Editorials
Celebrating Six of the Scariest Videogame Stalkers!
The fight or flight response is one of the most basic human instincts, but videogames tend to focus on the former when it comes to crafting interactive challenges. The horror genre is one of the only exceptions, with many scary games allowing players to simulate how they might react when faced with insurmountable terror.
From Pac-Man to Resident Evil, the thrill of being chased through a virtual world can make for some great game design, and the videogame industry has plenty of enemies to choose from. That’s why we’ve come up with this list celebrating six of the scariest videogame stalkers, as these adrenaline-filled experiences are only as good as their relentless antagonists.
While this list is based on personal opinion, we’ll be following a couple of rules. Entries are limited to one character per franchise, and we’ll be choosing enemies according to their scare factor, regardless of the overall quality of the game that they appear in.
As usual, don’t forget to comment below with your own favorites if you think we missed an important one.
Now, onto the list!
6. Dr. Trager – “Outlast” (2015)
Red Barrels’ Outlast has no shortage of enemies that pursue players around the Mount Massive Asylum grounds, but I’d argue that Dr. Richard Trager takes the cake as the most memorable of these terrifying lunatics. While he was once part of the Asylum staff, forced commitment has left him a psychotic shell of his former self, with the Walrider incident becoming an opportunity for the doctor to experiment on his fellow inmates.
While the disfigured doctor is intimidating enough as he threatens players with an oversized pair of surgical scissors (an obvious homage to Clock Tower’s Scissorman), it’s Trager’s eerily casual demeanor that makes him horrifying. He’s also responsible for brutally chopping off a couple of the main character’s fingers, making this one appointment that players won’t soon forget.
5. Sledgehammer – “Clock Tower 3” (2003)
Featuring time travel, possessed serial killers and Sailor-Moon-style magical girl transformations, I’ll be the first to admit that Clock Tower 3 is a batshit crazy game. However, it’s precisely this manic creativity that made me fall in love with this survival horror classic and its menagerie of crazed stalkers.
While the game features several memorable pursuers, the first one stands out to me as the most intimidating. Known as Sledgehammer, this English brute introduces himself by smashing a poor little girl’s head in, immediately establishing the game’s penchant for horrific violence. Clock Tower 3 may have its highs and lows, but I’ll never forget the first time I hid under a bed and prayed that Sledgehammer would walk on by as he creepily muttered “Alyssa…”
4. Walter Sullivan – “Silent Hill 4: The Room” (2004)
From Pyramid Head to Valtiel, The Silent Hill games boast a plethora of monstrous stalkers, but I’d argue that the scariest of the bunch happens to be a plain old human being. Walter Sullivan may not initially look like much, but the entirety of Silent Hill 4 is built around exploring this serial killer’s damaged psyche through his version of the Otherworld.
In fact, one might consider Walter the real main character of The Room instead of the player-controlled Henry, as most of the game involves uncovering the murderer’s horrific backstory and dealing with his literal inner demons. It’s this psychological depth that earns him a place on this list as a terrifying stalker.
3. The Dahaka – “Prince of Persia: Warrior Within” (2004)
This 2004 sequel to The Sands of Time may not be a horror game, but you’ll be hard-pressed to find someone who played this underrated classic and wasn’t completely horrified by the time-warping Dahaka. A relentless guardian of time, this horned monster is one of the game’s highlights as he repeatedly chases players throughout the Island of Time, with an instrumental rendition of Godsmack’s I Stand Alone serving as his theme music.
As if that wasn’t creepy enough, the Dahaka also speaks in what initially sounds like a demonic language, though using the game’s time-shifting abilities reveals that the creature is actually threatening players in reverse. Now that’s spooky.
2. Slenderman – “Slender: The Eight Pages” (2012)
Slenderman began life as a viral meme, so it stands to reason that he would also become popular as a videogame character. While the faceless creature appeared in several creepypastas and ARGs before making the leap to videogames, it was 2012’s The Eight Pages that skyrocketed Victor Surge’s creation to worldwide notoriety with its simple hide and seek mechanics and spooky VHS aesthetics.
While Slenderman’s design is simple enough, it’s the game’s clever AI that earns his spot on this list, with The Eight Pages programming its antagonist to become increasingly more aggressive the closer you get to gathering all of the pages. This rising tension is what made the game such a hit back in the day while also making it worth revisiting 10 years down the line.
1. Nemesis – “Resident Evil 3: Nemesis” (1999)
You simply can’t discuss videogame stalkers without bringing up Nemesis, so it should come as no surprise that he’s number one on this list. Genetically engineered to be the ultimate killing machine, the antagonist of Resident Evil 3 has become a survival horror icon as he prowls Raccoon City in search of members of STARS.
Not only does this relentless pursuer benefit from a badass design, but he’s also mechanically significant, with his unpredictable nature keeping players on their toes throughout the entire game. If there’s one character on this list that’s likely to show up again in your gaming-related nightmares, I’d wager that it’s Nemesis.
Having grown up in a religious family, Christian movie night was something that happened a lot more often than I care to admit. However, back when I was a teenager, my parents showed up one night with an unusually cool-looking DVD of a movie that had been recommended to them by a church leader. Curious to see what new kind of evangelical propaganda my parents had rented this time, I proceeded to watch the film with them expecting a heavy-handed snoozefest.
To my surprise, I was a few minutes in when Denzel Washington proceeded to dismember a band of cannibal raiders when I realized that this was in fact a real movie. My mom was horrified by the flick’s extreme violence and dark subject matter, but I instantly became a fan of the Hughes Brothers’ faith-based 2010 thriller, The Book of Eli. And with the film’s atomic apocalypse having apparently taken place in 2024, I think this is the perfect time to dive into why this grim parable might also be entertaining for horror fans.
Originally penned by gaming journalist and The Walking Dead: The Game co-writer Gary Whitta, the spec script for The Book of Eli was already making waves back in 2007 when it appeared on the coveted Blacklist. It wasn’t long before Columbia and Warner Bros. snatched up the rights to the project, hiring From Hell directors Albert and Allen Hughes while also garnering attention from industry heavyweights like Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman.
After a series of revisions by Anthony Peckham meant to make the story more consumer-friendly, the picture was finally released in January of 2010, with the finished film following Denzel as a mysterious wanderer making his way across a post-apocalyptic America while protecting a sacred book. Along the way, he encounters a run-down settlement controlled by Bill Carnegie (Gary Oldman), a man desperate to get his hands on Eli’s book so he can motivate his underlings to expand his empire. Unwilling to let this power fall into the wrong hands, Eli embarks on a dangerous journey that will test the limits of his faith.
SO WHY IS IT WORTH WATCHING?
Judging by the film’s box-office success, mainstream audiences appear to have enjoyed the Hughes’ bleak vision of a future where everything went wrong, but critics were left divided by the flick’s trope-heavy narrative and unapologetic religious elements. And while I’ll be the first to admit that The Book of Eli isn’t particularly subtle or original, I appreciate the film’s earnest execution of familiar ideas.
For starters, I’d like to address the religious elephant in the room, as I understand the hesitation that some folks (myself included) might have about watching something that sounds like Christian propaganda. Faith does indeed play a huge part in the narrative here, but I’d argue that the film is more about the power of stories than a specific religion. The entire point of Oldman’s character is that he needs a unifying narrative that he can take advantage of in order to manipulate others, while Eli ultimately chooses to deliver his gift to a community of scholars. In fact, the movie even makes a point of placing the Bible in between equally culturally important books like the Torah and Quran, which I think is pretty poignant for a flick inspired by exploitation cinema.
Sure, the film has its fair share of logical inconsistencies (ranging from the extent of Eli’s Daredevil superpowers to his impossibly small Braille Bible), but I think the film more than makes up for these nitpicks with a genuine passion for classic post-apocalyptic cinema. Several critics accused the film of being a knockoff of superior productions, but I’d argue that both Whitta and the Hughes knowingly crafted a loving pastiche of genre influences like Mad Max and A Boy and His Dog.
Lastly, it’s no surprise that the cast here absolutely kicks ass. Denzel plays the title role of a stoic badass perfectly (going so far as to train with Bruce Lee’s protégée in order to perform his own stunts) while Oldman effortlessly assumes a surprisingly subdued yet incredibly intimidating persona. Even Mila Kunis is remarkably charming here, though I wish the script had taken the time to develop these secondary characters a little further. And hey, did I mention that Tom Waits is in this?
AND WHAT MAKES IT HORROR ADJACENT?
Denzel’s very first interaction with another human being in this movie results in a gory fight scene culminating in a face-off against a masked brute wielding a chainsaw (which he presumably uses to butcher travelers before eating them), so I think it’s safe to say that this dog-eat-dog vision of America will likely appeal to horror fans.
From diseased cannibals to hyper-violent motorcycle gangs roaming the wasteland, there’s plenty of disturbing R-rated material here – which is even more impressive when you remember that this story revolves around the bible. And while there are a few too many references to sexual assault for my taste, even if it does make sense in-universe, the flick does a great job of immersing you in this post-nuclear nightmare.
The excessively depressing color palette and obvious green screen effects may take some viewers out of the experience, but the beat-up and lived-in sets and costume design do their best to bring this dead world to life – which might just be the scariest part of the experience.
Ultimately, I believe your enjoyment of The Book of Eli will largely depend on how willing you are to overlook some ham-fisted biblical references in order to enjoy some brutal post-apocalyptic shenanigans. And while I can’t really blame folks who’d rather not deal with that, I think it would be a shame to miss out on a genuinely engaging thrill-ride because of one minor detail.
With that in mind, I’m incredibly curious to see what Whitta and the Hughes Brothers have planned for the upcoming prequel series starring John Boyega…
There’s no understating the importance of a balanced media diet, and since bloody and disgusting entertainment isn’t exclusive to the horror genre, we’ve come up with Horror Adjacent – a recurring column where we recommend non-horror movies that horror fans might enjoy.
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