Mama, She’s Craaazy – Final Girl – Madness in the Dark Review

(1,000,000 quatloos to whoever gets the title reference)

The Final Girl franchise has been doing a great job of covering different genres of horror movies, even including some that are more science fiction than horror.

With the advent of Madness in the Dark, however, they have moved to covering a film that’s not exactly horror, but instead more psychological suspense (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest).

The killer in this feature film set is The Ratchet Lady and is clearly inspired by Nurse Ratched from the film, but in the film she’s not a killer, instead being more of an abusive, power-hungry force.

That doesn’t mean she’s not fun as a killer!

Let’s get the credits out of the way first.

Madness in the Dark was designed by A.J. Porfirio with art by Vladyslava Ladkova. It was published by Van Ryder Games in 2023 and is part of the Series 2 slate of feature films.

The Ratchet Lady is a really interesting killer with some cool effects, and Wolfe Asylum is a nice location (well, for playing in, I wouldn’t want to be staying there).

Let’s see what makes this feature film click.

The Ratchet Lady has one unique ability that I don’t think any of the other feature films has.

She does not have an upper health limit.

That’s right.

While she starts at 6 health, she has no maximum!

So every time she heals, there is no “oh, she’s already at 6. She can’t heal.”

No, she will gain that health to 7, 8, 9 or even 15 or 20!

Even worse, she starts out with Horror at level 5, which is only a couple away from you only being able to roll one die for horror rolls.

Finally, her special mechanic is to have Maniacs (minions) that are also running around the board after you.

As per minion rules, whenever a Terror card has a killer action, all of the minions do it too.

That’s not very good.

She starts out with two Maniacs in her space, and can gain more as well.

If you try to leave a space with more than one Maniac in it, you lose a health.

But you do have a way to fight back (other than, you know, just killing them).

There is a new action card called “Calm,” which can allow you (with a successful roll, of course) to convert Maniacs back into patients.

As you can see from the Ratchet Lady’s killer board, she can heal a bunch from bloodlust increases.

Since she has no maximum health level, that can be pretty brutal.

However, the good thing about her base actions (before the Finale comes out) is that she only kills somebody in her space.

She doesn’t move at all.

Meanwhile, the maniacs will all run toward you, but they don’t have a kill action.

They just want love!

That’s where the Terror cards come in, of course.

Many of them will have actions that make both of them dangerous, or just spawn a lot more maniacs.

And then of course they will chase after you or victims to kill them.

There’s no rest in this asylum.

The minor dark powers aren’t very fun either.

Both involve victims becoming maniacs and making things worse.

It’s best to get rid of these as soon as possible.

The actual Dark Powers either deal with Maniacs or has Ratchet Lady recover health, which is never good.

Manic Burst has a newly-spawned Maniac take its action immediately.

Then Bloodfear and Dark Injection have her recover health.

It could be infinite!

(Ok, both only say “the first time” so it’s only once per turn, but it can feel infinite sometimes).

The finales are where both Maniacs and Ratchet Lady really start coming after you.

Hold Her Down is extremely vicious if you haven’t been able to save all the victims, especially because calming Maniacs turns them into victims.

In this finale, all victims become Maniacs, and you can no longer calm them!

It’s Raining Maniacs has the bonus of having her not move, but she spawns 2 Maniacs if there aren’t any on the board, and the Maniacs not only run at you but will attack twice.

Thankfully they can only move one space at a time.

Feed the Madness adds the worst of both worlds, with Maniacs running after you, her spawning a Maniac if there are none on the board, then she heals and runs after you too.

The “no upper health limit” can be extremely hard to deal with if you let it get out of control.

If you can limit that, though, she’s pretty easy to deal with. Just get her before she starts recovering health!

Easier said than done sometimes.

However, I did manage to kill her twice before being overwhelmed in my third play, though one of those was with a really powerful Final Girl that I’ll tell you about at the end of this review.

I enjoyed Ratchet Lady a lot, just because of the interesting health mechanics and the Maniacs.

I didn’t have too much trouble with Maniacs, mostly being able to calm them fairly quickly, but they can start massing and really being a problem if you’re not careful.

She’s definitely up there in my list of fun killers.

Let’s move on to Wolfe Asylum.

This location is really interesting because of the layout as well as some interesting events and drug mechanics.

The map has a bunch of rooms surrounding a Common Room, which makes getting from one side to the other pretty easy (both for you and for the killer).

The search locations are pretty spread out, as well as the exit locations, but that does mean that you’re usually near one of them.

That can be quite handy.

The big mechanic for Wolfe Asylum has to do with pills.

There are ten available pills that can be picked up and used.

Pills can come in one of three colours (or a wild one) and you can take pills at any time during the Action phase.

The effects are shown above based on which colour(s) you take.

What’s really cool is that, if you have one of each colour, you can take an Amped card, which gives you a seriously powerful ability.

It can feel almost game-breaking at times.

I had Rabid Fury in the game where I was able to get amped up, and having Furious Strike be a 0-cost card meant I was always (well, every other turn) ready to attack.

But they’re all very valuable.

The thing about taking drugs, though, is that there are always side effects.

Well, not if you just take one pill.

But multiple pills can have some bad ones.

Of course there are a bunch of “No Effect” cards in the side effects deck, meaning you might get lucky.

At the beginning of the game, the Setup card will tell you where to scatter four other pills, and you will start with a random one.

Inevitably the pills aren’t really where you want to be, but it’s valuable to scoop them up.

When you stop your movement (you can’t still be moving) in a pill space, you can spend one time to pick it up.

There are some helpful items that you can pick up, though the weapon choices aren’t the best.

They can be effective, but they often are of either limited use (the Tranquilizer Gun, though you can find a way to reload it) or they have a chance of doing bad things to you.

The Hook-Handled Bone Hammer does two extra damage! But you could lose a health as well.

The scalpel can get you multiple hits, especially if you’re rolling a lot of dice, but if you don’t roll any hits, you lose a health.

The Bone Saw does great damage but increases Horror each time you use it.

Speaking of the Tranquilizer Gun, it includes the other new mechanic for this location: Stunned.

Stunned enemies take no action on their turn, buying you a little time before the stunning effect wears off.

Other items are pretty helpful as well.

The Doctor’s Bag gives you two uses to really heal yourself, while the First Aid kit won’t heal you by itself but enhances your other healing.

Adrenaline Shot gives you more of a chance of surviving your final health loss.

And, of course, you can get even more pills with Mysterious Pills!

There are also multiple ways to stun enemies, and the Energy Drink that gives you time, let’s you move, or ignore a Side Effects card.

Let’s talk about the Events, because that’s where Wolfe Asylum shines.

Especially the special victim cards.

Two of them are not good for you!

But it’s funny if you can manage to have the killer kill them for you.

Both Dr. Death and Hannibal the Cannibal go around killing victims, just adding to the bloodlust without the killer even doing anything!

The difference between them is that Dr. Death just moves towards the nearest victim.

Hannibal “panics” (which is just shorthand for “moves randomly”) and he starts out in Solitary Confinement.

The only number that will allow a panicking person to leave there is a 6.

Which of course is what I rolled the first turn after Hannibal came out.

You can’t kill either one of them, but you can try to lead them to where they will get killed, and both have positive effects if they are killed.

Dr. Sunshine, on the other hand, is really helpful to you and really painful if they die.

With them in your space, you can choose what colour a pill is, meaning you don’t have to have three different ones to get amped!

However, if they die while in your space, that’s four Horror.

Don’t let them die in your space.

Other event cards can make things harder, except the Hospital Gurney which makes it fun!

Kind of.

You can move two victims with you on the gurney (only two, if there’s a special rule in place allowing you to have more than two follow you) and you can ram it into the killer, doing one damage plus one for each victim on it.

Sure, the victims are killed, but three damage could be useful!

Scratching & Biting can make saving victims painful, and Dangerous Addiction can get you more pills on the board at the cost of more bloodlust.

Welcome to the Madhouse is especially brutal, though, as any time anybody enters the Common Room, they take one damage (which of course kills all victims).

That’s even worse considering one of the Terror cards has victims running toward the Common Room.

Overall, I really like Wolfe Asylum.

The pill mechanic is interesting, though you almost do have to get amped up if at all possible.

Granted, I won two games with Ratchet Lady there and was only amped once, but it’s still a valuable thing to do.

Especially if you can avoid the side effects!

The map is also nicely laid out, so that getting around it is interesting.

You’re never far away from any one space, which makes it easier for the Maniacs to find you.

I’d say this Wolfe Asylum is a top tier location.

Finally, lets talk about the Final Girls, because there is both good and meh in them.

Veronica will get nothing but time when she saves victims, making it easier to get new action cards that turn.

That’s not a bad thing, but it’s not that exciting.

Heather, on the other hand, heals twice, has two Horror reductions, can move and still can get time as well.

It’s the ultimate sides that really differentiate the two, though.

Veronica isn’t bad, having you reset to 7 time rather than 6, and getting 3 time for each new victim saved.

That can be valuable!

But Heather is just a beast when she’s flipped.

Being able to reroll one of your other dice for each 5 or 6 rolled on an attack?

Not much if you only have 2 dice, but what if you have 3? or 4?

Then, to add to that, she deals an extra damage for each star in the final result.

In her game, I had Ratchet Lady up to 15 health and was nervous, but Heather came in (it helped having Furious Strike be a 0-cost card) and did three different attacks over three turns, doing 4, 4 and 5 damage each time.

I said beast above, and that’s so true.

She is a beast!

Get her flipped as soon as you can.

Overall, I’d say that Madness in the Dark is one of the better feature films, with really interesting mechanics in both the killer and the location.

Also, for the first time in a little while, it’s a location and killer combination that I don’t feel would thrive more if they were separated.

Sure, they can be separated and they would still be fun, but some other films (I’m looking at you, Slaughter in the Groves) are much better when they’re separated.

This one is a winner whether they are together or not.

If you’re into Final Girl, this is one film you need to try.

(This review was written after 3 plays)