Editorials
Why I Fear the Wizzrobes in ‘The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’
I remember my first steps outside the tutorial area in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild as it had been yesterday, becoming an outsider in a behemoth of a game. But it wasn’t the story, the gorgeous landscapes or the sense of wonder that left that memory in my head. It was the smile of a fucking Wizzrobe.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild starts with tangible chaos menacing everyone in Hyrule. Ganon, in its ethereal and dark shape, torments the castle where no one else but Zelda is there to defend what’s left of a world facing the abyss. Link is determined to help her after waking up from his long sleep, but there are swarms of enemies waiting for him pretty much everywhere.
A massive boulder blocking your path might surprise you by lifting itself up, revealing its colossus form. There are Bokoblins pretty much everywhere, chilling in their campsites around trees and caves. And don’t even get me started on the cute-but-deadly Chuchus or those treacherous Lynel.
The flora and fauna of this modern Hyrule are vast and worth exploring, but with trepidation, and always with the right equipment and a few dishes in Link’s tummy to endure in battle. But as I quickly learned during my time with the game, you can never be too prepared for an encounter with a Wizzrobe.
These creatures, present in The Legend of Zelda series since literally the early days, have been iterated in all forms and shapes. Hell, there even was a time where they could be considered cute enemies to confront. But in heart, they’ve always been undead wizards that are considered ruthless foes for Link. They specialize in one type of magic and have the ability to become invisible and teleport around.
In Breath of the Wild, they’re scarier than ever, their presence only strengthens by a more life-like and sinister design, resembling a dark imp with a long robe that showcases their element magic of choice. But it’s in the way they interact with both themselves in solitude and Link’s presence that really got me.
My first steps in Hyrule were totally fresh for me since it’s the first time I’ve ever sat down to play a Zelda game. I know, you don’t need to say it, but this isn’t about me. Thing is, all enemies were new, and everything proved to be a surprise. Encountering a Wizzrobe, though, is something else entirely.
The first time I saw one, the long-gone wizard was dancing in the air. I thought it was funny, so I got closer, thinking it was an NPC waiting for me to interact with them. But then I saw that smile, heard the eerie sounds each one of its steps did and noticed how it stopped for a second when I was close enough. The Wizzrobe smiled at me once more, waved its hand saluting me kindly, and then disappeared.
Without having a moment to react, it was already behind Link, striking him with a lightning bolt. I was an intense moment, and it took me a few seconds to recover from that sudden encounter. I had never seen anything like it, an enemy like this just openly mocking you, or maybe one so trapped in its own Malevich tendencies that were actually happy to see me, only for the sake of fighting against me.
The worst part is that is easy enough to kill them if you play in a clever way. It only takes you to use the exact opposite magical element on them, and that’s it. They vanish from existence. But if you don’t happen to have the right equipment, or get ambushed by several different Wizzrobes at the same time, you’re in for a rough time.
I’ll never forget that first encounter, but there’s a similar personal reaction every time I see one out in the open. It makes me stop and rethink my next movements, maybe leading to sneaking around a hill or just finding a different path altogether. There are many dangers in Breath of the Wild, but Wizzrobes are the only creatures out there that manage to scare me every single time, putting me on alert as if I was playing a horror game.
They don’t get close to any of the biggest menaces of Hyrule. Once you’re well equipped and prepared for anything, you can take them down easily. But there’s still something weird about them as if they shouldn’t belong in this world at all. They live in their own world, endlessly dancing and singing to themselves until they’re approached by Link.
The Wizzrobe waves and smiles. And in the blink of an eye, they disappear. But the fear doesn’t go anywhere.
Some movies are just so beloved that you can experience them through cultural osmosis without ever sitting down to actually watch them. From loving parodies to meticulous recreations of iconic scenes, memorable filmmaking lives on even after the curtains close on the silver screen. And when it comes to horror, few films can compete with the massive impact that Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining had on popular culture as a whole.
Whether or not you think the flick is a good adaptation of Stephen King’s seminal novel, 1980’s The Shining slowly but surely grew into one of the most influential genre movies ever made, inspiring everything from surprisingly heartfelt sequels to classic episodes of The Simpsons. However, not all The Shining references are created equal, and today I’d like to shine a light on six unexpected homages to Kubrick’s iconic film.
In this list, we’ll be focusing on references and Easter eggs that either came out of the blue or came from creators that you wouldn’t expect to be fans of this classic ghost story. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own favorite references to the Torrance family and the Overlook Hotel if you think we missed a particularly memorable one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
5. A Nightmare on FaceTime – South Park (2012)
Regardless of the brand’s iffy reputation among former employees, the death of Blockbuster Video was a serious blow to fans of physical media. Of course, some folks were more affected by this than others, and South Park’s Randy Marsh definitely took things a little too far in the twelfth episode of the show’s sixteenth season.
Titled A Nightmare on FaceTime, the main plot of this 2012 story is a surprisingly faithful recreation of The Shining where Randy purchases an empty Blockbuster store and begins to go mad once he realizes that his investment may not have been a very good idea due to the rise of streaming and the now-defunct RedBox storefronts.
4. The Overlook Hotel Level – Ready Player One (2018)
I was never really a fan of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, so I viewed Stephen Spielberg’s divisive adaptation of the novel as an improvement over the source material despite having its own narrative issues. In fact, I actually prefer how Spielberg changed the story by removing several references to his own work and replacing a lengthy Blade Runner detour with an over-the-top homage to The Shining.
A CGI-heavy recreation of the film’s most iconic moments that feels like a big-budget ghost train ride set within the Overlook Hotel, this intense sequence is more of a recreation of the freaky aesthetics of The Shining rather than its mind-bending narrative. However, it’s still fun to see Spielberg make a heartfelt tribute to a filmmaker that was once his close personal friend.
3. IKEA Singapore Halloween Ad (2014)
It makes sense that commercials don’t typically borrow from the horror genre, as it might be a bad idea to scare away potential customers, but some references are just too much fun to pass up.
That’s probably why the publicists behind this Ikea ad from Singapore were allowed to turn their commercial into a genuinely unsettling recreation of Danny’s tricycle scene from The Shining. After all, nobody cares if your store is haunted so long as it offers late-night shopping hours and a large selection of merchandise that you can become lost in forever and ever…
2. The End of ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’ – Community (2014)
Community is no stranger to recreating iconic movie moments within the show, and the series had previously tackled horror tropes in episodes like the fan-favorite Epidemiology. However, the most laugh-out-loud moment on this particular list comes from a brief gag towards the end of the season five episode ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’.
The majority of this episode has nothing to do with scary movies, but there’s a brief subplot involving supporting character Chang and a possible encounter with ghosts that leads him to question his own existence. This subplot culminates in the episode’s hilarious ending where the camera zooms in on a black-and-white photograph of Chang in period clothing at some kind of celebration, just like Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining.
However, the picture’s subtitle eventually reveals that it’s merely a conveniently placed keepsake from the ‘Old Timey Photo Club’.
1. The Overlook Hedge Maze Sequence – Zootopia 2 (2025)
Disney movies are pretty far removed from both the gruesome horror of Stephen King and the heady filmmaking of Stanley Kubrick, so I don’t think anyone was expecting the climax of last year’s Zootopia sequel to take place in an animated version of the snowy hedge maze from The Shining.
In this unexpectedly intense sequence, friend-turned-villain Pawbert Lynxley (an unhinged lynx cat played by Andy Samberg) chases our protagonists through a creepy labyrinth in a loving recreation of Jack Nicholson’s icy demise outside the Overlook Hotel. The actual ending here might be a little more child-friendly than what’s being referenced, but it’s amazing that the filmmakers were able to push the horror elements as far as they did – especially since the scene doesn’t really have anything to do with the rest of the movie.
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