The 2022 World War II horror game Martha is Dead is the latest video game getting a film adaptation. The game’s Italian developer LKA, is partnering with production company Studios Extraordinares to bring the psychological adventure to the big screen.
Martha is Dead is a first-person adventure that follows identical twin sisters, Guilia, the protagonist, and Martha. Set in Tuscany in 1944, during the final stretch of World War II, the sisters are fathered by a Nazi general and have a strained relationship due to the clear favoritism Martha receives from their mother. However, Martha is suddenly found dead, and their mother mistakenly believes Guilia to be Martha, forcing her to assume her late sister’s identity. Supernatural occurrences abound centering on the malevolent entity known as the White Lady.
The film follows the same premise. Studios Extraordinares is led by screenwriter/directors André Hedetoft and Andreas Troedsson, and the company’s website states it’s a “creative powerhouse writing and making high-end action, horror, and science-fiction films from original stories and extraordinary games.” The studio is also working on bringing last year’s sci-fi horror game Fort Solis to TV and film, as well as a movie adaptation of the upcoming horror shooter Veil.
We didn’t particularly enjoy what Martha is Dead had to offer as a gameplay experience. In his review, editor Wesley LeBlanc scored the experience a 6 out of 10, writing, “LKA’s love of Italy is the only warmth I felt in Martha is Dead. The rest left me feeling as cold as Giulia’s dead sister.” Given the recent success of video game films like The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Five Nights at Freddy’s, here’s hoping Martha is Dead can achieve even a fraction of that success. Or, at the very least, we hope it makes for a better movie than a video game.