@@Stigmatix666 and that's the scary part. the grotesque-ness wasn't just for shock value or whatever, it was just being blunt at saying this is how twisted and brutal her mind has become. if normal people are disturbed by it, imagine actual people going through life with this kind of mind with no means of help...
Not only is Giulias father a general of the army, he is a general of the GERMAN army (A literal nazi). And even though he doesn‘t synpathize with the way the war goes, it does give a really really bitter taste in your mouth when the Nazi dad is more sympathetic than Giulias cruel mother (and in context of Lapo being a rebel who gets killed by troops probably under her fathers command). I think this is a great decision for the story that adds to the really fucked family dynamic
The way I interpreted the story was that Martha created an alter to endure the abuse of her mother. It makes sense when you are familiar with the symptoms of dissociative identity disorder. When kids get abused at a young age they learn to dissociate as a coping mechanism. They create an alternative selve who is able to cope with the abuse. In this case Martha "created" someone who is deaf and mute so she didn't have to hear her mother or react to it. The thing with DID is that the alter becomes a well-rounded selve. I always imagine it like the movie inside out, there are multiple people in the "control room" of one body. Only it takes the right therapy to get the alters to communicate and be able to be in the "control room" together. Some alters don't know that the other exists and just take up control of the body on their own whenever they feel triggered to. This eventually results in amnesia. I do think everything in the game happened, and that Martha was the one who did everything. But I do believe that she switches between the Martha and Guilia alters and (because the DID is undiagnosed) suffers from memory gaps doing so. All the violent things we didn't see was an alter taking control. This game does establish the stigma that alters are violent (they are not), but also perfectly captures the confusion that comes with having multiple personalities that can take over any time. This is a frightening reality for people and worth diving into when you want to understand it beter.
I really appreciate how you've worded this as DID gets really terrible presentations or explanations and this is both factually accurate and what I believe has happened to Martha. As the sibling of someone with DID (who is funnily enough called Martha) it makes me glad that people are unlearning the harmful stereotypes and also educating and explaining better. The horror of this game truly is knowing that what's going on is very much realistic. It shows the lengths our brains take to protect ourselves and survive trauma but also how damaging that can be in the long term. I think the way some of the memories are presented works incredibly well too, as especially the puppet show memories bring a disconnect to the trauma, which is what a lot of damaged and traumatised people to in order to manage that too. There's an awful lot of media being released at the moment with DID in the story or plot (although not confirmed to be canon for Martha is Dead, it's strongly suggested) and it's very bittersweet. On one hand the representation has been far better than before, on the other the trope of an "evil alter" is still being used in every single piece of media involving DID. Moon Knight has been pretty decent as of now but again there's still the "evil" part.
@@angel_izer8134 Oh yeah of course there is. But that's only one behaviour out of a massive spectrum of behaviours, so even if there is a violent alter there's most definitely enough nonviolent and overarchingly neutral or positive alters to outnumber the likelihood. It's just rarer than people imagine, most alters that people might initially perceive as violent are just self-destructive as a result of the trauma rather than actively imposing violence upon people.
I was under the impression that Martha isn't real she is an alter created by Julia through the abuse we see in the puppet show. Her bf says in a letter that he can tell them apart because he knows which alter is in control. Martha ends up pregnant but Julia after a nightmare has blood between her legs indicating she had a miscarriage. Her mother hints to this conclusion when Julia pulls a gun on her accusing her of killing Martha and her mother goes back to the day she abused her before going to a mental facility and tries to say " it was so long ago i was not well then" Martha was created as a defense mechanism for that abuse. The drug that Julia is taking maximizing her mental trauma and increasing these illusions that Martha is her twin. You even see a mirror in Julia/Martha's room that reflecting the bedroom , this could make Julia believe she shares a room with Martha rather than just been a mirror image of her room. Julia's mother and father may have known about her split personality and her mother prefered Martha because she doesn't speak or hear , when Julia refuses to speak she thinks Martha is the only personality left and is happy while Julia's father relents that Julia is the original personality and is depressed by the loss of his child and replacing of her alter who does not speak or responded to sound.
This is the best video describing the amazing (and horrifying) experience of this game. 👏 Ever since playing it I've been trying to decipher what is happened and what didn't. I think it will stick with me for a long time. I think it was perhaps always Martha and Guilia was an alter created to protect Martha that stemmed from the horrific abuse of the mother. I think the parents thought Guilia was an imaginary friend or different version of their daughter that did talk. The mother preferred Martha bc she was meek and didn't speak. And the father preferred Guilia as they sang together and took pictures.
@@ReginaldWrites its what makes sense for the parents to have referenced both daughters while only one probably existing. The game can be read in many ways though which is part of why I love it so much!
This just proves that not all horror games need a monster. It makes it ironic that the scariest monsters are made by humans, whether that be humans creating tall, gangly distorted humans with gaunt appearances and large teeth, to the war on other humans, killing innocents and creating things that could kill millions within hours, to a humans own mind torturing and trying to cope with reality. These are all things that humans made. Horror isn't monsters, horror is humans.
So, I really liked your in-depth analysis for the subtle horrors of this game. However, I wanted to share my theory of what might be the truth for this game. So, the game constantly talks about no one but lapo can tell the twins apart. But I truly don't think Guila exists. I believe Martha has always been the main character. There's a lot of truth to "Gulia's" story telling but there are a few details that stuck out to me. Why did her mother act confused when she mentioned her twin? Why did she wake up in a pool of blood as if she had a miscarriage? Why didn't you see anyone at the funeral? I believe that there are 2 personalities to Martha that she called her "twin". I think that's what also explains some of the memory lapses. Some people with dissociative identity disorder* don't keep the memories of the alter. I think what added to this was her parents picked favorite personas. Her mom liked Martha for the quiet and out of the way nature. And her father liked Gulia for her outgoing and playful nature. I think everyone knew that there were two distinct personalities and Lapo fell in love with both sides of her. Which leads me to the miscarriage situation. I do think Lapo got her pregnant. I do think he really cared for her. But I think the stress of her hyper realistic nightmares caused her to miscarry. I think Gulia saw and heard what she wanted to hear and saw what she wanted to. I do think she didn't kill her mother. Nor did she see her dad die. I believe she was already in the asylum. I believe that she was put there after finding Lapo. She probably listened to the radio in the asylum and made her own story make sense. And now that she's heavily medicated she probably spends her time talking to herself in the mirror thinking that she's talking to her twin. She still believes that she's Gulia and that Martha is dead but I feel that she has always been Martha. *Edited after a correction in the replies
Wow . I mean now I get some of the details that intrigued me . And I think that you're right . I was thinking too that maybe she had a split personality but dismiss it because it was' Guila' talking . So it had to have some truth , right ? Anyway I really like game that take the time to push you to think. It makes the experience more memorable.
The mom really did die because in one scene we saw the mothers head in her hand then she proceeded to take it outside with the rest of parts, Everything else you stated I completely agree with!!!!❤️
@@QueenZiareHadley But a psychotic breakdown could've lead to a hyper-realistic nightmare. Just like with the dream where she removed Martha's face. Once you have a psychotic breakdown some people cannot discern between reality and fiction. They think it's all 100% true.
@@satsukisan8128 Guila isn't a reliable narrator and it's proven by all the hallucinations. Who's to know what the truth really is? Everything could be a made up story made by the ramblings of a mad woman.
This game really didn't let me sleep for a couple of nights but I have no regrets playing it. The games that shake you to the core does not always have to be horror ones, the greatest horror comes with our imagination and how we interpret the story. That's what Martha is dead places it's takes on and it worked wonders for the storytelling. The immersion is crazy.
The fly sound is actually a nod to the resistance in occupied Italy. Just like when you discover lapo dead, the music that plays and where you find a flyer for the resistance ,it’s in a field of flowers, which was also associated as a symbol of the resistance.
The bike thing is very true, i worked in a retirement house and met a friend of mine's grandma and there is really multiple stories about them shooting on cyclists for some reason...
Not sure if you're still reading the comments, but I would like to touch upon the subject of Martha is Dead's soundtrack. You brought up a great point about the soundtrack. It is definitely the heart of the game that gives this horror movie 'that something'. Ninna nanna sette e venti, the instrumental that plays during the photo development always gives me a strange feeling. And here are spoilers, because at first, when Giulia's situation was pretty 'normal', trying to live Martha's life, developing a photo (especially of herself at the beginning) with this music in the background was full of dread, depression and sadness. However, when bombs fell on Giulia's house later on in the game and everyone in her house being dead, getting to the darkroom to develop the photo, knowing that everyone in the house was dead with the sound of airplanes over her head that just gave this particular moment more hopelessness was not only depressing, but also scary, knowing that everyone in that house is now a roaming ghost because of you, and that you were the only one who survived even if you didn't try. I hope this makes sense, just the soundtrack is really great.
One of the best games I've played. When Martha was standing in front of the mirror in the end, I just couldn't decide what really happened. I was just standing there, devoid of feelings, as though I was actually Martha. Only few pieces of media make it difficult to trust your own self and thinking, and that's one of them. Truly fascinating
At some point I did thought that maybe her twin was her own imagination so she wouldn't be alone but dismiss it until you talk about the med the family used . And from there everything is possible . Thank you for sharing this . I did also notice a creepy drawing of another fairy tale . It was Hansel and Gretel I think I'm not totally sure . But for the Little Red Riding Hood ? You sure have good eyes.
I think more people should check out another game from this studio called The Town of Light , I don't think I cried so hard over any video game before , it's not that gory , it's scary in it's realness , the fact that things like that actually happened to people in real life
the ending song makes me sob even when I just play bits of it in my head years and years after I watched the playthrough , so yeah ... this game really stuck with me
I absolutely loved this and The Town of Light. I thought Martha was real because of a few reasons: 1) mother confession when she wax shot. Note she was confused when sister brought up. She also mentions her daughter not talking for days after the lake. 2) in same confession Martha/Giulia were sitting by lake saying nothing happened. 3) puppet theatre shows mother beat Martha with cane. When that happens, the doll face shatters showing the deformed doll under with mouth stitched shut. The blackouts to me were her self and alt self (Giulia being alt to deal with the abuse) having trouble due to probably repressing memories or struggling with which personality is in control. I think the game says only Irene is taking the drug. Another note that I liked in the game is whether or not you tell Erich or not about Partisans, doing the mission always has them being slaughtered, but when Martha escapes, there is dialouge where it is implied Erich actually helped Partisans. It's very brief but when she laments what happened to the Partisans and Lapo, it is mentioned when she asks whether she did right. For me, small details like that can show a certain amount of storytelling and consistency. Remember just before you do the Telegraph and Morse Code, you're given option to tell father or not. Martha does say he opposes the war. As to horror, to me it is excellent. Horrors of war (Lapo, house being bombed), a ghost story (Woman in white. I loved that aspect but love ghost stories and hauntings), how hallucinations can really be traumatic, and horrifying as they can make person unsure if real or not.
I don't think it's just the meth. I believe martha has some DID caused by her mother's abuse. I say some because normally, alters aren't aware of each other, and even if they do, they're not related. It can explain the lashing out (when the mother threatens to reveal the truth about guolia, that she's just an alter) as well as the blacking out and lasped memory
It makes me wonder if Martha was raped and couldn't handle it so she made up lapo. She tried to kill herself from all the pain but then Gulia who had been locked away for so long came out because Martha couldn't handle it any longer and left, leaving her to try to make sense of the situation any way she could. I think this because it mentioned rape on the radio in the game just before she found out Martha said that Gulia was pregnant. But also because if she really was in love with that boy and had a baby with him I don't think it would be horrific enough to try to kill yourself. Or to pull out an alter after 15 years. At the end it mentioned a solider that let her live but she wouldn't look at his face... I wonder if he was the one and he felt guilty? Or perhaps in her subconscious she wanted to think that he would feel guilty but sense she wasn't ready to face the whole thing it was for a different reason.
she wasnt rape and lapo is real. lapo is the boyfriend of martha or giulia (idk whats the real core identity) and giulia is the one who always attempts on killing herserlf or suicidal attempts
I thought the reason she didn't remember was because her mother would be furious she was pregnant and unmarried but i also see your point and it makes a lot of sense
That's my interpretation as well, and it feels more likely than anything happening with Lapo IMO. Also the mother saying that she had found Giulia in her underwear by the lake, that Giulia kept saying "nothing had happened" over and over again and that she hadn't spoken for days after makes that conclusion more plausible.
…I had no idea what I was expecting as I have never heard of this horror game but I was literally putting on a face mask as I was watching the first part of this video
oh my gosh, what a great video. It’s very nicely edited and one can tell a lot of firm went into it! I’m excited to see what you explore next, subscribed! :)
I finished this game last night, at around 4am. I could not sleep, this is the most shocked and horrified I have been in a very long time, and I'm 30. I am definitely taking a break from this type of game in order to recover my mental composure.
A question I have is what about Martha’s body who was she visiting all those times and the pictures they took (if this was answered idk still watching)
I just want to start by saying I loved the story line in this game. It was messed up, but I appreciated the real psychological condition behind it and the delivery. However, a lot of the horror aspects escaped me for two reasons. Firstly, the optimization on Martha is Dead is terrible. Having large chunks of the map rend all at once destroyed my FPS constantly and often times my character's POV would shift without my input. Secondly, once I realized all decisions were lateral and it didn't matter what choices I made, I realized the burden of keeping this character alive wasn't on me and therefore the terror of doing something wrong due to a scare left me. Once I realized the game will play out the same and without a consequence from me, it lost a massive amount of scare factor from me. Again, I enjoyed the playthrough, but because of the above, the gory aspects were the only horrors for me.
I only watched a playthrough of the game, however I still totally sat tight at the photo developing or biking (lol, literal biking) moments of it. Didn't like the game overall, as Ive found it slightly disappointing, but these subtleties were brilliant. :)
im so sorry dude, i know this is a serious video about a dark game. but the only thing i heard when i started playing this video was "burgerking foot letuce" hahahah i stg im so sorry :D
Why does censorship like this even happen anymore? That rating system exists for a reason, and this game is not conning kids with lootbox gambling nonsense. If Sony is so worried about kids all of a sudden maybe they should include warnings about gambling
Its honestly people like them that are the reason horror games arent scary anymore. Theyre all cliche, yeah we get jumpscares and shit but no real cool and unnerving horror
this video is great but i hate how much misinfo ppl are spreading abt DID in the comments 😭 alters are not personalities they are their own seperate people with their own conscious and they aren't created by some sort of "original" whose the “real one”, y’all need to actually learn about disorders before talkin abt them
@@fushiijo no they don't posess the others? that makes no sense, alters switch between fronting (fronting means having control of the body) and when another alter fronts usually you black out, or maybe have like an out of body thing where it feels like your watching yourself in the third person.
Dissociative barriers between Alters (can be either full amnesia or partial/emotional amnesia between Alters like it is for OSDD1 systems) means that each alter has their own memories of a life they’ve lived (and unfortunately, for some Alters, a lot of those memories are traumatic.) This, of course, means they develop their own sense of identity and personhood. A lot of time, multiple Alters aren’t even aware of the fact they’re in a system (especially in the beginning, when communication between members of a system is sometimes near if not totally nonexistent); whenever they’re fronting, they’re just living their life as they always have. This is exactly why Alters can all have their own memories, emotions, ages, thoughts, opinions, and identity. They can have their own likes and dislikes, their own relationships, and even their own perception of what they look like. Like, say the Host Alter is gay man currently in a relationship with singlet man; another male Alter can be Asexual and romantically but not sexually involved with the singlet man and another Alter can be a girl who’s a lesbian, and therefore isn’t interested in being apart of that relationship. That’s why introjects of real or fictional characters are a thing, and why object or animal Alters are too. Treating them like their nothing but a personality and not their own people-with their own agency, thoughts, and opinions-can lead to even further trauma on a system that already had to deal with a lot. Especially if the trauma of dehumanization is something they’ve already had to deal with.
I thought the controversial content was going to be something way bigger than just cutting off a persons face. I have seen that in movies, TV shows and comics before.
Ngl I really fucking hate this game's portrayal of DID. It's such a tired trope in media to make neurodivergent people the basis of a horror story. Alters aren't violent. DID isn't some fun animal in a zoo to oo and aaah at. EDIT: since apparently some people like making fucking nitpicky comments. Of course I don't mean it's a black and white yes or no situation. What I'm saying is that alters aren't going to immediately go out and start murdering people just because. The stereotype they've gotten is only continued in the game, since all these acts of violence happen during the "blackouts".
The thing is, DID isn't the reason why Gulia was violent? Same thing with her mother? It was the Pervatin (basically meth lmao) Her mother was taking it and this caused her abusive tendencies to ramp up to 11. Something else Pervatin was known to cause is intense paranoia and memory loss. This explains pretty much all of the stuff you seem to be taking issue with. Yes she developed DID, but that part isn't demonized or portrayed as violent? It was all linked to the Pervatin.
@@mosquitomilk9877 i wasnt saying that the did was the reason why shes been that way, im aware of all the other things shes dealing with because of other stuff, like the pervatin. sorry of it came across that way i tend to be not so good at wording things :)
@@wistful_woodlands true but when pretty much the only representation of alters in media are serial killers and abusers, making yet another character with DID be extremely violent even if its not because of the disorder is just bad writing.
This game goes to show you don't need monsters to make a horrifying story. Towards the end, I was really left feeling disturbed and shocked.
Agreed! I was pleasantly surprised that the ghost was a lot more lowkey than I had expected it to be from the start.
nah you just need a girl to carve up her mother and sister to be left shocked and disturbed 😀
No, sadly, human brutality is enough
The monsters are in her head..
@@Stigmatix666 and that's the scary part. the grotesque-ness wasn't just for shock value or whatever, it was just being blunt at saying this is how twisted and brutal her mind has become. if normal people are disturbed by it, imagine actual people going through life with this kind of mind with no means of help...
Not only is Giulias father a general of the army, he is a general of the GERMAN army (A literal nazi). And even though he doesn‘t synpathize with the way the war goes, it does give a really really bitter taste in your mouth when the Nazi dad is more sympathetic than Giulias cruel mother (and in context of Lapo being a rebel who gets killed by troops probably under her fathers command). I think this is a great decision for the story that adds to the really fucked family dynamic
The way I interpreted the story was that Martha created an alter to endure the abuse of her mother. It makes sense when you are familiar with the symptoms of dissociative identity disorder.
When kids get abused at a young age they learn to dissociate as a coping mechanism. They create an alternative selve who is able to cope with the abuse. In this case Martha "created" someone who is deaf and mute so she didn't have to hear her mother or react to it.
The thing with DID is that the alter becomes a well-rounded selve. I always imagine it like the movie inside out, there are multiple people in the "control room" of one body. Only it takes the right therapy to get the alters to communicate and be able to be in the "control room" together. Some alters don't know that the other exists and just take up control of the body on their own whenever they feel triggered to. This eventually results in amnesia.
I do think everything in the game happened, and that Martha was the one who did everything. But I do believe that she switches between the Martha and Guilia alters and (because the DID is undiagnosed) suffers from memory gaps doing so. All the violent things we didn't see was an alter taking control.
This game does establish the stigma that alters are violent (they are not), but also perfectly captures the confusion that comes with having multiple personalities that can take over any time. This is a frightening reality for people and worth diving into when you want to understand it beter.
I really appreciate how you've worded this as DID gets really terrible presentations or explanations and this is both factually accurate and what I believe has happened to Martha. As the sibling of someone with DID (who is funnily enough called Martha) it makes me glad that people are unlearning the harmful stereotypes and also educating and explaining better. The horror of this game truly is knowing that what's going on is very much realistic. It shows the lengths our brains take to protect ourselves and survive trauma but also how damaging that can be in the long term. I think the way some of the memories are presented works incredibly well too, as especially the puppet show memories bring a disconnect to the trauma, which is what a lot of damaged and traumatised people to in order to manage that too.
There's an awful lot of media being released at the moment with DID in the story or plot (although not confirmed to be canon for Martha is Dead, it's strongly suggested) and it's very bittersweet. On one hand the representation has been far better than before, on the other the trope of an "evil alter" is still being used in every single piece of media involving DID. Moon Knight has been pretty decent as of now but again there's still the "evil" part.
Some just fight it. Lmao
Isn't it possible that some alters might be violent? even without the generalizing of them
@@angel_izer8134 Oh yeah of course there is. But that's only one behaviour out of a massive spectrum of behaviours, so even if there is a violent alter there's most definitely enough nonviolent and overarchingly neutral or positive alters to outnumber the likelihood. It's just rarer than people imagine, most alters that people might initially perceive as violent are just self-destructive as a result of the trauma rather than actively imposing violence upon people.
@@halbaer7871 this makes way more sense
The distorted string sound made scenes scarier for me. It really made me feel anxious when watching
It's definitely a really disorienting technique
I was under the impression that Martha isn't real she is an alter created by Julia through the abuse we see in the puppet show. Her bf says in a letter that he can tell them apart because he knows which alter is in control. Martha ends up pregnant but Julia after a nightmare has blood between her legs indicating she had a miscarriage. Her mother hints to this conclusion when Julia pulls a gun on her accusing her of killing Martha and her mother goes back to the day she abused her before going to a mental facility and tries to say " it was so long ago i was not well then" Martha was created as a defense mechanism for that abuse. The drug that Julia is taking maximizing her mental trauma and increasing these illusions that Martha is her twin. You even see a mirror in Julia/Martha's room that reflecting the bedroom , this could make Julia believe she shares a room with Martha rather than just been a mirror image of her room.
Julia's mother and father may have known about her split personality and her mother prefered Martha because she doesn't speak or hear , when Julia refuses to speak she thinks Martha is the only personality left and is happy while Julia's father relents that Julia is the original personality and is depressed by the loss of his child and replacing of her alter who does not speak or responded to sound.
I believe Martha was the real one and Guila was the alter ego Martha created in her mind so she didn't have to take the brunt of her mother's abuse.
@@cindyamaral3949 Yup. Martha was real and Gulia "killed" her
You’re correct, she was not real.
This is the best video describing the amazing (and horrifying) experience of this game. 👏 Ever since playing it I've been trying to decipher what is happened and what didn't. I think it will stick with me for a long time. I think it was perhaps always Martha and Guilia was an alter created to protect Martha that stemmed from the horrific abuse of the mother. I think the parents thought Guilia was an imaginary friend or different version of their daughter that did talk. The mother preferred Martha bc she was meek and didn't speak. And the father preferred Guilia as they sang together and took pictures.
That's a great interpretation of the game that I didn't think about! I think it's very plausible for Martha to have done this.
@@ReginaldWrites its what makes sense for the parents to have referenced both daughters while only one probably existing. The game can be read in many ways though which is part of why I love it so much!
This just proves that not all horror games need a monster. It makes it ironic that the scariest monsters are made by humans, whether that be humans creating tall, gangly distorted humans with gaunt appearances and large teeth, to the war on other humans, killing innocents and creating things that could kill millions within hours, to a humans own mind torturing and trying to cope with reality. These are all things that humans made. Horror isn't monsters, horror is humans.
Humans are the monsters all along.
So, I really liked your in-depth analysis for the subtle horrors of this game. However, I wanted to share my theory of what might be the truth for this game.
So, the game constantly talks about no one but lapo can tell the twins apart. But I truly don't think Guila exists. I believe Martha has always been the main character.
There's a lot of truth to "Gulia's" story telling but there are a few details that stuck out to me. Why did her mother act confused when she mentioned her twin? Why did she wake up in a pool of blood as if she had a miscarriage? Why didn't you see anyone at the funeral?
I believe that there are 2 personalities to Martha that she called her "twin". I think that's what also explains some of the memory lapses. Some people with dissociative identity disorder* don't keep the memories of the alter.
I think what added to this was her parents picked favorite personas. Her mom liked Martha for the quiet and out of the way nature. And her father liked Gulia for her outgoing and playful nature. I think everyone knew that there were two distinct personalities and Lapo fell in love with both sides of her.
Which leads me to the miscarriage situation. I do think Lapo got her pregnant. I do think he really cared for her. But I think the stress of her hyper realistic nightmares caused her to miscarry.
I think Gulia saw and heard what she wanted to hear and saw what she wanted to. I do think she didn't kill her mother. Nor did she see her dad die. I believe she was already in the asylum. I believe that she was put there after finding Lapo.
She probably listened to the radio in the asylum and made her own story make sense. And now that she's heavily medicated she probably spends her time talking to herself in the mirror thinking that she's talking to her twin.
She still believes that she's Gulia and that Martha is dead but I feel that she has always been Martha.
*Edited after a correction in the replies
I love the detail you noted about talking to herself in the mirror and thinking she's talking to her twin. It's a great take on the game's story!
Wow . I mean now I get some of the details that intrigued me . And I think that you're right . I was thinking too that maybe she had a split personality but dismiss it because it was' Guila' talking . So it had to have some truth , right ? Anyway I really like game that take the time to push you to think. It makes the experience more memorable.
The mom really did die because in one scene we saw the mothers head in her hand then she proceeded to take it outside with the rest of parts, Everything else you stated I completely agree with!!!!❤️
@@QueenZiareHadley But a psychotic breakdown could've lead to a hyper-realistic nightmare. Just like with the dream where she removed Martha's face. Once you have a psychotic breakdown some people cannot discern between reality and fiction. They think it's all 100% true.
@@satsukisan8128 Guila isn't a reliable narrator and it's proven by all the hallucinations. Who's to know what the truth really is? Everything could be a made up story made by the ramblings of a mad woman.
This game really didn't let me sleep for a couple of nights but I have no regrets playing it. The games that shake you to the core does not always have to be horror ones, the greatest horror comes with our imagination and how we interpret the story. That's what Martha is dead places it's takes on and it worked wonders for the storytelling. The immersion is crazy.
Your statement of how the greatest horror comes with our imagination and how we interpret the story is spot on. It really was a super immersive game.
The fly sound is actually a nod to the resistance in occupied Italy. Just like when you discover lapo dead, the music that plays and where you find a flyer for the resistance ,it’s in a field of flowers, which was also associated as a symbol of the resistance.
The bike thing is very true, i worked in a retirement house and met a friend of mine's grandma and there is really multiple stories about them shooting on cyclists for some reason...
They might carry news , letters for traitors.
Not sure if you're still reading the comments, but I would like to touch upon the subject of Martha is Dead's soundtrack.
You brought up a great point about the soundtrack. It is definitely the heart of the game that gives this horror movie 'that something'. Ninna nanna sette e venti, the instrumental that plays during the photo development always gives me a strange feeling. And here are spoilers, because at first, when Giulia's situation was pretty 'normal', trying to live Martha's life, developing a photo (especially of herself at the beginning) with this music in the background was full of dread, depression and sadness. However, when bombs fell on Giulia's house later on in the game and everyone in her house being dead, getting to the darkroom to develop the photo, knowing that everyone in the house was dead with the sound of airplanes over her head that just gave this particular moment more hopelessness was not only depressing, but also scary, knowing that everyone in that house is now a roaming ghost because of you, and that you were the only one who survived even if you didn't try. I hope this makes sense, just the soundtrack is really great.
It does make sense! Thank you for your insightful comment.
One of the best games I've played. When Martha was standing in front of the mirror in the end, I just couldn't decide what really happened. I was just standing there, devoid of feelings, as though I was actually Martha. Only few pieces of media make it difficult to trust your own self and thinking, and that's one of them. Truly fascinating
At some point I did thought that maybe her twin was her own imagination so she wouldn't be alone but dismiss it until you talk about the med the family used . And from there everything is possible . Thank you for sharing this . I did also notice a creepy drawing of another fairy tale . It was Hansel and Gretel I think I'm not totally sure . But for the Little Red Riding Hood ? You sure have good eyes.
Nice catch with Hansel and Gretel! Thank you for the kind comment as well.
15:29 "Keeping your entire army on fucking meth..." I fell out at that line. 😂
Well, WWII was indeed fought out on meth
I love that you talked about the music !!! That’s always my favourite part of any game, especially when it really adds to the story
Agreed! A great soundtrack makes any game better.
I think more people should check out another game from this studio called The Town of Light , I don't think I cried so hard over any video game before , it's not that gory , it's scary in it's realness , the fact that things like that actually happened to people in real life
the ending song makes me sob even when I just play bits of it in my head years and years after I watched the playthrough , so yeah ... this game really stuck with me
And it’s connected to this game as well
I absolutely loved this and The Town of Light. I thought Martha was real because of a few reasons: 1) mother confession when she wax shot. Note she was confused when sister brought up. She also mentions her daughter not talking for days after the lake. 2) in same confession Martha/Giulia were sitting by lake saying nothing happened. 3) puppet theatre shows mother beat Martha with cane. When that happens, the doll face shatters showing the deformed doll under with mouth stitched shut. The blackouts to me were her self and alt self (Giulia being alt to deal with the abuse) having trouble due to probably repressing memories or struggling with which personality is in control. I think the game says only Irene is taking the drug.
Another note that I liked in the game is whether or not you tell Erich or not about Partisans, doing the mission always has them being slaughtered, but when Martha escapes, there is dialouge where it is implied Erich actually helped Partisans. It's very brief but when she laments what happened to the Partisans and Lapo, it is mentioned when she asks whether she did right. For me, small details like that can show a certain amount of storytelling and consistency. Remember just before you do the Telegraph and Morse Code, you're given option to tell father or not. Martha does say he opposes the war.
As to horror, to me it is excellent. Horrors of war (Lapo, house being bombed), a ghost story (Woman in white. I loved that aspect but love ghost stories and hauntings), how hallucinations can really be traumatic, and horrifying as they can make person unsure if real or not.
just watched a playthrough of this game and honestly, the psychological horror disturbed me way more than the gore
I don't think it's just the meth. I believe martha has some DID caused by her mother's abuse. I say some because normally, alters aren't aware of each other, and even if they do, they're not related. It can explain the lashing out (when the mother threatens to reveal the truth about guolia, that she's just an alter) as well as the blacking out and lasped memory
It makes me wonder if Martha was raped and couldn't handle it so she made up lapo. She tried to kill herself from all the pain but then Gulia who had been locked away for so long came out because Martha couldn't handle it any longer and left, leaving her to try to make sense of the situation any way she could. I think this because it mentioned rape on the radio in the game just before she found out Martha said that Gulia was pregnant. But also because if she really was in love with that boy and had a baby with him I don't think it would be horrific enough to try to kill yourself. Or to pull out an alter after 15 years. At the end it mentioned a solider that let her live but she wouldn't look at his face... I wonder if he was the one and he felt guilty? Or perhaps in her subconscious she wanted to think that he would feel guilty but sense she wasn't ready to face the whole thing it was for a different reason.
she wasnt rape and lapo is real. lapo is the boyfriend of martha or giulia (idk whats the real core identity) and giulia is the one who always attempts on killing herserlf or suicidal attempts
I thought the reason she didn't remember was because her mother would be furious she was pregnant and unmarried but i also see your point and it makes a lot of sense
That's my interpretation as well, and it feels more likely than anything happening with Lapo IMO. Also the mother saying that she had found Giulia in her underwear by the lake, that Giulia kept saying "nothing had happened" over and over again and that she hadn't spoken for days after makes that conclusion more plausible.
"Keeping your entire army on FUCKING meth" made me laugh out loud 😂
…I had no idea what I was expecting as I have never heard of this horror game but I was literally putting on a face mask as I was watching the first part of this video
lmao 😂
"graphic content warning"
shows face being cut off
oh my gosh, what a great video. It’s very nicely edited and one can tell a lot of firm went into it! I’m excited to see what you explore next, subscribed! :)
Thank you so much!
Very impressed with your commentary and how you presented the game. Throughly enjoyable video ☺️
thank you very much, i appreciate it :)
Very well explained and edited!
Thank you!
I finished this game last night, at around 4am. I could not sleep, this is the most shocked and horrified I have been in a very long time, and I'm 30. I am definitely taking a break from this type of game in order to recover my mental composure.
Great review, very interesting video! 😊
Thank you!
Well done man your thesis does the game justice. Such a good game.
Thank you!
Great video! I will remember of this game (I finished it before watching the video and I agree with all of the things you said)
the "crooked" violins holy shit that's scary
Dont do Drugs , the Game :,)
A question I have is what about Martha’s body who was she visiting all those times and the pictures they took (if this was answered idk still watching)
This game confused me but it does emphasize mental health and the treatment during those times
I was not expecting this to go so hard so quick lmao
Batman gonna be pissed
whats absolutely no subtle horror are the controls of the bike.
Part 2: Martha wasn't real she was a part of her
As a white Martha with Ambiguously dark hair color, I'm extremely concerned that dead Martha's appear to be trending xD
I just want to start by saying I loved the story line in this game. It was messed up, but I appreciated the real psychological condition behind it and the delivery. However, a lot of the horror aspects escaped me for two reasons. Firstly, the optimization on Martha is Dead is terrible. Having large chunks of the map rend all at once destroyed my FPS constantly and often times my character's POV would shift without my input. Secondly, once I realized all decisions were lateral and it didn't matter what choices I made, I realized the burden of keeping this character alive wasn't on me and therefore the terror of doing something wrong due to a scare left me. Once I realized the game will play out the same and without a consequence from me, it lost a massive amount of scare factor from me. Again, I enjoyed the playthrough, but because of the above, the gory aspects were the only horrors for me.
This game was very depressing. I just subbed.
I was like: maybe he'll ease into it. Nope. Face peeling, bam.
I think cutting the fetus out is truly the most disturbing part of the game
HOW DOES THIS HAVE NOT MORE LIKES
I appreciate this comment :)
@@ReginaldWrites :3
Wasn't the self harm scene the one that was censored?
I only watched a playthrough of the game, however I still totally sat tight at the photo developing or biking (lol, literal biking) moments of it.
Didn't like the game overall, as Ive found it slightly disappointing, but these subtleties were brilliant. :)
im so sorry dude, i know this is a serious video about a dark game. but the only thing i heard when i started playing this video was "burgerking foot letuce" hahahah i stg im so sorry :D
Why does censorship like this even happen anymore? That rating system exists for a reason, and this game is not conning kids with lootbox gambling nonsense. If Sony is so worried about kids all of a sudden maybe they should include warnings about gambling
crazy game it marked me
Its honestly people like them that are the reason horror games arent scary anymore. Theyre all cliche, yeah we get jumpscares and shit but no real cool and unnerving horror
I dunno, the lack of straightforward structure and how vague everything was made this really tedious to me
this video is great but i hate how much misinfo ppl are spreading abt DID in the comments 😭 alters are not personalities they are their own seperate people with their own conscious and they aren't created by some sort of "original" whose the “real one”, y’all need to actually learn about disorders before talkin abt them
how are they their own separate people if they are in the same body? possession?
@@fushiijo no they don't posess the others? that makes no sense, alters switch between fronting (fronting means having control of the body) and when another alter fronts usually you black out, or maybe have like an out of body thing where it feels like your watching yourself in the third person.
Dissociative barriers between Alters (can be either full amnesia or partial/emotional amnesia between Alters like it is for OSDD1 systems) means that each alter has their own memories of a life they’ve lived (and unfortunately, for some Alters, a lot of those memories are traumatic.) This, of course, means they develop their own sense of identity and personhood. A lot of time, multiple Alters aren’t even aware of the fact they’re in a system (especially in the beginning, when communication between members of a system is sometimes near if not totally nonexistent); whenever they’re fronting, they’re just living their life as they always have.
This is exactly why Alters can all have their own memories, emotions, ages, thoughts, opinions, and identity. They can have their own likes and dislikes, their own relationships, and even their own perception of what they look like. Like, say the Host Alter is gay man currently in a relationship with singlet man; another male Alter can be Asexual and romantically but not sexually involved with the singlet man and another Alter can be a girl who’s a lesbian, and therefore isn’t interested in being apart of that relationship. That’s why introjects of real or fictional characters are a thing, and why object or animal Alters are too.
Treating them like their nothing but a personality and not their own people-with their own agency, thoughts, and opinions-can lead to even further trauma on a system that already had to deal with a lot. Especially if the trauma of dehumanization is something they’ve already had to deal with.
@@luminous3115 yes! very true
@@hanakoskokeshidoll
Literally different personalities. Lmao. That’s what we all are. Different personalities. Nothing special.
I thought the controversial content was going to be something way bigger than just cutting off a persons face.
I have seen that in movies, TV shows and comics before.
Did you sleep during the cutting out the fetus scene?
@@Stigmatix666 I dont think i had played the game yet when i saw this video.
Its as subtle as a brick thrown through a glass house
Martha is Dead is anything but subtle
Worth my time and money it was until they censored the game and then put it all in Italian not English
Ngl I really fucking hate this game's portrayal of DID. It's such a tired trope in media to make neurodivergent people the basis of a horror story.
Alters aren't violent.
DID isn't some fun animal in a zoo to oo and aaah at.
EDIT: since apparently some people like making fucking nitpicky comments.
Of course I don't mean it's a black and white yes or no situation. What I'm saying is that alters aren't going to immediately go out and start murdering people just because. The stereotype they've gotten is only continued in the game, since all these acts of violence happen during the "blackouts".
I'm pretty sure that it's not the did that's violent but the meth used on a person with did.
alters can definitely be violent, especially if you suffer with insanity :)
The thing is, DID isn't the reason why Gulia was violent? Same thing with her mother? It was the Pervatin (basically meth lmao) Her mother was taking it and this caused her abusive tendencies to ramp up to 11. Something else Pervatin was known to cause is intense paranoia and memory loss. This explains pretty much all of the stuff you seem to be taking issue with. Yes she developed DID, but that part isn't demonized or portrayed as violent? It was all linked to the Pervatin.
@@mosquitomilk9877 i wasnt saying that the did was the reason why shes been that way, im aware of all the other things shes dealing with because of other stuff, like the pervatin. sorry of it came across that way i tend to be not so good at wording things :)
@@wistful_woodlands true but when pretty much the only representation of alters in media are serial killers and abusers, making yet another character with DID be extremely violent even if its not because of the disorder is just bad writing.