Editorials
[Retro Collection] Must Play PlayStation 2 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.
College kids, strippers and vampires—those were Donald P. Borchers’ only requirements when he approached Richard Wenk about writing and directing a movie for New World Pictures. As requested, Wenk cooked up Vamp (1986), a tailor-made blend of the decade’s teen movie craze as well as its horror boom.
Grim and earnest stories were still very much a part of the ’80s horror landscape, yet Vamp is something of a comedy. One difference between it and, say, Saturday the 14th, though, is the former avoids using schtick. Wenk’s movie proves that horror comedies also don’t have to subtract thrills from their recipes. Of course, it takes a minute before reaching that point; college antics and culture shocks preface this one macabre misadventure.
Vamp‘s initial setup is apt for a typical college-set, sex-driven comedy; to bribe their way into a fraternity house, two pledges (Chris Makepeace, Robert Rusler) go looking for some adult entertainment. Without wasting time on any further exposition, the characters embark on an all-in-one-night trip that quickly detours into terror.
To procure their elusive MacGuffin—a stripper willing to gyrate for some frat boys—Keith (Makepeace) and AJ (Rusler), plus a third wheel named Duncan (Gedee Watanabe), trade the safety of their remote college campus for the seediness of some unnamed city. The setting is recognizably L.A. by day, but as soon as night falls, downtown, along with the characters, slips into a kind of surreal universe. Director of photography Elliot Davis gave this early entry on his prolific résumé an unusual yet distinctive look; that Mario Bava-esque, magenta-green lighting is omnipresent, so much so that it’s almost its own character.
Chris Makepeace and Robert Rusler in Vamp
The faint comparisons to Martin Scorsese’s After Hours are merited, although not just because of Vamp’s distinguishing nighttime aesthetic. Save for the primary characters, the supporting roles in Wenk’s movie are also quite colorful and transactional in their behavior. The difference here, though, is the additional urge to ruin Keith and his friends at every turn. Some of that harm is humorous and tolerable enough, whereas the moment Vamp dishes out its first fatality, it’s abundantly clear how this movie qualifies as horror.
Vamp falls into that category of horror movie that reveals its genre with a scream rather than a series of whispers. The opening scene can function as a hint of what lies ahead—things are not at all what they appear to be—but otherwise, Wenk is more than happy to hold off on the horror. When that time does come, though, it catches the viewer off guard. In addition to the pure shock value is that sudden decision to upend the movie’s foremost feature. Or so it would seem.
If afraid of major spoilage, those new to Vamp would be wise to stop reading here. There’s just no skirting around the fact that the central fellowship in this buddy movie hits a serious snag when AJ is killed. That development causes the story to become more of a “long, bad night” journey for Keith and his romantic interest. So while Wenk scores points for subverting expectations, there is also a touch of sadness in his decision. Because if Vamp does anything well, it’s making the characters likable.
Something that comes easily to Vamp—and other teen horror movies from this same era—is its ability to invent young characters worth caring about, or at the very least, are interesting and not so immediately off-putting. More impressive is how Wenk did all this without actually fleshing out those characters. Still and all, Keith and his kind are a grade above cookie-cutter, and in some cases, aren’t completely devoid of growth.
Grace Jones in Vamp
Vamp appeals with an assorted cast of characters. No two are the same, nor are they operating on the same wavelength. The cinematically extroverted AJ, whose actor conveyed charm and vulnerability in near equal amounts, comes alive when he’s at his most undead. Makepeace then makes the chronically cautious Keith a sympathetic fellow, even as he’s more and more affected by the night’s bizarre events. Meanwhile, Duncan is indeed the designated loser of the whole bunch, but Watanabe still manages to humanize him. As a bonus, the role didn’t require him to pull a Long Duk Dong.
As for Dedee Pfeiffer, she is plain adorable as the mysterious After Dark server nicknamed “Amaretto”. She spends all night fixing her dress strap while at the same time trying to get Keith to remember how he knows her. As their offbeat romance grows, it becomes another highlight of this movie. Whether or not Pfeiffer’s character is really a vampire also creates some welcome tension in the story.
Like a lot of its contemporaries, Vamp went on to become a bit of a cult classic. That current status is determined by several factors, but without a doubt, the casting of Grace Jones is the most considerable. The image of her writhing on that unique-looking chair, a Keith Haring original, springs to mind whenever this movie is brought up.
Chris Makepeace, Billy Drago and Paunita Nichols in Vamp
Prior to that first display of unequivocal horror, local vampire queen Katrina (Jones) took to the stage and delivered a strip show like no other. One would expect nothing less from that renowned model and performance artist. By now reports of Jones’ tardiness on set are no secret, yet it’s also hard to deny her commitment to the part of Katrina. It was, in fact, Jones who took charge of her character’s appearance—on top of Haring painting her body and that now-iconic chair, she had Andy Warhol handle her costuming. And not too many actors could seize a room’s attention without saying a single line of dialogue.
In 2022, Vamp received a retrospective novelization from Encyclopocalypse. This literary union of preexisting source material—Wenk’s original screenplay—and new ideas from author Christian Francis amounts to a more comprehensive visit to the After Dark Club. The basic story there is no different than what’s shown on screen; however, Francis gets creative with the characters’ origins and designs, and he enhances a number of key scenes.
The novelization expands on the urban and social decay of the main setting, and supplies a background for the After Dark Club. Sandy Baron’s character, Katrina’s emcee and familiar, is given ample motivation for sticking around; up until the fiery end, he is loyal to his friend and former business partner “Squeak”, who looks like he was “fed through a combine harvester, and left as nothing more than a heap of mangled remains”. Then there is Billy Drago’s character Snow, the leader of a street gang called The Dragons. His reason for menacing Keith and AJ is more altruistic than in the movie; he and his peers act tough to scare off any potential food for the vampires.
Lisa Lyon in Vamp
If not for all the backstories, Francis’ Vamp would be a hell of a lot shorter. Instead, this tie-in read dives into how AJ met Keith—the orphaned Anthony Joseph hailed from a broken home back in Brooklyn—and how their friendship flourished over the years. Keith’s archership is no longer just an assumed part of his entire being; it’s a confidence-building extracurricular for a boy who got picked on before coming into the protection of the new kid in town. These supplemental, in-depth looks at the protagonists, plus their close connection, are maybe unnecessary. The movie already did a fair and concise job of addressing their platonic intimacy without the need for flashbacks and insights, specifically in that scene where AJ lays it all out as he sacrifices himself.
Where the novelization gets off course is its approach to the minor characters. Intermittently backstorying the likes of Katrina’s indentured servants, Seko (Leila Hee Olsen) and Vlad (Brad Logan), ends up disturbing the flow of the writing. Was it absolutely essential that readers know Vlad was the Grand Duke of the House of Romanov, or how Snow’s accomplice Maven (Paunita Nichols) became so dentally challenged? No, not really. However, one’s mileage with these random biographies may vary.
The novelization is a more substantial experience, but for a movie like Vamp, less is more. And as plentiful as they are, it never simply coasts on its campy charms, either. The character work sits comfortably in that realm between cursory and meticulous, the script is sharper than first realized, and Greg Cannom’s vampire makeup is straightforward yet effective. Most of all, the movie didn’t squander its out-of-the-box concept. Richard Wenk made his vision of a “comic nightmare in which just about anything that can go wrong does” come true, and it is very enjoyable.
You must be logged in to post a comment.