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[Retro Collection] Must Play PlayStation 2 Horror Games

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playstation horror games

Retro Collection showcases must play horror game experiences on older consoles. This time its the essential PlayStation 2 horror games.

Horror may have kicked off big time on the original PlayStation, but the scope of it really grew by the time Sony’s second console entered the fray.

Sequels to the classics of the previous generation were joined by new takes on those winning concepts, resulting in one of the best generations for horror video games, and many of them found a home on the PlayStation 2.

We’ve put together a list of the most essential PlayStation 2 horror games. They aren’t always the best in technical terms, but they are the most interesting, inventive examples from a console that had plenty.


Manhunt

Rockstar courted controversy fairly often during this time period. Manhunt perhaps pushed buttons just that little bit harder than any of its previous work. It’s also the most thoughtful examination of violence to come from the company.

Convicted murderer James Earl Cash is supposedly executed in the game’s opening but awakes to find himself the reluctant star of Lionel Starkweather’s sordid snuff film project. If Cash is to survive, then he’ll have to murder the roaming psychos on the streets of Carcer City in order to satisfy Starkweather.

There’s more than a touch of John Carpenter to Manhunt (the soundtrack and the atmosphere mainly), mixed with 80’s gore-fests and just a smidgen of The Warriors (which Rockstar would go on to make into a game).

The focus on Cash’s hunt-or-be-hunted struggle presents a world where violence is one of two choices. The other is to simply give up. Cash isn’t killing because he wants to or is paid to, he’s doing it as the only realistic means of escape and defense. The sequel misses that point entirely and instead becomes the shock-seeking, soulless poison its predecessor was accused of being.

The mechanics haven’t aged well, but they’re just tolerable enough to push past and enjoy that grim atmosphere. 


Silent Hill 2

What list of PlayStation 2 horror games would be complete without a trip to Silent Hill?

You’d find little argument against Silent Hill 2 being considered among the greatest horror games of all time. Where Resident Evil went for jump scares, gore, and melodrama (which worked beautifully for that series), Silent Hill began as the more cerebral brand of survival horror, and Silent Hill 2 represents the very best of that.

James Sunderland heads to the town of Silent Hill after a letter from his wife shows up in his mail and asks him to come there. His wife, however, is supposed to be three years dead. James soon discovers Silent Hill is no ordinary town and some seriously messed up things occur.

Silent Hill 2’s writing and environmental storytelling are among the best examples in all of video games, let alone horror. This psychological horror tale is brimming with metaphor (even now, to say what those metaphors are feels like spoilers) and features some of the most magnificently hideous monster design you’ll see.

The PlayStation 2 version is definitely the place to go if you want to experience Silent Hill 2, as lost game code means the PS3/Xbox 360 remaster is a sad mess. If you have a PS2 copy, treasure it.


Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly

The Fatal Frame series deserves far more attention than it’s got (Meagan Navarro had a retrospective look at it earlier this year). While the gaming world obsessed with monsters, Tecmo’s series focused on the paranormal, in particular, the capture of spirits.

Fatal Frame II sees twin sisters Mio and Mayu Amakura as they wander around the abandoned Minakami Village. Whilst there they encounter spirits who decide the pair will make fine vessels for ritual sacrifice.

Lucky for the girls they have an enchanted camera that damages ghosts. The Camera Obscura is the big hook to Fatal Frame series. It can be used to vanquish apparitions and find clues (both denoted by a glowing filament in the top corner of the screen) as well as find helpful items.

In Fatal Frame II the damage you do to ghosts varies depending on position, timing, and proximity. It’s a stupendously well-implemented system that is a major part of what makes Fatal Frame II such a unique experience when compared to other titles on this list.


Legacy of Kain: Blood Omen 2

Soul Reaver and its protagonist Raziel get the most love where the Legacy of Kain series is concerned, but Blood Omen 2 deserves more exposure.

This alternate history sequel ignores the events of Soul Reaver and begins a new timeline where Kain is on the brink of building his vampiric empire, but he must take down the Hylden vampire hunters (the Sarafan) that oppress the land of Nosgoth.

He does this by murdering the elite soldiers who betrayed him, effectively drinking their power to gain new abilities. This is done to help him gain vengeance against the Sarafan Lord who bested him in combat.

There’s melodrama and Gothic vampire chic laid on so thick here you could use it for the foundations of a house, and that fits Kain so perfectly as a character. A vile, cruel bastard of a vampire who is far from the hero he believes himself to be.


Devil May Cry

One of the most beautiful mistakes in video game history. What started as a Resident Evil game instead shifted into a hack n’ slash action title that was both cool as a cucumber and dumb as a bag of hammers.

Devil May Cry and its protagonist Dante oozes charisma like his foes do blood. His silky-smooth combat (combos with twin pistols and a ruddy great sword tend to help) and a dorkiness that gives off an air of a schlocky 80’s action horror are key components of his scuzzy charm. That Dante can pull off the cocky badass facade whilst delivering lines like ‘’Flock off feather face, or stick around and find out the hard way’’ to a giant demon bird says all you need to know about how special a treat Devil May Cry is, even now.

The monster design is a major highlight. From a huge lava-infused scorpion to the creepy marionette puppets carrying blades, there’s an eerie Gothic vibe to the world of Devil May Cry, and even when it is outlandish, it remains consistent.

Shame about that sequel though.


Forbidden Siren 2

Japanese developers really had a stranglehold on quality horror on PlayStation 2. To the point that something as creepy and menacing as Forbidden Siren 2 gets forgotten a little too easily. The Siren series is about survival horror via stealth. You take various protagonists through their own scenario where they must avoid the monsters that stalk the cursed Yamijima Island during a blackout.

They achieve this with a rather unique ability called ‘sightjacking’ that allows you to see through the eyes of the monsters (who are actually possessed humans) and use that to determine when they can best skedaddle from their hiding spot.

Forbidden Siren 2 is the best example of the series on PS2 (the episodic Siren on PS3 probably edges it overall). It fixes the key issues of the first (namely the fiddly nature of sightjacking) and feels like an evolution of the vulnerable side to survival horror Clock Tower made work before it.


Resident Evil 4

As with Silent Hill 2, it would be simply absurd not to include Resident Evil 4 on a list of PlayStation 2 horror games. It’s one of the best in its own series and easily the best on PS2.

A near-total overhaul of the popular survival horror template Resident Evil 4 re-lit the fire under the franchise (which wasn’t exactly doing all that bad at that point) and spawned a whole new raft of titles inspired by its changes.

Whether it’s the set-pieces (Boulder-chase! Chainsaw! Knife Fight! House Siege!) or the memorable characters both human and inhuman (or y’know…giant statue), Resident Evil 4 is a tour-de-force action horror filled with invention.

Though a bit less of the babysitting would be nice.


The Suffering

While many games from this era tried to go grimdark as possible to cater for an audience more than willing to lap it up, it was very often poorly-conceived and/or ill-fitting (even the Prince of Persia couldn’t escape).

Not so for The Suffering. This was a game that didn’t hold back its depravity and gore, and it was all quite cohesive too!

You play as death row prisoner Torque, trapped in Abbott State Penitentiary after an earthquake somehow unleashes supernatural forces. Torque has to fight off not only the new horrors created by this incident but struggle with his own personal demons.

The Suffering was an early proponent of the morality system. Torque’s actions affected the ending you got, essentially determining the true story of the murders he’s supposed to have committed.

In a world saturated in plodding survival horror, The Suffering’s faster-paced combat and gung-ho shooting felt at odds with the trends of the day, but if anything, it was a refreshing change.

The monster design was inspired too. Enemies were inspired by different forms of execution, from hanging to firing squad (and perhaps best with the lethal injection avatars known as mainliners).

It doesn’t quite gel as well as you’d hope, but this slice of gritty, gory and adult horror is still worth investigating as part of the history of PlayStation 2 horror games.


Gregory Horror Show

What’s this? A sort-of-family-friendly horror game? By Capcom? That is indeed what Gregory Horror Show is and it is a macabre delight.

Based on the CGI anime of the same name, Gregory Horror Show focuses on a hotel called Gregory House where the player character must retrieve the bottled lost souls of guests through a variety of inventive means. Do that and Death will help you escape the hotel. Yeah, it’s that kind of game.

What really sells Gregory Horror Show is its characters and the dark stories behind them. Among the character highlights are bedraggled hotel manager Gregory (who is a mouse) and the stitched-together punk cat Neko Zombie.

As for the stories? The blocky, colorful aesthetic hides a wickedly dark side. The ending alone is pretty damn bleak, yet still manages to find an odd warmth in it.

Gregory Horror Show really something worth seeking out if you want something different from your PlayStation 2 horror games. Just keep in mind it never got a North American release (Japan and Europe only in fact), so it may be a little tougher to experience than the others on this list.

Editorials

‘The Fog’ 19 Years Later: There’s a Reason You Don’t Remember This John Carpenter Remake

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The Fog remake
Pictured: 'The Fog' (2005)

John Carpenter’s illustrious catalog of horror and non-horror classics has already seen three remakes (Halloween, Assault on Precinct 13, and this column’s focus), with at least one more kinda-sorta confirmed on the way (Escape from New York). If you consider 2011’s The Thing enough of a remake, notch another on the bedpost. It makes sense; Carpenter turned his no-bullshit attitude into a masterful filmmaking style, and those listed titles harbor nostalgic admiration. We’re probably closer than we think to seeing Bryan Fuller’s Christine remake for Blumhouse or a contemporary They Live, while Dwayne Johnson’s Big Trouble in Little China sequel project fades away. Imagine Julia Ducournau’s Christine should Fuller exit, or what about if James Gunn booked a brief horror vacation away from the DCEU for his take on They Live?

Carpenter’s brand of down-and-dirty storytelling mixed with societal commentaries make his works perfect for generational updates, but they can’t all be winners.

Take 2005’s woefully tragic The Fog, for example.

Rupert Wainwright’s disastrously shallow remake lacks the finesse of even a crusty barnacle attached to the underbelly of Carpenter’s original. During a period of horror cinema inundated by remakes, The Fog asserts itself as one of the worst. The 2000s had a very “show, don’t tell” approach to horror filmmaking and leaned on grisly violence popularized by Saw, all exploited in their lowest forms throughout The Fog. Bless both Carpenter and the late Debra Hill for serving as producers, but Wainwright and writer Cooper Layne do their salty source shanty zero justice.


The Approach

‘The Fog’ (1980)

Carpenter’s The Fog is successful because of the auteur’s influence. Between his stronger emphasis on churchly greed, eerie musical score, and abilities as a simplistic yet impactful visionary, viewers get plenty of “bang for their buck” in 90 minutes. Wainwright doesn’t possess those qualities and relies on archaic horror templates without any investment. In an era where computer graphics were still advancing, and some producers only valued horror as gory inserts within a lax narrative, Wainwright’s direction equates to background noise. There’s nothing spectacular or signature about the filmmaker’s approach, as recyclable as the plethora of 2000s horror films plagued by the same churned-out doldrums.

Smallville heartthrob Tom Welling follows in the footsteps of fellow WB/CW stars like Supernatural’s Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki to shepherd his own horror remake, playing Tom Atkins’ role of fisherman Nick Castle. He’s a descendant of Norman Castle, one of the founding fathers of Antonio Island, which is located off the Oregon coast. It’s been over 100 years since the island’s bustling Antonio Bay community was established, and to celebrate an upcoming anniversary, a statue is commissioned that displays its founders as a dedication to their contributions. Mayor Tom Malone (Kenneth Welsh) wants everything to be perfect, but little does he know Antonio Bay is about to have an undead problem to confront when a mysterious fog rolls in thick as sauna steam.

The bones of The Fog are all there, but both needlessly overcomplicated and disparagingly unkempt. Carpenter introduces his film with an eerie ghost story told around a campfire that becomes a grave truth for Antonio Bay — Layne’s remake screenplay does backflips to try and explain the unexplainable. Nick’s charter fishing vessel unleashes the curse when second-mate Spooner (DeRay Davis) rips open a burlap bag concealing curse items with the boat’s anchor because the film doesn’t trust audience comprehension past any viewer’s eyesight. One of the biggest scourges upon 2000s horror cinema was creators believing their audiences were as dumb as algae-covered rocks, causing them to spell the obvious out in even more blatant and less captivating methods.


Does It Work?

The Fog remake carpenter

‘The Fog’ (2005)

The adjustments Wainwright oversees in 2005’s remix are a bungle of what out-of-touch producers presumed horror fans wanted to see at the time. Carpenter’s quaint coastal atmosphere is eradicated by Spooner’s Girls Gone Wild behavior or the need to belabor flashbacks that lay out every grim detail about Captain Blake (Rade Šerbedžija) and his lepers. Antonio Island’s tainted history is still prevalent as a driving force behind the weather-based haunting, but where Carpenter leaves us to imagine the atrocities founding fathers committed, Wainwright and Layne lean on time jumps that detract from overall moods for cheap betrayal thrills. The remake retains less reflection, whereas Carpenter’s original better depicts a town reckoning with its horrifying heritage — an example of hollow vengeance versus frightening introspection.

Maggie Grace co-stars in Jamie Lee Curtis’ hitchhiker role, except she’s no longer affable nomad Elizabeth Solley; she’s Kathy Williams’ (Sara Botsford) daughter, Elizabeth Williams. Her ties to Antonio Bay are supposed to represent how we can’t escape our fates, fair enough. What’s unfortunate is Layne’s need to shoehorn relationship drama because she’s (apparently) the love of Nick’s life despite his handful of hookups with KAB radio DJ Stevie Wayne (Selma Blair) while Elizabeth fled her hometown for six months — a love triangle situation that adds no special sauce and is practically forgotten. Carpenter is fantastic when letting his characters exist without bogging their arcs with fifty reasons why they’re exactly where they are in any given scene. Wainwright is no mimic, nor does his film’s desire to tangle characters together as friends, lovers, or family members add further intrigue. If anything, it adversely tanks character development because there’s no resident we intimately care about.

Which brings us to the “fog” of it all. Carpenter’s maggot-ridden swashbucklers from the deep are memorable and creepy, while Wainwright pulls his haunted visuals from a grab-bag. Sometimes, they’re atrocious see-through animations made of mist — other times, indiscriminately human entities. One victim contracts leprosy as his punishment, another fried to ash upon touch, and yet another is dragged underwater by invisible hands — there’s zero continuity to Wainwright’s justifiably antagonistic forces. They become a Mad Libs gaggle of props fitting whatever scare-of-the-hour The Fog decides is necessary at that moment, none of which ever collaborate in unison. That includes Captain Blake’s parting climax, in which he abandons his group’s attack on Antonio Bay because he claims Elizabeth as his ghost wife after it’s clear she’s the spitting image of Blake’s 1870s lover [insert seventy thousand question marks].


The Result

The Fog remake tom welling

‘The Fog’ (2005)

The Fog remake is everything I despise about thoughtless horror outputs rolled into a briny clump of seaweed and misbegotten reinventions. It’s hardly scary, unable to let audiences invest in atmospheric spookiness, and so wildly incompetent. Each scene gets progressively worse, starting with the reveal of evil personal belongings stamped with identifiable “Hallmarks” that become pieces of a puzzle that never gets finished. Carpenter makes you feel the offshore breeze rolling in with his fog, sending chills up your spine as these scurvy-soaked scoundrels start stabbing and hooking Antonio Bay residents. Wainwright doesn’t ever grasp what his iteration of Blake’s demons should look like or how they should cause havoc, so he starts throwing basic horror visuals at the screen out of desperation.

Revolution Studios’ The Fog downgrade sinks thanks to primarily messy effects, hampered by the early millennium’s digital capabilities. That’s not exclusive to awful ghost illustrations that look like someone just decreased the “Transparency” slider in Photoshop. The fog, the TITULAR FOG, doesn’t even hold up to Demon Wind standards (in which the wind is essentially fog, roll with it). Wainwright and his team brainstorm ideas that sound rad on paper — an older woman gets barbecued, a ghost outline appears in fog like Imhotep’s sandstorm face, a younger woman is attacked by seaweed — but execution almost exclusively whiffs. The remake’s drunkard generalization of Father Malone (which is such a slap in the face to Hal Holbrook’s fantastic original performance) should meet an epic death when Captain Blake levitates glass shards as a containment circle, but three pieces fly through Malone’s body, and it’s over. That’s the level of SFX disappointment that festers throughout 2005’s The Fog, all buildup with no reward.

The film’s finale feels like a prank; the rest of the conflict’s resolution is lost at sea. Carpenter’s much heavier scolds against organized religion’s dirty dealings help give his film an identity down to the glimmering golden cross, while Wainwright goes as generic as they come and abandons ship when the well runs dry. Nothing justifies the kind of conceptual excitement that comes along with worthwhile remakes, whether that’s copycat role replications (I love Selma Blair, but her Stevie doesn’t match Adrienne Barbeau’s presence) or storytelling reductions that choose numbing violence over folkloric sensations of dread. We love a horror movie that’s critical of early America’s disgusting colonization tactics, but The Fog doesn’t know how to turn those frustrations into a compelling genre production. Whatever’s kept from the original holds no candle to Carpenter’s version, and whatever’s added — like Nick and Elizabeth’s awkward shower sex scene set to softcore porno music — brings nothing of value.


The Lesson

‘The Fog’ (2005)

Just because your remake starts with a banger like Fall Out Boy’s “Sugar, We’re Going Down Swinging” doesn’t mean the film itself is a banger. There’s no world where I’d recommend Wainwright’s The Fog over Carpenter’s titanically superior original, and I say that as a leading Aughts horror remake champion. It’s another Nu-Horror approach that strips away commentary crucial to the plot’s intrigue since all Layne musters is a non-creepy and waterlogged story that feels like an unwieldy CW episode — not meant as a compliment. Not even the chiseled beauty of an early 2000s Tom Welling in a wool turtleneck can save this travesty from becoming another forgotten wreck.

So what did we learn?

● Not all CW figureheads have a hit horror remake in their blood.

● Less is so often more when it comes to horror movies, as long as you’re selling scares and confidently telling a story within your means.

● Some movies from the 2000s horror era will always suffer thanks to dodgy digital effects because while it was the shiny new toy everyone wanted to play with, golly, the technology was rough to start.

● Horror fans can be easy to please, but they’re also first to call out your bullshit — get out of here with these ghosts and their inability to pick a lane.

Wainwright’s film never knows what kind of horror movie it wants to be, and that’s the kill shot. Is it a slasher flick? Zombie movie? A large-scale haunted house blueprint? There’s never any indication that Wainwright or his screenwriter conceptualize a path forward, so they barrel on, praying there’s enough horror familiarity to appease the masses. There isn’t, it’s a boneheaded slog, and that’s that. Horror fans deserve better than to be fed the equivalent of table scraps for 100 minutes. To each their own and all, but now that I’ve finally seen 2005’s The Fog, the only times I’ll think about this movie again will be if someone interacts with my Letterboxd post.

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