13 Classic Horror Games Failing Hilariously At Being Scary
What does it take to scare a horror game director? It's ludicrous to think the masters behind things such as the Resident Evil or Silent Hill series would be scared by the same kind of thing that scares the rest of us. What we see as monstrosities they just see as their very unique children. One thing we bet they're terrified by, however, is the thought of making a horror game that might, even if just for a second, have a glitch or a less-than-perfect moment that will break the immersion and give way for laughter on the player's side. And it turns out that happens a lot!
Layers Of Fear's Baby Ghost Hitting Its Head
Bloober Team
We're pretty skeptical about ghost children being scary, especially when they accidentally bump their heads against the wall like absolute chumps. Even more so when they do that over and over again. Do yourself the favor of checking out the video below at 4:43 to find the absolute opposite of scary.
Resident Evil Director's Cut Has A Ridiculous Soundtrack
Capcom
Even in a game, sound plays a huge part in getting players to crap their pants. In a likely attempt to get an even stronger reaction than what they got with the original version of the game, Capcom decided to hire a legendary deaf Japanese composer to score Resident Evil Director's Cut. The result was something so un-horroresque that it could be used as circus music. And no, not because the guy was deaf. It turns out he had been faking his deafness the entire time. Hell, he wasn't even the one making the songs. Anyway, it's time to have a listen:
Actually getting to fight the pyramid head
Konami
Pyramid Head from Silent Hill 2 might be the scariest enemy in video game history – especially once we learn about his motivation – but that's all he is. It turns out that it's actually pretty easy to clown on him if we get rid of that shellshock and realize that he's actually pretty slow. That might look like bad game design, but it's actually pretty in tune with the themes of Silent Hill 2. Bravo on that beautiful failure.
We can destroy the enemies in Amnesia Super Mario-style
Frictional Games
Amnesia: The Dark Descent revolutionized horror games by removing the player's ability to fight back. Or did it? It sure as hell tried to, but some clever players have found out that we can also jump atop the monsters and then guide them to a hilarious demise.
Waterbike Resident Evil 4
Capcom
Nothing takes away more from the survival horror experience than learning that the main character had the means to leave the evil Island he thought he was stranded on the entire time.
Resident Evil 5 punching boulders
Capcom
One of the main complaints fans have about the mid-'00s Resident Evil games dropped its horror elements in favor of a more action-y feel. That’s never more clear than in the climax of Resident Evil 5 where we have to push away (and punch, for some reason) a huge boulder during the final boss confrontation – and via dumbass quick time event, no less.
Alien's Colonial Marines
Gearbox
Alien's Colonial Marines could've been one hell of a horror game, but it ended up feeling like a movie starring the adult version of the dancing Xenomorph from Spaceballs. Yeah, we're not even going to mention one specific instance of this game failing at horror because any possible example is a good one. That's not what makes it funny, however. The best part here is how every problem in this game seems to have stemmed from a typo in one single line of code.
Alien vs furniture
Sega
A much better venture into horror territory in the Alien series is Alien Isolation.. for the most part. Yeah, even though a pretty solid game, it kind of loses its magic when we realize the xenomorph is actually completely powerless to get players so long as they're protected by regular-ass furniture.
Rolling troll skyrim
Bethesda
Ok, we know Skyrim isn't a horror game, but its mountain trolls are pretty scary so that's more than enough of an excuse for us to show how fun it is to paralyze them via a poisoned arrow and then watch them helplessly roll down the mountain to their death.
Last Of Us weird AI glitches
Naughty Dog
The world of The Last Of Us is populated by horrendous creatures such as cordyceps-infected humans and regular humans, so sometimes it's nice to take a break from that crap to see some particularly funny monkeys.
Killing Dark Souls bosses with poop
FromSoftware
Some of the scariest monsters in Dark Souls don't care that the player is throwing poop at them, perhaps because the sewer is already their home. Still, they're not immune to the effects of the dung pies and can die in a pretty anticlimactic manner after getting “exposed” to a bunch of them.
Locking the Bakers outside Resident Evil 7
Capcom
Resident Evil 7 seems to prove that the evil really resides inside the residence as once we trick them into getting out, the Bakers lose all ability to do harm (please do not attempt this strategy against real-life hillbillies).
There's no dog around here Silent Hill
Konami
The original Silent Hill is still one of the scariest games ever made, the rare game whose dated graphics actually help heighten its scare factor. Still, it's pretty hard to not laugh at this legendary picture of main character Harry Mason very carefully stating that there's no dog around where, well, there might actually be one after all, who knows.
Top Image: Capcom
