We Called Up The Gatekeeper To Ask If They’ll Ever Remake 'Atmosfear'

In the early 90s, before your parents got the internet, the video board game genre was having a brief moment of relevance and Nightmare (known as Atmosfear outside of Australia) was terrifying a generation of Australian kids. Set on "The Other Side" it basically involved the Gatekeeper (a Belarusian man wearing a cloth on his head) directing the players through the creepy twists and turns of the game. Explaining it now, in daylight, as someone old enough to drive and buy beer, it doesn't sound that scary. But it's the reason that for a decade anyone born before 1995 couldn't fall asleep without worrying they'd piss the bed in terror.

Wenanty Nosul played the the Gatekeeper, and was undoubtedly the only reason anyone remembers the game. Striking the perfect balance between humour and horror, he spent most of the game calling you a maggot and demanding you say, "Yes, my Gatekeeper." I was seven when I first experienced him and I've never forgotten it. As an adult I still find myself thinking about this mysterious TV ghoul, so this Halloween I decided to track him down.

VICE: Hey Wenanty, so before becoming the Gatekeeper did you have any particular interest in horror?
Wenanty Nosul: I grew up in Poland and we didn't have many games around in those days and definitely had a few frights in the woods near our house. Once I was picking mushrooms in the forest with my older brothers and they thought it would be funny to leave me out there at nightfall after telling me they had spotted wolves in the area. As the night came, I started to call for my brothers but the only answer I got was the howling of a wolf. I have never run so fast back home in my life.