgana. The young Marissa has long, red hair and an innocent face, and reads a Lewis Carroll poem for her audition. Meanwhile, the somewhat-older Sofia has short, dark hair, sharper eyebrows, and reads a classic Femme Fatale monologue for her audition. Yet, the director rather deliberately casts Sofia as the virginal Antonia and Marissa as Matilda, the wicked temptress - with the two characters being the objects of the title character's lust. Complicated matters even further is that both Marissa and Sofia end up having separate affairs behind the scenes with the actor playing Ambrosio.
• California Doubling: An In-Universe example, with the film Ambrosio being explicitly set in Madrid, Spain, but filmed in Italy (and with a largely Italian cast and crew).
• Casting Couch: In Minsky, Marissa (the star) is in a sexual relationship with John (the director) - a fact that does not go unremarked upon by the other actors. John even states directly at one point that he sleeps with all of his stars, because he believes it's important for him to understand the "material" that he works with.
• Cluster F-Bomb: A behind-the-scenes clip from Minsky has Carl Greenwood reveal that he's never had to say the word "fuck" onscreen before, so Marissa encourages him to practice saying it so that it sounds more natural. This eventually devolves into Carl and Marissa just saying the word "fuck" repeatedly.
• Crystal-Ball Scheduling: All over the place. In both Ambrosio and Minsky, for instance, there is a Love Triangle between the characters that plays out in a similar fashion with the actors playing those same characters.
  • Matilda, played by Marissa Marcel, is revealed in the climax of Ambrosio to be the Devil in disguise. Marissa herself is really an immortal being disguised as a human. The other actor who plays Satan in the same film is another immortal, as well.
  • Minsky is about an artist who is murdered by his muse. The One ends up killing Durick after he is horrified by her true form.
    • The naive and handsome young actor, Carl Greenwood, plays the character of Goodman in Minsky - a naive and handsome young detective. Both Greenwood and Goodman meet a beautiful young woman (Marissa Marcel, and the character she plays in Minsky) who seduces them and leads them down a path of debauchery by introducing them to the seedy underbelly of New York City. Detective Goodman is "ruined" by his love for her, and allows her to go free even after discovering that she is the murderer he's been searching for. Carl Greenwood is also "ruined" in a much more literal sense, in that he is killed and replaced in the middle of the film shoot as part of an ongoing feud between two immortal beings that Carl knew absolutely nothing about.
  • Two Of Everything is about a pop star and her double's lives becoming intertwined and complicated. The One, who has been living as Durick for two decades, suddenly decides to split herself in two to impersonate Marissa AND Durick, which causes a huge strain on her form.
• Dead All Along: The real Marissa Marcel was a young French girl raped and murdered by Nazis during the Second World War. The One, having just awoken from one of her decades-long slumbers, comes across the dying girl and "devours" her, allowing her to take Marissa's form and gain all of her memories. Learning of the dead girl's hopes and dreams, and pitying the fact that she died too young to achieve them, the One decides to take on Marissa's form and eventually becomes an actress, kickstarting the game's story.
• Deader than Dead: Any Protean whose body is destroyed by fire...until the age of film comes along, which offers loopholes around even this.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance:
  • The treatment of the actors and particularly the actresses in Ambrosio and Minsky is deliberately jarring, as part of the game's commentary on filmmaking in the mid-20th century; director Arthur Fischer's comments towards the young women in his cast (including Marissa, who is only 17 when she auditions) are often creepy and sexist. Likewise, John Durick's sexual relationship with the actors in his films is rarely commented upon.
  • There are multiple scenes in the films depicting sex or sexual assault, with no sign on-set of an intimacy coordinator's involvement - an important but relatively recently-developed role in film and TV production.
  • Marissa's audition for Fischer consists of him asking her various uncomfortable questions about her sex life, remarking that her being in her late teens is perfect since she's old enough to take direction but too young to have the intelligence and assertiveness to question him, and making crude comments about the meaning of oysters (as an aphrodisiac) in relation to her and him after she reads a poem that mentions them. It's all but stated that she and the other lead actress of Ambrosio were only hired because he desired them sexually. The reverse clip contained within Marissa's audition even has the One calling Fischer out on this, insinuating that his sexual harassment of the women in his films is his desperate attempt to make up for his own insecurities about his age, his failing career, and his, ahem, rather inadequate member.
• Devil in Disguise:
  • Marissa Marcel's character in Ambrosio, Matilda, appears to be a mortal woman who dabbles in Satanic rituals, but is revealed in the final scene to be Lucifer himself, having arisen from Hell to tempt the supposedly-honourable Ambrosio into wickedness.
  • There's an added layer to this trope, in that Marissa Marcel herself is actually an immortal being named "the One", disguised as a human. Her counterpart, the Other, also disguises himself as an actor - who, again, plays Satan in Ambrosio. It's ambiguous as to the true nature of these two; they're more akin to vampires in the way they devour mortals for sustenance or pleasure, but appear to enjoy dressing up in the trappings of demons or fallen angels.
• Driving Question:
  • "What happened to Marissa Marcel?" An immortal being known as the One killed and took Marcel's form long before the filming of Ambrosio. "Marcel's" absence from acting between Minsky and Two Of Everything was due to the One doing the same to John Durick and having lived exclusively as him during this time. The One decided to bring back Marcel's form for Two Of Everything seemingly out of nostalgia after Arthur Fischer gave her the negatives of Ambrosio on his death bed.
  • To a lesser extent, "Why weren't any of Marissa Marcel's movies released?" Ambrosio had the final print stolen by its director Arthur Fischer for unclear reasons. Minksy officially had its production halted due to an on-set accident causing the death of one of its actors, Carl Goodman, while in reality, it was a deliberate murder committed by the One against the Other who had taken Carl's form. The One later also murdered and replaced John Durick and then canceled the movie herself. Two of Everything was never released due to the One immolating herself on camera in order to potentially live forever by Body Surfing to whoever watches the footage of her death, leaving the movie without its lead and director.
• Foreshadowing: Plenty of it, given the way the game's story is presented out-of-order.
  • One scene that can be obtained early on is a television interview with John Durick in the early 1970s, where he mentions that the shooting of his film, Minsky, had to be abandoned after an accident on set resulted in the death of the star, Carl Greenwood. Finding the clip that depicts said accident is much more difficult.
    • In the same scene, the way John reacts to some of the questions asked of him hint that something more is going on - namely, that The One has ceased pretending to be Marissa Marcel and is now impersonating John instead. "John" knows the truth behind "Marissa's" disappearance because he was her.
    John: I don't think she really disappeared or anything. She just...chose a different life.
    Jimmy: Have you met with Marissa since that movie?
    John: (smiles) I have not.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: At the end of the game, The One commits suicide by immolating herself, knowing thanks to The Other that she can return by possessing anyone who watches the footage of her death. As in the one the player is watching. Just to drive this further, her final message is "I'm part of you now".
• Genre Shift: IMMORTALITY presents itself as a relatively mundane mystery where you need to learn about the life and disappearance of Marissa Marcel by reconstructing her movies, reading between the lines of candid shots, and finding the right clips. For example, an early clip has John Durick allude to an accident on the set of Minsky that led to Marissa's first disappearance, so an early objective might be to find the footage depicting that accident. The first "hidden clip" reveals the game to be a psychological horror, and the actual plot to be about the tribulations of two vampire-like immortals who have seemingly existed from the dawn of humankind.
• Gratuitous French: In "Mimsky - 5/20/1972", when Debbie introduces herself and says she's from a wealthy family in France, Marissa talks to her in unsubtitled French.

Marissa: Debbie, tell us about yourself.
Debbie: Well, I'm from a very well-to-do family back in France.
Marissa: Faisailent-ils partie de l'Ancien Régime? (Were they part of the Old Regime?)
Debbie: Ma famille a grimpé l'échelle sociale après que la guillotine a fini son travail. (My family moved up the social ladder after the guillotine finished its job.)
Marissa: D'accord. (Okay.)

• Homage: The entire game is one long love letter to the cinema of the latter half of the 20th century, but each of the three in-universe films is heavily-inspired by a film in particular in terms of its visual style, content, performances, and even costume designs: The Devils for Ambrosio, Klute for Minsky, and Mulholland Dr. for Two of Everything.
• I Just Shot Marvin in the Face: An unfortunate case of Reckless Gun Usage on the set of Minsky results in the death of Carl Greenwood when Marissa Marcel accidentally shoots him point-blank in the chest. This, understandably, brings the film's production to a tragic end. However, this is subverted by viewing the hidden scene in this clip, which reveals that the One (as Marissa) deliberately shot and killed the Other (in Carl's body) - what appeared to be a horrific accident was actually the culmination of a fight between two feuding immortals.
• Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: The entire premise of the game, as the player is tasked with piecing together the truth behind what happened to Marissa Marcel using hundreds of scattered movie clips, behind-the-scenes footage, rehearsal videos, and more besides - all of which can be obtained in more-or-less any order. And that's not even getting into the hidden scenes that reveal the supernatural aspect of the story, which can be uncovered by rewinding certain clips.
• Julius Beethoven da Vinci: The One claims that she and The Other have taken the form of Jesus and "both Marys" (presumably the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene). One of the reverse clips contained within a piece of footage from Ambrosio even shows both the One and the Other as what is implied to be Adam and Eve.
• Kill and Replace:
  • The One has killed the real Marissa Marcel likely decades before the filming of Ambrosio and took her form. Later on, she murders John Durick and takes his place as well, working as a successful director for 20 years.
  • The Other takes the place of Carl Greenwood midway through the filming of Minsky, in order to antagonize The One.
• Kill It with Fire: Fire is the only thing which can put down a Protean for good. Or so they thought. The Other meets his demise after "Carl Greenwood's" body is cremated but manages to come back by hijacking Amy Archer's body after she watches footage of the murder, stunning The One.
• Life Imitates Art: invoked Invoked. The plots of the three films mirror Marissa's tribulations in real life as well as The One's behind the scenes.
• Literal Metaphor: The title of the game at first seems to be a reference to how art grants a sort of immortality to artists by having their works persist long after they are gone, which is implied to be part of The One's interest in film. The Other clearly doesn't share this interest and ends up being murdered by The One due to their disagreement...only to hijack Amy Archer after she watches the footage of the murder, which causes the Ones to reconcile and realize that film can grant them actual immortality by Body Surfing to viewers.
• Match Cut: The main method by which the player navigates the various clips available in the game - highlighting and clicking on an object in the frame will zoom in on that object, before cutting to the same or a similar object in another clip. Upon starting the game, only one clip is available to the player, and using the match cut system is the only way to unlock the rest.
• Meta Fictional Title: Played With. The game boots up as Marissa Marcel: An Interactive Restoration Of Three Films, only to change to Immortality as soon as you start the game.
• Mind Screw: The majority of the reverse clips run on this, portraying events that could not have possibly occurred within the timeline of the film footage but have somehow occurred anyway, likely due to the interference of the One and the Other.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed:
  • Jimmy, the talk show host, is a near-perfect imitation of Johnny Carson, down to delivery and mannerisms.
  • Ambrosio director Arthur Fisher is a clear analog to Alfred Hitchcock. He has a very similar name, manner of dress and figure, and is noted to be extremely controlling of his actresses. Fisher is also stated to be a once genius director currently suffering a career slump (much like Hitchcock in the late 60s) and Ambrosio is his first film containing nudity.
  • The billionaire couple in Two of Everything who make use of their money, power, and connections to sexually abuse the protagonists bear a strong resemblance to Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell - the scandals surrounding whom were prominent in the media during the game's production.
• Our Vampires Are Different: The Proteans are an immortal race of mysterious beings who seemingly gain the ability to take over a person's body and effectively "become" them by drinking their blood. All they need is a taste, although The One still goes as far as to bite John Durick's neck in the typical vampiric fashion. The only known way of killing a Protean permanently is by burning their body, but the two Proteans who appear in the game later discover (entirely by accident) that they can overcome even this by hijacking the body of somebody who watches a video of their death.
• Reality Warper:
  • The Proteans as a whole are heavily implied to be these in tandem with their other powers, given that the vast majority of the reverse clips seem to portray both the One and the Other as interacting with people within the clips in ways that would almost certainly be otherwise impossible or that would not fit within the set timeline of the footage. They almost seem to operate on a separate plane of reality from the rest of humanity, but still one that intersects with our own, given that the One's murder of the Other on the set of Minsky still results in consequences for everyone even when no one else can perceive it for what it is, i.e. the death of Carl Goodman, who the Other had been possessing at the time.
  • The reverse clip of Marissa Marcel's audition for Ambrosio portrays the One turning the tables on director Arthur Fincher and terrorizing him in return for the way he'd sexually harassed Marissa throughout her audition, as he dazedly admits his fears that his life and career is on a slow, downward spiral and that he will lose the small amount of respect he has once he hits bottom. Not only does he seem to be going along with her interview of him as a result of something she's deliberately done to him, but there's almost no actual way that she would have been able to get away with this, unless she changed reality as portrayed in the film footage in such a way that would have allowed her to do so.
• The Queen's Latin: The American Robert Jones decides to give the title character of Ambrosio - a Spanish monk - a typical RP English accent, despite the other actors all using their native accents (ie. either American or Italian) for their respective roles.
• Satanic Archetype: The One and the Other. They have been compared to angels (much like Lucifer), tempt people to get what they want and their messages can only be found by backmasking, an urban legend straight out of the Satanic Panic. At one point the Other claims that the snake and the apple were his idea.
• Sdrawkcab Speech: How Matilda summons Satan in Ambrosio, as well as how she and Satan communicate once he arrives. (She's saying "Hail Satan" during the summoning, and apparently arguing about if Ambrosio is worth the effort once Satan arrives.) Players will probably unlock this scene very early on, and there's a reverse clip embedded in it — the trope is probably being used to get players who might not have noticed the sound or vibrating controller cues to run the scene in reverse just to hear what Matilda is saying, and learn about the reverse clips that way.
• Show Within a Show: Three of them, to be precise - the films Ambrosio, Minsky, and Two of Everything.
• Signature Style: All three of Marissa's movies contain recurring imagery and themes, which is key to the "match cut" gameplay. The most obvious recurring theme is that all three films contain highly-charged sexual content - including sexual violence and assault - but in different contexts depending on the era: sex as a corrupting force in Ambrosio (based on an 18th century novel), sex as liberal empowerment and freedom in Minksy (1970s), and sex as a tool of abuse in Two of Everything (1999).
  • Similarly, all three films are about the ways in which women are exploited by powerful men: the title character in Ambrosio is a well-respected monk who uses his position to take advantage of the vulnerable young Antonia; the title character in Minsky is a famous artist who mistreats his various muses, using them until he discards them; meanwhile, Two of Everything has the protagonist's life toyed with and eventually ended altogether by the whims of a powerful billionaire. Ironically enough, and tying into the game's message, much of the behind-the-scenes footage reveals that the actresses involved in making the films are also subjected to abuse and mistreatment.
• Subliminal Seduction: Forms part of the game's (secret) premise - reversing the footage at certain points (ie. when a strange humming noise starts playing and the controller vibrates) reveals new scenes hidden within the footage, where a mysterious woman appears to be speaking directly to the player. This is the One, an apparently immortal being who is the true identity of Marissa Marcel.
• Tamer and Chaster: Two of Everything is the only film of the three presented in-game not to feature nudity or graphic sex scenes. Although the script calls for nudity in a scene where Isabella has sex with her two bodyguards in a swimming pool, we only get to see the clothes-on rehearsal for the scene.