The boom of slasher flicks in the 80s set the bar for villains in pop culture. This era brought us the kings of terror on the silver screen. Freddy Krueger has haunted our nightmares since his first appearance of A Nightmare on Elm Street in 1984. It has been over thirty years since the release of that first movie, and audiences everywhere still recognize the sound of his laugh. If you see Freddy in dreams … well let’s just say I hope you like coffee.
Recently, horror games have come into their own. Villains in video games have left their impression on main stream media. We have to wonder, can they hold their own against the master of nightmares himself? Are any of our favorite video game bad guys as scary as the great Freddy Krueger?
Here is a list of horror game villains who we think just might be scarier than Freddy:
1. Chris Walker - Outlast
“I’ll find you piggies…”
Nobody cares about a handful of forgotten lunatics. At Mount Massive Asylum the patients have been forced to endure illegal experimentation. Miles Upshur, an investigative journalist, arrives at the hospital following an anonymous tip from one of the Mount Massive staff. Miles arrives at the scene of the crime and finds the staff slaughtered, and the inmates literally running the asylum.
Chris Walker is one of the most hostile patients in Mount Massive. Chris is a former ex-military police officer who stands at an impressive six feet and nine inches tall. He also happens to like murdering people with his bare hands. Like the other patients at the asylum, Chris suffers from a number of physical deformities, some of which were self-inflicted. You know he means business when he slices the skin off his own face.
Armed with only a video camera, the only thing Miles can do is hide. Getting caught results is an instant brutal death scene which involves some form of dismemberment.
2. Laura Victoriano - The Evil Within
“Laura, of course you couldn’t be dead.”
Laura Victoriano is the elder sister of main antagonist Ruvik. As a child Laura and Ruvik were trapped in a burning barn where she is presumed to have burned to death. It is later revealed through newspaper clippings that Laura survived the incident, but was severely injured and left in a vegetative state.
A distorted nightmare version of Laura featuring six limbs tipped with claws is a constant threat throughout the game. Her spindly limbs and the way she crawls along the ground give her a spider-like appearance. That alone earns her a spot on this list. Who wouldn’t be afraid of a giant demon spider? That is just all the more reason to set her on fire at every opportunity.
Her appearance is not the only terrifying thing about Laura. Like all horror game bosses, she is tough as nails and impossible to kill until late in the game. She shrugs off bullets like insects, and fire only slows her down. Getting caught by Laura triggers a death scene where she rips out the player character’s throat and drinks his blood. Yet another reason to kill it with fire!
3. SHODAN - System Shock
“How can you challenge a perfect, immortal, machine?”
SHODAN, or Sentient Hyper-Optimized Data Access Network, is an artificial intelligence created to run Citadel Station. Or at least she was right up until a hacker unwittingly removed her morality restraints. Upon her release she immediately turned on her human creators and transformed the inhabitants of the station into cyborgs to do her bidding. Clearly this unnamed hacker never watched any of the terminator movies.
What makes SHODAN a truly terrifying enemy is her low regard for humanity. Like Skynet, she believes that the world is better off without organic life. Machines are the next stage of evolution, and humans are little more than insects. She will constantly remind the player of this fact through a series of emails and PA announcements. Between her lack of empathy and he manipulative tendencies, SHODAN is the AI equivalent of a psychopath.
4. Alma Wade - FEAR
“Do you like to play games?”
Only glimpses of Alma are seen throughout the bulk of the first FEAR. She appears in dark corners, and out of the corner of the player’s eye. The first part of FEAR is a slow burn, but still somehow managed to keep players on edge. The brief cut scene when the Point Man sees Alma standing at the top of the ladder made us all collectively squirm. It is one of the most unsettling moments in a video game ever.
Alma started life as troubled girl and a powerful psychic. At a young age she was forced to endure countless grueling tests to develop her psychic abilities. When she became too powerful the doctors put her into a chemically induced coma, and artificially impregnated her while she slept. After a life of nothing but misery, Alma’s life tragically came to an end in her early twenties. Too bad for those scientists that Alma was not quite ready to die just yet.
Now Alma is angry and out seeking revenge. She will use every supernatural skill at her disposal. Oh, and one of those skills is the ability to melt the flesh from bone. The sad part is that none of this would have ever happened if someone had just bought her a puppy or something.
5. Sae Kurosawa - Fatal Frame 2
“Are you going to leave me again?”
In an isolated village hidden deep in the mountains is a ritual involving the sacrifice of twins. This ritual should have kept the gate closed, but when one of the twins disappears the villagers are forced to proceed with only one sister. The town elders hung Sae from the rafters and then tossed her corpse into the pit to hell in hopes that it would appease the spirits. Unfortunately, this plan did not work out so well.
The ritual failed and Sae returned, bringing a curse upon the village. The gates of hell opened and the town was plunged into internal night. Sae slaughtered the inhabitants of the village. Both the guilty and the innocent are forced to wander the village in purgatory as punishment. To this day Sae is seeking the twin sister who abandoned her.
Sae can be seen in visions throughout the game laughing over the dead bodies of the villagers and clad in a white death kimono. Her laugh often reminds me of Freddy’s bone chilling cackle.
6. Witch - Left 4 Dead
Whatever you do, don’t startle the witch.
Photo Credit: City Light Studio
The witch is on this list because of the tension she brings into the Left 4 Dead franchise. Every player knows that feeling of dread when they hear the witch crying in the dark. She does not sound dangerous. She does not look dangerous. Be warned, if you disturb her it may be the last thing you do. Her screams are made of the stuff of nightmares. When she is startled she relentlessly attacks the closest player, and she packs one heck of a punch. She will use those long claws of hers to rip you to ribbons.
It is unfortunate that she has a nasty habit of showing up right in the path to the nearest safe room. Running into her by accident is the bane of every survivor’s existence. What is worse is that sometimes the echo caused by the environment can make it difficult to figure out where she is hiding. She is a nasty surprise for every Left 4 Dead survivor.
7. Nemesis - Resident Evil 3
“He’s after STARs members … there is no escape.”
The main antagonist of Resident Evil 3, Nemesis, is a humanoid bio-weapon created by the Umbrella Corporation. It’s one and only mission is to hunt down and kill members of the STARS team. Nemesis starts out the game looking something like Frankenstein’s monster armed with a rocket launcher … because of course something that big needs a rocket launcher.
This monster takes unfathomable amount of punishment as STARs members attempt to take the creature down. Every time we think it has been taken down it somehow manages to show up yet again. As the Nemesis continues to take damage throughout the game it begins to mutate and becomes even more hideous. Yes, I know that is hard to believe, but it is true. Later in the game it begins sprouting tentacle-like protrusions, and later gains the ability to spew acid.
Nemesis makes every twist and turn in Raccoon City a gamble. You just never knew when this guy would show up again, or what new challenge he would bring to the table.
8. Pyramid Head - Silent Hill 2
“In our ‘special place’ I will be waiting for you…”
There are few video game monsters as notorious as Pyramid Head. In Silent Hill 2 all the monsters represent an aspect of main character James Sunderland. For instance, the oversexualized nurses with no face represent James’s pent-up sexual desires. The breasts are the important part after all. Just take a wild guess when the mannequins symbolize.
Pyramid Head is depicted as a man in a bloodied butcher’s smock with a triangular metal head and a great knife as a weapon. He represents James Sunderland’s desire to be punished for the death of his wife Mary. Spoiler: James may or may not be directly responsible for Mary’s death.
It is stated that another character in the game, Eddie, is unable to see the monster. This suggests that Pyramid Head exists in Silent Hill solely for James. Is there anything more terrifying than having your own personal boogieman?
9. Slender Man - Slender
“The Slender Man is looking at you.”
Photo Credit: Brandon
The Slender Man started out life as an internet meme before making jump to video games. Slender Man is depicted as a tall man with unnaturally long limbs and a pale featureless face in a black suit. Slender owes a lot of his notoriety to his ambiguous origins and motives. A quick internet search will bring up dozens of Slender origin stories. Stories vary wildly from scary to silly. Don’t even get me started on the fan art. Slender is the perfect blank slate on which to project our deepest fears and insecurities.
Slender Man is also a prime example of the “less is more rule”. This means the object of the game is not to see him at all. Like Alma, he is usually only seen briefly out of the corner of the eye or following behind the player in the dark. Ideally, if you are playing the game correctly, you should see as little of him as humanly possible.
10. Piggsy - Manhunt
“Piggsy is angry! ANGRY!”
In a nutshell, Piggsy is Leatherface with a pig skin mask. The two share a multitude of traits, including a love of chainsaws and murder. Piggsy is the character in Manhunt that even the main antagonists fear. You know he is dangerous when even the bad guys step lightly around him.
Piggsy is a cannibalistic middle aged man who has mentally devolved to the point where he is barely human. He can hardly speak save for a few simple words and a handful of pig noises. Most of the time he is kept locked in his bedroom and fed human remains. He is only let out when he is needed to perform in smut films. I suppose with his vocabulary, job opportunities are limited.
11. Shibito - Siren: Blood Curse
“I’ve found you! Now you’re IT!”
The shibito are the main enemies in the Siren series. They are corpses reanimated by exposure to the red water, or blood depending on which Siren game you are playing. Technically they are zombies, but they are anything but a mindless horde. After reanimation they retain their intelligence and personality. Mowing down a shambling corpse is one thing, but idea of a smart zombie hoard is enough to make anyone think twice.
On the outside shibito appear pale with blood dripping from the corners of eyes and mouth. They will wonder around seemingly going about their lives while muttering to themselves. When startled they will hunt down the player character, and can even transform into insects which makes them tougher to kill. Zombies are bad enough without the ability to transform into spiders. That just seems unnecessary.
12. Necromorphs - Dead Space
“There is no life beyond our solar system, only a trail of extinction, wrought by moons. And now it is right on our doorstep.”
In horror games, everything in outer space is trying to kill us. Like the shibito, necromorphs are technically reanimated human corpses. Also, like shibito, necromorphs are not mindless hordes. They possess a hive mind and are even intelligent enough to lay traps. They are rather fond of posing as corpses right in the player’s path. After the fourth or fifth time we all learn to see through this particular trick, but for some reason we still jump every time.
This particular species of zombie is caused by an alien infestation which causes its host to mutate. A standard every-day necromorph has long spindly limbs tipped with deadly bone spikes. The mouth also splits down the middle, creating fanged insect-like mandibles. Is anyone else here reminded of Laura Victoriano? Also, if you have been honing your sniping skills for the zombie apocalypse you will be disappointed. Headshots are not effective against necromorphs. The only way to kill one of these monsters is to channel your inner Leatherface and saw off their limbs.
There a wide variety of mutations which occur depending on the host. Honorable mention for the creepiest zombie mutation in a video game goes to the crawlers, which are mutated corpses of human infants. Now that is disturbing.
13. Cherubs - Doom 3
“Let’s beat it! This is turning into a bloodbath.”
Babies are adorable right? Well, they stop being cute when they have the lower abdomen of a fly and claws for hands. They get even less cute when you hear the buzzing-baby sounds right before they attack in a swarm. To put it simply, these things should not exist.
Cherubs are by far the weakest video game character on this list. They only pose a threat when they attack as a group. There is just something off putting about their resemblance to human babies and those dead eyes. What did we expect? They did emerge from the pit of hell after all.
14. The Dollmaker - Alice The Madness Returns
“I provide a service, in the great awful metropolis, appetites of all sorts must be gratified.”
The Wonderland of American McGee’s Alice features many twisted parallels to “real world” characters. The Dollmaker appears near the end of the game bearing a striking resemblance to Doctor Angus Bumby. He first appears to Alice as a giant stitched together corpse-like monster. The black ooze from the ruins drips from his eye sockets. To ensure we get our daily dose of nightmare fuel, he transforms again during the final battle. The Dollmaker during the final fight appears to be even less human. He sprouts a second pair of arms and appears to be constructed mainly of doll parts.
The Dollmaker is here to cut Alice down with surgical precision. His monstrous appearance is not the only reason to fear the Dollmaker. Like many of the other villains on this list he completely lacks empathy. He detaches himself from the guilt of his actions by viewing others as tools to be used. He does not blink twice when a tool is broken and needs to be thrown away. SHODAN would be proud.
15. Wendigo - Until Dawn
“This mountain doesn’t belong to the Washingtons. This mountain belongs to the wendigo.”
One (of many) threats in the choose-your-own-adventure horror game Until Dawn is the wendigo. Based off Native American folklore, a wendigo is a cannibalistic spirit which would possess humans in times of hardship.
Throughout the game, the player can collect clues to the mining collapse which caused the trapped men to resort to cannibalism in order to survive. Over time the miners’ bodies began to transform and begin to resemble corpses. Their eyes grew milky until they could only see moving targets. Until Dawn’s wendigos are yet another spider-like monster, but unlike poor Laura they move unbelievably fast. They are they can climb nearly any surface with ease and are strong enough to jump great distances. So, not only are they spiders, they are jumping spiders.
Since they were once human, wendigos also have the ability to mimic human voices. This is a handy little bit of information to know when you are nosing around the mineshafts later in the game. Sometimes curiosity does kill the cat.
They are mean. They are fast. How do you kill such a perfect hunter? Kill it with fire!
16. Scissorman - Clocktower
“The door flew open, in he ran. The great red-legged scissor-man!”
The last villain on this list is a bit of a blast from the past. Scissorman was an enemy featured in the Clock Tower series. As the name might suggest he is a serial killer who uses a large pair of scissors or sheers to cut his victims to pieces. He is loosely based off a poem about a man who would cut the fingers off naughty children who suck their thumbs. Seems a little extreme to me…
The player must play an extended game of hide-and-go seek with Scissorman in order to survive. The deranged killer seems to take a child-like delight in finding his playmates. It just goes to show you don’t need state-of-the-art animation to make a terrifying villain in a video game.
Is your favorite video game boogeyman not on this list? Who makes you feel bone chilling dread? Who haunts your nightmares? Let us know who you think is scarier than Freddy Krueger.
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