Editorials
Ghostface in the Machine: A Brief History of ‘Scream’ Video Games
1996 was a pretty important year for horror. Not only did Resident Evil burst onto the scene to thrust horror games into the limelight, but Wes Craven’s meta-slasher Scream exploded onto cinema screens and changed the face of horror. I’m sure that, like me, there were a few horror fans whose real horror awakening came during those last few years of the previous century when both franchises dominated their respective mediums.
Despite these two particular big bangs being in close proximity, there’s been far more crossover for Resident Evil into film than there has been for Scream into video games, but that hasn’t stopped ol’ Ghostface from calling up publishers to appear in a game or two over the past 26 years.
Still to this day, however, there are remarkably no official Scream video games available to legally purchase. In fact, there wasn’t a Scream video game or Ghostface appearance at all in any video game until 2011. This, the only official game to be made about the franchise, was a tie-in mobile game for the release of Scream 4, and used the gameplay mechanics of popular phone hit Fruit Ninja. This isometric romp saw you pick up the Ghostface mantle to slay unsuspecting young things against the clock with a swipe of the screen representing a knife slash.
Intentional or not, it looks exactly like the kind of cheesy tie-in you’d expect from the film’s own in-universe Stab franchise. The game, unfortunately, vanished from mobile stores after a while, consigning this particular bit of Scream media to the forgotten files.
Scream resurfaced in the video game world in 2017 when news of a tie-in demo project by HorrorGameDev was revealed to be in the works for the 20th anniversary of Scream 3, leading to a full game release in time for the 25th anniversary of the Scream franchise. It was going to blend the world of the television series with that of the films, and involved a storyline where series heroine Sidney Prescott was killed off. For whatever reason, HorrorGameDev stepped away from the project, and it didn’t end up happening.
Still, it did birth a small game inspired by that premise that was released on itch.io by Stefano Cagnani in 2021, so there was at least some kind of (unofficial) Scream video game for the 25th anniversary.
After that, Ghostface did make a couple of significant appearances in other video games. In 2019 the killer joined the ranks of asymmetrical multiplayer horror game Dead By Daylight, which in suitably meta fashion, meant Ghostface could potentially murder Halloween’s Laurie Strode. Weirdly, due to licensing red tape, it’s not canonically the Ghostface of Scream, rather a copycat living in Florida.
Finally, for Halloween of 2021, we did get an official Ghostface appearance in a video game, voiced by Roger Jackson himself. That game? Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War (and Warzone). Yes, Ghostface has now modernized its schtick by harassing victims online over Xbox Live.
A quarter of a century on, and horror is in a healthy place where games can be made of its movie icons with relative freedom. There’s an Evil Dead game on the horizon that includes 30 plus years of characters in its roster. Gun Media has brought Jason Voorhees to life (only to be massacred by the greatest killer of all; legal battles) on PC and consoles, and will soon do the same for Leatherface in the upcoming Texas Chain Saw game, so perhaps we may see the murder-weary residents of Woodsboro represented in digital form yet. Surely there’s no better time for a Scream video game
The potential templates for such a game are already there in the likes of Until Dawn, Dead by Daylight and Among Us, so what are we waiting for? A phone call?
There’s a lot of reading left to do in 2026, between the glut of summer releases and the approach of fall, when horror titles get a special push from publishers, but this has already been an incredible year for horror literature.
Some of the biggest names in the genre have turned in outstanding work, rising stars have made their mark, and we’re only halfway through the year.
To celebrate the midway point of 2026, with plenty of horror books still to come, we’re taking a look back at the best horror books we’ve read this year so far, listed alphabetically by author.
If you missed any of these books earlier in the year, consider this your reminder to catch up.
Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker
A student running from a crime he may or may not have committed escapes to his father’s country home in Japan, only to find himself haunted by strange apparitions, while in the past, a young samurai tries to find salvation for her family and finds a door to the future instead. Kylie Lee Baker’s Japanese Gothic begins with this dialogue between past and present, and then blossoms into so much more, a cross-time ghost story about old wounds and what it really takes to finally heal them. I got so happily lost in this one that I would have read at least 200 more pages.
Persona by Aoife Josie Clements
In this tale of shut-ins, sex workers, artists, and the horrors they both summon and recoil from, Aoife Josie Clements weaves something that feels less like a story to be experienced and more like a psychic wound to be endured, and I mean that in the most complimentary way possible. Evocative in its prose and nightmarish in its imagery, Persona is a story of the masks we wear, and the understanding that not all of our masks are particularly pretty or even easy to breathe through. It’s a dense, literary, unnervingly vicious book, and while it’s already attracted an audience, it deserves a much bigger one.
Dead First by Johnny Compton
Johnny Compton’s latest novel opens with a throwing down of the gauntlet, a sequence that made me instantly think “How on Earth is he going to top this?” It’s a story that begins with a billionaire hiring a private investigator to determine why, despite trying in many brutal ways, he cannot die. That premise, and the scene which sets it all off, is so alluring and delightfully gruesome that you almost can’t believe it’s the way a book begins, and then Compton just keeps going, delivering a supernatural mystery that I could not put down.
Make Me Better by Sarah Gailey
A woman grieving for the life she wanted visits a mysterious island renowned for the healing salt its residents harvest and sell, seeking renewal and relief. What she finds instead is a strange cult with a twisted history with surprising resonance in her own life, and a people who are more than willing to grant the relief she wants, for a price. Laced with beautiful prose and moments of profound realization alongside folk and even cosmic horror, this is vintage Sarah Gailey.
Partially Devoured by Daniel Kraus
If you love horror film history and analysis, Partially Devoured is an essential. Written by Pulitzer Prize-winner Daniel Kraus, the book is a deep dive into his favorite movie of all time, George A. Romero‘s Night of the Living Dead, complete with exhaustive research into the making of the film and passages of deeply moving memoir woven in. If you’ve ever wanted to know what the eerie music that opens the film is called while also bursting into tears at how horror movies can save your life, this is a must-read.
Wretch by Eric LaRocca
Our reigning King of Extreme Horror, Eric LaRocca weaves books of uncommon beauty out of the most nightmarish parts of humanity, and Wretch is no exception. The story of a grieving man who longs for relief and searches for it amid a strange support group that might be a cult, Wretch is a brutal journey into the darkest part of us all, and explores what salvation we might find when we get to the rotten core of the world and peel back its layers. LaRocca’s on a tear of great work right now that few other genre writers can match.
Headlights by CJ Leede
A mystery, a serial killer horror show, a tribute to Stephen King‘s The Shining. All of these things describe CJ Leede’s Headlights, and yet they don’t begin to cover the full breadth of horror awaiting you in this novel. The story of a former FBI agent drawn back into the cold case that haunts him most, it’s a shocker brimming over with vivid moments that’ll live behind your eyes. CJ Leede has now published three novels, and they’re all bangers, so it’s time to get on board if you haven’t already.
It Came From Neverland by Cynthia Pelayo
Cynthia Pelayo has been one of our finest genre writers for years now, but It Came From Neverland is my favorite thing she’s written, and it’s not even close. A dark take on Peter Pan from the perspective of an adult Wendy Darling living in World War I-era London, Pelayo’s book works as both a satisfying horror narrative and a rich exploration of what it really means to never grow up. The horror never loses its potency, but it’s the search for the meaning behind the Peter Pan phenomenon in our own lives, and what we can do about it, that sticks with me most.
Filth Eaters by Ito Romo
Ito Romo’s Filth Eaters is a slim volume, one you can read in just a couple of hours if you’ve got the inclination, but it has the feel of a generation-spanning epic. The story of a breed of vampires born in Central America, the European vampires who encounter them, and the offspring they eventually produced, it spans centuries and packs loads of juicy lore into its pages while never losing its grip on character and narrative drive. I would read hundreds more pages of this world, but I’ll settle for this uncommonly grand-scale novella for now.
Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep by Paul Tremblay
A former pro gamer gets a job at a tech company to pilot a brain-dead human body across the country, and so Paul Tremblay’s sci-fi-horror juggernaut begins. Indebted to Philip K. Dick, the primal snarl of Harlan Ellison, and the quirky comedy of The Big Lebowski, and yet wholly original, this is a towering and ambitious novel by one of horror’s most respected voices. What starts as a high-concept tech thriller soon becomes a startling meditation on the value of stories, who gets to tell them, and what happens when we cede too much control to machines we don’t understand. It’s a stunner.
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