Favorite Horror games or movies?

Title basically says it all.

 

I'm a big Horror nut, and I've watched a ton of good and bad horror movies. I've also enjoyed a few survival horror games.

 

Since it's Halloween and all, might as well ask you guys what you love in terms of Horror movies and Games. It'd be nice hearing some popular opinions about different titles.

 

 

Not big on the whole horror thing but Clive Barker's Undying was excellent. I played that game through twice. Not many games do I finish let alone do it a 2nd time.

Movie: John Carpenters The Thing

Game: Silent Hill 2

Definitely more of a fan of atmosphere and psychological horror over bog standard jump scares

I'm a pretty big horror nut too! Is my favourite genre, and my favourite director is easily David Cronenberg.  I'm admittedly not "scared" by tons, but there are exceptions. When it comes to stuff that legit scares me, it typically tends to be more surreal or psychological stuff, or stuff that preys on existential fears. Here are some of my fav movies, games, and books.  Sorry if I get a little rambly at times... I'm pretty passionate and chatty about shit like this.  :P  I hope you don't mind that I also include some "Horror adjacent" genres such as horror-comedy and the like.

 

MOVIES

 

VideoDrome - One of my all time favourite movies, regardless of genre.  This is a brilliant Sci-Fi horror film that, despite some cheesy bits, is legitimately creepy, psychological, and despite the dated technology - surprisingly relevant.  I personally believe that VideoDrome somewhat predicted Social Media and the flaws and negative impacts Social Media has had on our society.  A radical new form of media that subverts your perception of reality and slowly makes you more and more susceptible to programming and influence from an invisible, outside force that completely reshapes and changes what you consider real and righteous. I can't help but think of how people all over the political spectrum use Social Media to put on blinders, find others who think like them, and consume rampantly false media that create a warped world view and the cognitive dissonance that occurs when they are challenged. A must see.

 

Suspiria - This is primarily an "Art-Horror" film.  Its plot is kind of confusing and it doesn't have deep or particularly well acted characters, but the visual design, concepts, and amazing goddamn score make it a ride worth taking.  Admittedly Italian horror is one of those areas I'm not massively educated in, I haven't really gotten into many Giallo films, but I am rather fond of this one and I also basically like all of Goblin's horror movie scores.

 

Strange Circus - This is a rather... heavy Japanese horror-drama. Rape and sexual abuse is admittedly a topic that affects me pretty hard, so it can be a bit of a tough watch - but I won't deny it's an artistically powerful and genuinely disturbing piece of horror-drama.  Sion Sono in general is good at this sort of thing, even if I find it bizarre that his claim to fame was Suicide Club which I found... meh.

 

Martyrs (The French One) - This is a pretty divisive one, but... well, it came from the New French Extremist movement.  Of course its divisive.  I s'pose if you are someone who has ever unironically used the term "Torture Porn," this one ain't for you.  But it does actually have a message and purpose however nihilistic and existentially fucking horrific it is, and I think it's a genuinely effective horror movie.  

 

Noroi - This is a Found Footage/J-Horror film, but don't let the stigmas and overexposure of those two particular genres scare you off.  This is a genuinely interesting, well crafted, and at times legitimately creepy little film that kind of surprised me.  Ghost films don't typically manage to legitimately get under my skin, but this has its moments, and it isn't too waterlogged by your average Found Footage & J-Horror tropes.  It certainly has a couple of them, but it doesn't overdo them.  Shame most of this directors films after have been so terrible.

 

I Saw The Devil - Stretching the definition of "horror" a little here, as this is a thriller, but with how well it keeps you on edge and with how brutal and dark it is, I think it bleeds over into the horror genre somewhat... plus it's a legitimate all time fav of mine, so I'd be remiss if I didn't mention it.  This is a fucking amazing revenge thriller.  It takes arguably the most basic revenge plot imaginable ("Cops wife is raped/murdered, Cop goes rogue to find her killer") and turns it into one of the most intense and brutal cat & mouse thrillers out there.  It helps that Min-Sik Choi (Of OldBoy fame) is absolutely stellar as Kyung-Chul.

 

Gozu - Uhh... this movie is... uhh.... its... well, itself.  This is an absolutely insane Japanese horror-comedy that my wife introduced me to.  It is really disgusting, surreal, and I'm not entirely sure what the hell it is going for but I kind of adore it.  It's one of those films that you just watch to see what will happen next.  I recommend going in blind.  If you don't like ridiculous, sexually charged, distinctly Japanese black humour - maybe it's not for you, but it's become a cult film for my wife & I.

 

Hellraiser - Probably one you are familiar with.  It's one of my favourite American horror films from the 80s.  I adore Clive Barker.  Admittedly I do prefer the book, The Hellbound Heart, if not solely because Barker's sexually charged prose (Something lost because... yeah, you can't film that and get an R Rating.) really appeals to me for some reason, but this ain't a bad adaptation overall.  Probably helps that Barker made it himself.  It's surreal, the art design is fantastic, and I love the mythology and ideas behind the story.  I hate that it often gets viewed as a "slasher" by some.

 

Dead Ringers - Don't let the corny name (Which was actually originally "Twins," but this came out the same year as the Danny Devito/Arnold Schwarzenegger thing, so it was changed.) fool you, this is a great little film.  It is once again my man, David Cronenberg. Jeremy Irons is great in this film.  He plays a pair of identical twin gynecologists who are inherently obsessed with twins, and their psychological struggle when they both fall in love with the same woman.  It gets crazy, and is another favourite of mine. Super underrated.

 

Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil - This is one of the funniest fucking horror-comedies out there.  It's rightfully gained a following. A hilarious spoof of slasher movies that also has a surprising amount of heart and charm to it.  Just go in blind.  The trailers and such spoiled way too much.

 

Dellamorte Dellamore/Cemetery Man - A weird and surreal horror-comedy from Italy.  Another favourite of mine, as well as my wife.  

 

Maniac (2012) - I feel like I'm one of the few champions of this movie.  I'm fairly indifferent to slasher movies but this one?  I like this one.  Perhaps the whole "First person" thing and some of the bad digital effects are overdone at times, but Elijah Wood is fucking great, the soundtrack is fucking great, and I actually think there was some weight to its attempts to be a bit more psychological, even if I wouldn't call it a "smart" film.  Just smarter than your average slasher, I s'pose.  

 

Candyman - Another Clive Barker, and like Hellraiser, it constantly gets dismissed as a standard slasher.  I can admittedly understand that viewpoint more with this one than I can Hellraiser, but I still view it as above a slasher film.  I think this is a genuinely clever, inventive film with a fascinating subject regarding myth building and the nature of rumour and urban legends.  Plus Tony Tod is fantastic and like Maniac and Suspiria... DA FOOKING MOOZIC.  

 

GAMES

 

Silent Hill 1-4: Masterpieces all.  Yes, I'll even defend 4, even if I'll agree it is the weakest of the bunch.  Silent Hill 2 and 3 are tied for my favourites.  Silent Hill 2 wins out on story and atmosphere, Silent Hill 3 wins out on the artistry... the game is basically a audio-visual shrine to the amazing talents of Masahiro Ito, Hiroyuki Owaku, and Akira Yamaoka (Hallowed by thy name... sorry, yuge Akira Yamaoka fangirl here.). Must plays.  You don't get horror games like this much anymore.

 

Resident Evil VII: I actually say this as someone who isn't really a huge Resi fan.  I liked the games, but didn't love them.  But RE VII surprised me.  I know this is a controversial opinion amongst some horror fans, but I feel that it is the best Resi game that's actually trying to be horror.  (RE 4 is still a better game, but its an action game that wasn't particularly scary.  A bit tense at times, but you had too many big fuck off guns and goofy shit.)  It actually legit had me on edge at times, and I kind of adored the way it managed to do that despite how patently absurd and at times goofy the story is (IMMORTAL HILLBILLIES AND INSECT VAGINAS).  

 

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - This is the ultimate "Diamond in the Rough" game.  It is super buggy, clunky, and weird, but if you allow it to - it will suck you in and not let you go.  The atmospherics in this game are some of the best in horror gamedom, right next to Silent Hill.  And this is one of the few games I can think of where you can carry around a big fuck off gun and still feel... well, constantly unsafe.  As a huge fan of The Roadside Picnic and the film Stalker, I'm glad they managed to bring the Zone to vibrant, beautiful life.  Sure it is a different take and a different story, but they nailed creating the horror of witnessing a slice of Terra familiaris being turned utterly alien and unrecognizable.  

 

Metro 2033/Last Light - This is admittedly stretching the horror game part some, but it has amazing atmospherics too and the surface can be genuinely terrifying.  Plus the stories are legit good and I love how detailed the universe is.  A bit over-linear... but I really like them.  Plus as a Russki with an odd obsession with the Soviet homeland she barely knew (Despite not wanting to know it too intimately due to... y'know, Communism being awful), I sort of gravitate to shit like this and STALKER.

 

I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream - An excellent adventure game that has a very chilling story.  This game was ahead of its time, IMHO, you didn't see many games that were this genuinely mature back in the 90s.  Funny people were complaining about Mortal Kombat and Doom and yet a game that tackled topics like rape and genocide in a genuinely emotionally and psychologicaly upsetting way flies by.  Then again I guess it's because kids probably wouldn't have the patience to play it, and critics were kind of cold to it.  But it's since grown an audience and been recognized for what it truly is; a great piece of interactive fiction that arguably improves upon the already excellent short story from which it was adapted.

 

BOOKS (The shortest section because reasons)

 

The Books of Blood by Clive Barker - This is a horror anthology I hold near and dear to my heart.  Not all of it is great, and admittedly the first three volumes are far better than the latter three, but there's still good stuff in them too.  The stories fluctuate from genuinely scary and highly imaginative to just ridiculous, gory monstrous fun.  And I adore Barker's highly erotic prose.  It's... strange that he writes horror with such a heavily sexual bent, but as a kind of sick woman... I adore it.  Plus the wrap-around story, the eponymous "Book of Blood" and its conclusion are fan-fucking-tastic.  Book of Blood/On Jerusalem Street is easily one of my favourite horror stories.  Also, Candyman was adapted from this anthology, so bonus points.

 

Piercing, Audition, and In The Miso Soup By Ryu Murakami - I sort of lump these three together because I feel they are very thematically similar.  Each one is a commentary on Japanese sexual politics and society in some way, and each are incredibly tense, dark, psychological driven thrillers that expertly explore highly damaged characters.  Audition is the most famous (Or perhaps infamous) of the three due to its fairly decent film adaptation, but I feel reading Audition is a better experience.  Piercing is probably my favourite just because of how lean and mean it is... I think it deserved a film adaptation more than Audition.  I imagine it being directed by the guy who did "I Saw the Devil" and I kind of go wild.  In The Miso Soup is the creepiest to me, probably because I can "understand" its social aspect the most, since I've been to Japan and experienced the sometimes strange crossover between night life and tourists.  But all three are worth a read.

 

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski - Don't read anything about this book.  Don't listen to anyone talk about it outside of what I say.  Just pick it up, preferably a full colour edition, and prepare to lose your fucking mind.  Perhaps this is a "loose" example of a horror story (Even the author admits this) but it can really fuck with your head.  Hard.  And it is unlike anything else I have read.  It's a great and unique piece of fiction.

 

John Dies at The End (Series) by David Wong - This is Horror-Comedy, but I really adore this series and think it is highly underrated.  The first book admittedly DOES have huge issues, you can tell it was not originally intended to be a novel but rather short stories, and admittedly the more... juvenile side of the humour is a bit overwhelming and obnoxious at times.  It didn't need so many poop jokes.  But when it is more focused on surreal dark humour, it can make you laugh, and on top of that despite primarily being humour/satire... it has genuinely scary fucking ideas and moments.  As I said, I'm affected heavily by existential horror, and this entire series is founded on the idea of "Existence is a horrific, random, chaotic joke" and it goes pretty far with it.  It mixes silly shit with creepy shit really well.  The sequel, This Book is Full of Spiders, is also pretty good - even if it lacks the highly imaginative spark.  But on the other hand, the humour is better with less of the bad jokes, the characters are stronger (I genuinely adore Amy and even relate to her some.), and it was always intended as a novel so it isn't so disjointed.  However the third book, What The Hell Did I just Read? is awesome.  Combines the better writing of the second book with the more wild imagination and genuine laughs/chills of the first book.  

 

Anyways... I think you have enough to chew on. :P

 

 

 

There have definitely been a few related threads recently but I'll contribute.

 

Movie: John Carpenters The Thing (/thread lol)

 

And the multiplayer game: Dead by Daylight

Games:

1) Amnesia The Dark Descent : Never finished it, but it was pretty fun and probably the first horror-survival-whatever-game I had ever played.

2) Outlast: It felt great playing this one with friends and getting chased by everything and I mean EVERYTHING!

3) Doom 3: It's Doom, but scarier...nuff said.

 

Movies:

I prefer slashers, with my favourites being Friday the 13th (most creative kills in a movie from a point and after), Halloween (Michael Myers is a character that I may like as much as Jason or more, but in the Halloween movies I also like Dr Loomis a whole lot) and Texas Chainsaw Massacre (crazy cannibals in the middle of nowhere killing everyone that stops close to their area is a scary thought and the characters like Leatherface and the rest of the family are well presented).

The Babadook. Funny name, outstanding movie that horrifies on multiple levels.

 

A few honourable mentions: Lake Mungo, The VVitch, It Follows, The Blair Witch Project, John Carpenter's The Thing

 

As for horror games, the classic Silent Hill games are a pretty obvious choice. I also really enjoyed Alien Isolation.

3 hours ago, vinnie245 said:

Game: Silent Hill 2

I second this and add Silent Hill 1 to 4

Movies:

Pontypool

Bad Taste

The Thing

Anti Christ

Reanimator

Altered States

The Dead Next Door

Jacob's Ladder

Tetsuo the Iron Man

Evil Dead II

Night/Dawn/Day of the Dead

Return of the Living Dead

Dead Alive

Videodrome

Mordum

Edited October 18, 2017 by Ed

My favorite horror movies:
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
Scream
City of Living Dead
It! The Terror from Beyond Space

@ZALGO What're your favorites?
 

Favorite horror movies: The Shining, The Exorcist, The Thing, The Prince of Darkness, In the Mouth of Madness, The Fog, Session 9

 

Favorite horror games: Silent Hill 1,2,3, Resident Evil 1,2,3, Dead Space 1 & 2, Afraid of Monsters, Cry of Fear, Penumbra

 

Favorite Books (I have way too many to list, so I'll name the authors): H.P. Lovecraft, M.R. James, Dean Koontz, Stephen King, 

4 hours ago, 8Bit Shocker said:

My favorite horror movies:
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
Scream
City of Living Dead
It! The Terror from Beyond Space

@ZALGO What're your favorites?
 

 

I really enjoyed the remake of the It movie, fit rather nicely with the original story.

 

I have a soft spot for slashers, since I grew up watching them. My favorite slasher would probably be a tie between classic Leatherface (before the remakes tore the poor guy) and good ol' Jason Voorhees

 

I really enjoyed John Carpenter's The Thing, the atmosphere in the film, coupled with the awesome design of the alien made it a classic to me.

 

Speaking of aliens, I recently saw Alien and it's many sequels and I honestly prefer the original, since it showed the true danger of a single Xenomorph. All the other movies kinda forgot how corrosive its blood really is.

 

 

In terms of games I liked:

 

the first 4 silent hill titles, for the reason MsKayne mentioned.

 

All of the resident evil titles, albeit I loved RE7, RE2, and RE4 the most. Those games managed to get tension just right while being as cheesy as possible. I just adored those games

 

Dead Space 1 and 2 were amazing titles with awesome atmosphere with it. Sad that the third one kinda sucked and EA decided to screw over Visceral Games, would've loved a Dead Space 4.

 

And lastly, Cry of Fear, for being what the later Silent Hills could've been like if the team were to continue making Silent Hill games.

 

The only books I've read are ones from Edgar Allan Poe, H.P Lovecraft, (HUGE FAN of cosmic horror) and good ol' Stephen King.

So many horror movie greats, I'll go with: Suspiria, Hellraiser, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, Opera, Tenebre, Demons, Child's Play, American Werewolf in London, Terror Firmer, Father's Day, The Editor, Evil Dead II, Army of Darkness, Hatchet II, Phantasm, The Hitcher, The Shining, Silent Night Deadly Night, American Psycho, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, David Lynch's movies like Blue Velvet, Mulholland Dr and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With me ("thriller/drama" genre but he is so intense). Also Videodrome, Curse of Frankenstein, and Horror of Dracula.

 

For games I think Silent Hill 2 is the best, mentioned above, and I'm a big fan of Resident Evil 4 which is adventure/horror/action, that village the first time was the scariest part of the franchise to me though. Resident Evil 2 is also up there for me.

 

 

David Cronenberg's remake of The Fly is way up there. It's very well acted, the effects are incredible, and you really care about the characters. It's also hauntingly morbid and sad, and really sticks with you long after you've seen it. I mention this movie specifically because nobody else here has.

Afraid of Monsters is the last true scary game for me.

 

Big fan of It Follows and Alien, movie-wise.

13 hours ago, Ajora said:

David Cronenberg's remake of The Fly is way up there. It's very well acted, the effects are incredible, and you really care about the characters. It's also hauntingly morbid and sad, and really sticks with you long after you've seen it. I mention this movie specifically because nobody else here has.

Definitely.  I considered mentioning it, but I figured between me raving about VideoDrome & Dead Ringers, I had fangirled over Cronenberg enough in my post.

 

Really, most of what Cronenberg did in the 80s is well worth a watch.  And some of his later stuff is too, though the 80s were definitely his golden period.  The Fly, Dead Ringers, Scanners, The Brood, VideoDrome, The Dead Zone....  love 'em.

^ For sure, Cronenberg rocks. A History of Violence is another favorite of mine from him. And of course Naked Lunch.

The first Texas Chainsaw Massacre film to me stands as one of the best slashers. It had so much more than just gore, and it accomplished a lot of atmosphere with very little budget. The less I say about the "sequels", the better... The remake is okay.

The first Hellraiser is a great horror experience as well, though it's another film that most people dabbling into horror are already familiar with. The second Hellraiser is also worth checking out, but everything after that is pretty much shit.

If you're looking for an obscure little horror film gem, I'd give Wind Chill a try. For some reason it got completely slammed by critics upon release, but it's a very atmospheric and above all intelligent psychological horror/thriller. If you like Silent Hill, I'm sure you'll dig it.

In terms of games I haven't played that many horror games recently. I really enjoyed Resident Evil 7, and I hope they continue down this road. The story wasn't terrific, but the atmosphere was excellent and it's overall a welcome return to horror. The first true horror Resident Evil in well over ten years at least.

A little while back, I also checked out this little indie game called Darkwood. It's a top down survival horror game, and it's pretty cool. I normally try to steer clear of Unity-powered games, since they have a nasty habit of performance issues, but Darkwood had none of that. Though the developers released it on Steam, you can download it legally for free.

^ Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is my favorite personally, and it is by Tobe Hooper. I can see why it may not be everybody's thing, but it's a beloved cult film in it's own right. Horror comedy with a lot of character that would sit proudly next to Evil Dead II on any shelf. Dennis Hopper right around Blue Velvet too.

5 minutes ago, PsychoGoatee said:

^ Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is my favorite personally, and it is by Tobe Hooper. I can see why it may not be everybody's thing, but it's a beloved cult film in it's own right. Horror comedy with a lot of character that would sit proudly next to Evil Dead II on any shelf. Dennis Hopper right around Blue Velvet too.

Yeah, I'm sorry... I thought part 2 was absolute shit. :p Not much of a horror either; it just felt like an all-out comedy to me, and that's not what Texas Chainsaw Massacre is about (IMO). I know it was directed by Toby Hooper, but his films have always been very hit or miss.

 

In general I take issue with people changing a horror property into a comedy or otherwise silly mockery. Capcom did the same with Resident Evil when 4 came around. I hated it then, and I hate it now.

Edited October 19, 2017 by Agentbromsnor

Comedy also isn't what the first Evil Dead was about for example, but Evil Dead II being very funny (much more so than scary) ended up being an even more beloved film. I love straight horror too, but in these cases I find the horror comedy sequels to have been even better, and more up my alley. I do love the first TCM film as well though, great ending too. But there's more to TCM2 than laughs as well, and Leatherface's first appearance is scarier than anything in Dracula from 1931 in my book.

 

I mentioned TCM2 in my earlier post as well, one of the best movies ever, so you can see why I'd defend it.

 

On RE4, that's been debated a lot on every site around, but it's a masterpiece in my book. RE2 brought in comedy and fun, if we don't count the unintentional comedy in RE1, and RE3 and CV were quite campy. I'd paste my huge steam review of why I love RE4, but I think people get the gist being a well known game.

 

Edited October 19, 2017 by PsychoGoatee

My personal favorite horror film is The Orphanage.  It's your classic haunted house story, but is so much more than your average jump-scare fest.  It's subtitled in Spanish but genuinely don't let that put you off.

 

The scariest film I ever saw was The Descent.  I'm claustrophobic at the best of times, and a horror about pot-holing just gives me the willies.

 

Finally, for horror-comedy, the obvious choice is Braindead Dead by Peter Jackson.  Make sure you see the full British/NZ uncut version, not the super sanitized American version (that was so cut Jackson renamed it to Dead Alive to avoid confusion).

 

But I'd also definitely check out Dog Soldiers. Army squad vs. werewolves.  It's absolutely excellent.

Resident Evil is campy, yes. Not an all-round clown-fest like fans of RE 4 would like people to believe.

I know I'm in the minority on this, but in my opinion RE 4 started the decline of horror games in general. It basically showed people that there was no more interest in true horror experiences, and that gamers just want to mindlessly shoot things. To top things off, just insert some stereotypical bad guy who looks like a reject character from a shitty 90s Saturday morning cartoon, and you're all set.

Comedy is great, but for goodness sake keep it out of my horror. These two genres do not mix particularly well, and it dilutes any sense of dread that the story might be trying to portray. It just makes things unbalanced, and at the end of the day it's (for the most part) not going to please fans of either genres.
 

The scariest film I ever saw was The Descent.  I'm claustrophobic at the best of times, and a horror about pot-holing just gives me the willies.

I can't believe I forgot to mention this. This is an excellent modern horror movie (though I wouldn't say the scariest, personally). It's also a great example of why a simple set-up works so well in horror. The entire movie can be summed up as: "Women go climbing in a cave. Shit goes wrong". It's almost as much story as that of the original Doom game. :)

Edited October 19, 2017 by Agentbromsnor

Nothing is liked by everybody, it's not surprising that somebody doesn't like some of the favs in this topic so far. Genre mixing entries such as these do please a lot of people, it's just not your thing it seems. I also don't agree with how you boil things down, but we all have different perspectives and experiences with entertainment.

 

4 minutes ago, PsychoGoatee said:

Nothing is liked by everybody, it's not surprising that somebody doesn't like some of the favs in this topic so far. Genre mixing entries such as these do please a lot of people, it's just not your thing it seems. I also don't agree with how you boil things down, but we all have different perspectives and experiences with entertainment.

 

It's fine, I'm not trying to bash you for liking it. Obviously everyone has a different view.

2 hours ago, Agentbromsnor said:

Resident Evil is campy, yes. Not an all-round clown-fest like fans of RE 4 would like people to believe.

I know I'm in the minority on this, but in my opinion RE 4 started the decline of horror games in general. It basically showed people that there was no more interest in true horror experiences, and that gamers just want to mindlessly shoot things. To top things off, just insert some stereotypical bad guy who looks like a reject character from a shitty 90s Saturday morning cartoon, and you're all set.

 

I both agree and disagree... I agree with the fact it set a really bad trend for the horror genre in the eyes of the industry and on top of that I get really baffled when I hear people talk about it like it was a great horror game.  I admit the Plagas kinda freaked me out at first, but after blowing them up for an hour they lose a lot of their scare value, and otherwise the only other things I ever feared in the game were the regenerador.  You spent too much time being a capable badass with a big gun in a silly action story with monsters.  But I will admit I... still kinda loved the game.  It was legitimately a ton of fun, when accepted for what it was.  It's just a shame it said "Action games with spooky skins sell better than actually scary games" and made the industry wary of actually making real horror games.  :/

I'm glad we finally can merge the 2 topics into one by having this third topic :-)

In terms of pure survivial horror in Resident Evil i thought the Remake did the best job at it, it kept it relatively straight while adding some additional monsters that helped add to the tension such as the Crimson Heads and Lisa Trevor, plus at the time it looked amazing.

Its still my all time favorite RE by quite a distance, it really is a case of a remake done right (Lets hope the RE 2 remake follows suit)

3 hours ago, vinnie245 said:

In terms of pure survivial horror in Resident Evil i thought the Remake did the best job at it, it kept it relatively straight while adding some additional monsters that helped add to the tension such as the Crimson Heads and Lisa Trevor, plus at the time it looked amazing.

Its still my all time favorite RE by quite a distance, it really is a case of a remake done right (Lets hope the RE 2 remake follows suit)

Yeah, REmake is the one old Resi that I feel holds up nicely in a lot of ways.  And it still looks amazing... the art direction was fantastic.  

I spent the last year or so plowing through the entire series (sans non-canon games like Gaiden) and I can tell you the series has always been a sequential escalation of camp and stupid. They dial it back every so often (Revelations 2 being probably the most successful before 7) but people who got upset at what RE4 had done to the series must have been asleep when RE2 came out. RE2 was very much the Aliens to RE1's Alien. It was RE2 that really opened the floodgates for survival horror's golden age, with a long string of imitators, some of which came from Capcom themselves. Has the emphasis on action diminished the RE series? I suppose that depends on what you expect out of RE. RE6 is definitely the culmination of a lot of stuff that the storyline had been building up for years -- escaping a house full of mad experiments is a far cry from narrowly averting a global-scale zombie/mutant apocalypse.

 

But therein lies the problem. Let's be honest here: survival horror as defined by Resident Evil and Silent Hill had hit a wall by the mid-00s. Long-standing complaints about clunky controls and a perceived lack of innovation had put the genre into a bit of decline. While the western games industry had made their own attempts with the likes of The Suffering, Manhunt, and The Thing, among others, none of them had ever really made a dent -- even System Shock 2 was more popular as "best horror games" fodder than it was as a game anyone actually played. RE4 (and later, Amnesia) changed all that, for better or for worse.

 

I know some lament the death of old-school Alone In The Dark-style survival horror, but I wouldn't blame RE4 for that. Capcom saw where the wind was blowing regarding the genre and the franchise and made adjustments. Their gamble paid off for them big time. It's important not to understate how influential RE4 was on multiple levels. The over-the-shoulder view completely revolutionized third-person shooters. Everything from Gears of War to Uncharted to Dead Space has utilized it -- I don't know that there's a TPS game, survival horror or not, that utilizes Max Payne-style cameras in this day and age. Whatever you might say about RE4, OTS has been a good thing, a decent compromise between third-person and first-person.

 

Amnesia, I think, is a far greater villain in terms of asking what "ruined" survival horror. The I-have-no-hands-and-I-must-wank subgenre of first-person horror games where you can't defend yourself is, in my mind, the logical opposite of the direction RE4 took horror games in, but it goes too far by taking agency out of the player's hands entirely. Even Clock Tower, ever the love-letter to slasher flicks, gave otherwise-powerless players contextual methods of self-defense. Unfortunately due to LPers like Pewdiepie making Amnesia popular, there was a period of time where your choices were either the likes of RE4-5-6, Dead Space, etc. from AAA developers, or the indie scene's Running Around In The Haunted Whorehouse Without Even Like Picking Up A Goddamn Fireplace Poker Or Something 2: Gaiden. The industry knows there's no room anymore for games like RE1; though a few indie devs have tried to recapture the concept (Lone Survivor for example,) Capcom re-releasing HD versions of REmake and RE0 served no real purpose than keeping a couple of their classics alive and accessible, and taking advantage of the hype for RE7. But make no mistake -- RE7 is not RE1. RE1's controls are clunky, its reliance on static camera angles is confusing and sometimes deadly. RE7, like Alien Isolation before it, is the perfect marriage of what Frictional tried to do (use a first person perspective for greater fidelity of control and greater immersion) with traditional principles of survival horror (limited resources, dangerous combat, etc.) while avoiding the sticky issues of lack of player agency (Amnesia) and poor controls (RE1.)