Editorials
The Horror of Interplay’s Brutal Post-Nuclear RPG Classic ‘Fallout’
It’s obvious to say that the Fallout series has come a long way since it first hit PCs back in 1997. The series’ appeal has grown considerably since that time, as has the RPG genre itself. Still, even with the modern entries and their appeal, there will always be something special about the original Fallout games by Interplay and their internal development division, Black Isle Studios. While not outright horror, there was enough grittiness in the original Fallout, not to mention the over-the-top violence, dark humour and horror elements, that appealed to those looking for something bleaker with their roleplaying games. It’s that bleakness that still keeps players coming back all these years later.
The events preceding Fallout had a global nuclear war devastating the world and destroying modern civilization in October 2077. Those who survived the war took shelter in underground Vaults. Nearly a century later, you are the Vault Dweller, a human born and raised in Vault 13, which is located in Southern California. Vault 13 has a crisis on its hands, as the controller chip for their water purification system has malfunctioned, resulting in the vault no longer being able to recycle its water. You have been elected by the Vault Overseer to travel to one of the other vaults to find a replacement. You only have 150 days in order to do so, before Vault 13’s water reserves run dry. Along the way, you’ll encounter other vaults and settlements, including the various factions found in Southern California such as the Brotherhood of Steel, the Children of the Cathedral, and the Super Mutants, led by The Master.
Even before getting into the gameplay, the thing that immediately hits many players upon loading Fallout is its presentation and atmosphere. It’d be a crime if you didn’t mention Ron Perlman’s narration during the opening cinematic with his iconic line about war never changing. The delivery of his exposition is enough to paint a harsh and unforgiving world before even starting the game. Delving into the game’s environments, the retro-futuristic art style of the 1950s merged with the grimy, broken feel of a world devastated by nuclear war to create a world that is fascinating as it is hostile. The game also drew upon films such as Mad Max 2 to add to its post-nuclear look and feel with the burned-out cars, leather jackets with and spiked shoulder pad, corrugated metal shacks for dwellings and so on.
Accentuating that hostile feeling is the brutal over-the-top violence in Fallout, which definitely fit the horror quotient for many. If juxtaposing The Ink Spots’ rendition of “Maybe” with the violent news footage of US forces executing a Canadian citizen during the opening cinematic wasn’t jarring enough, it was the violence in the gameplay. During the game itself, you had characters having their upper torso blown to shreds by a well-place shot from an SMG or minigun, exploding like a “blood sausage” (a phrase from the game’s advertisement, and a reference to Wasteland), having their flesh burnt off before their skeleton crumbles into a pile of dust, or being reduced to a pile of goo. Then you had the incredibly gory unique death animations for certain characters. If that wasn’t enough, Fallout allowed players the one taboo in many media, which was the ability to kill children. Of course, if you did it, you were given the Childkiller reputation, which resulted in huge penalties for your character.
Complementing all of this was Fallout‘s equally desolate-sounding score by Mark Morgan. Once again, here’s a soundtrack that perfectly enhances the atmosphere and visuals, creating a great sense of foreboding, while also upping the tension whenever you had a tough task ahead of you. It certainly wouldn’t feel out of place if it were used in a film like The Hills Have Eyes that emphasized the remoteness of its setting, while also hinting at the unknown danger that lay ahead.
Of course, none of this mattered if the story and gameplay weren’t up to snuff. And yes, it’s as potentially unforgiving and tense as the world of Fallout itself, with those horror overtones coming out on more than a few occasions. The obvious one starts with the Ghouls, the humans mutated by radiation who reside in Necropolis, also known as the City of the Dead. Given the viewpoint from which the game is played, you don’t actually get to see a Ghoul “up close” until you converse with Set, the leader of Necropolis. With the loss of skin, exposed muscle, heavy scar tissue and raspy voice, it’s pretty easy to see why they’re referred to as zombies by non-Ghouls (though they aren’t actually dead). The area’s set of related quests take you through Necropolis and into its sewer systems, which thanks again to the foreboding atmosphere and hostility of the locals (and their factions), makes it one of the more horror-filled places in all of Fallout.
And then there’s the Mariposa Military Base, home of the Super Mutants and their leader, The Master. Again, you don’t get an up close look at the Super Mutants until you meet the Lieutenant of the Master’s Army. While not as grotesque as a Ghoul, the appearance of the Lieutenant certainly fits the idea of a monster. None of that comes close to The Master, however. The amalgamation of flesh and technology, The Master’s appearance is appropriately over-the-top, but is still horrific. Matching The Master’s appearance is the way he speaks, with one robotic voice, two male and one female, teetering on the edge of ridiculousness while also being frightening. Equally frightening is the The Master’s ability to penetrate the mental defenses of others, preying on their fears. As a result, players would need to seek out a psychic nullifier if they chose to fight The Master. And should players fight The Master, they’re rewarded with another disturbingly violent and over-the-top death animation should they succeed.
The original Fallout didn’t rely solely on horror to appeal to gamers, but it was a vital component that made its way into several aspects of the game that helped turn it into the success that it still enjoys 25 years later. The later Fallout games, regardless of whether it was the original Interplay games or Bethesda’s current offerings, continued the same idea of courting aspects of horror without fully committing to them. Would a full-on embrace of horror make for a good Fallout game? That’s debatable, but the horror aspects would certainly be missed if they were dropped entirely, as it’s clear how much repeated trips to the wasteland benefit from slipping on occasion into the genre.
We’re now officially in the back half of 2026 now that July is here, but what a year it’s been for horror so far. The sequels and reboots are still holding strong at the box office with films like Scream 7 and Scary Movie, but it’s also been a year where new voices are shattering records in unexpected ways.
Markiplier eschewed conventional production and distribution channels with his feature adaptation of Iron Lung, for example. We’re also still in the midst of Backrooms and Obsession-mania, with the former back in theaters with bonus footage and the latter extending its box office reign. Liminal horror has exploded, and low-budget indie horror is seeing just as much, and sometimes even more, success as big studio-backed fare.
All of which to say that 2026 has been a hell of a year so far for the genre, and it’s only getting warmed up. Still on the way are Evil Dead Burn, Insidious: Out of the Further, Resident Evil, Clayface, Whalefall, and Werwulf, just to name a few.
Also catch up with the Best Horror Books and Best Horror Games of the year so far.
Here are the ten best horror movies of the year (so far).
10) Chime
Horror master Kiyoshi Kurosawa is back with one of his most haunting yet, though one that’d likely be higher on this list if it were more accessible. The 45-minute feature was initially produced and distributed as an NFT before receiving a theatrical run earlier this year, with no plans to distribute digitally or on home media. It spins a somewhat cryptic tale, introducing a culinary teacher, Takuji Matsuoka (Mutsuo Yoshioka, Never After Dark), whose classroom becomes disrupted by a strange sound that leads to violence. It’s a quiet but haunting unraveling, one that leaves no aspect of Matsuoka’s life untouched, in true Kiyoshi Kurosawa style. That it defies any easy explanation also ensures Chime embeds itself under your skin.
9) Send Help
Sam Raimi’s splatstick return to form is a delightfully deranged two-hander that doubles as infectious catharsis for anyone who’s ever had a bad boss. Rachel McAdams (Doctor Strange) and Dylan O’Brien (The Maze Runner) face off when their characters are shipwrecked on an island, prompting a bid for survival in more ways than one. While O’Brien often matches her, It’s McAdams who shines as she deftly handles everything that Raimi, working from a script by Damian Shannon & Mark Swift (Freddy vs. Jason), throws at her. Send Help is full of vibrant personality, packed with all of Raimi’s signatures, making for one of the most entertaining films of the year.
8) Mārama
New Zealand filmmaker Taratoa Stappard’s gothic tale begins in familiar fashion, with Mary Stevens (Ariāna Osborne) arriving in Yorkshire upon invitation to learn more about her parents, only to find the remote manor haunted. Just when Stappard’s period horror story feels doomed to succumb to familiar gothic trappings and jump scares, though, its true horror emerges. The more Mary uncovers about her heritage and her Māori culture, the clearer it becomes that this grim home is built on violence and exploitation. Stappard’s vision comes into its own when it leaves behind its gothic influences and embraces its Māori identity; few scenes are as powerful as when Osborne’s Mary performs a haka in response to her vile oppressors, heralding in a righteous bloodbath.
7) Touch Me
Writer/Director Addison Heimann draws from retro Japanese horror, exploitation cinema, and perhaps even hentai for his campy, psychosexual sophomore feature. A toxic friendship plagued by trauma, codependency, and addiction gets tested to the extreme when Brian (Lou Taylor Pucci), a hip-hop-loving, tracksuit-sporting alien, gets between them. Olivia Taylor Dudley and Jordan Gavaris have an easy rapport and play off each other well as directionless, depressed Millennial besties prone to ignoring their problems until they become insurmountable. But it’s Pucci’s inspired, childlike take on the chicken nugget-loving extraterrestrial with tentacled secrets of his own that steals the show. Heimann has a lot on his mind with his sophomore feature and neatly condenses it all into a quirky, eccentric psychosexual camp odyssey that leans heavily into humor.
6) Backrooms
Director Kane Parsons translates the vast liminal labyrinth of his web series to the big screen in his feature debut, one that instills existential dread with its atmospheric horror and narrative. The ‘ 90s-set horror movie introduces a protagonist with a serious chip on his shoulder over life’s many disappointments, who then discovers his furniture store harbors a hidden door that leads to an endless labyrinth. It’s not just the incredible production design that instills a disorienting sense of doom and terror, but the lead characters’ palpable and profound sense of loneliness and isolation. Parsons exudes impressive confidence and control as he methodically entrusts his quiet worldbuilding and talented leads to carry the dramatic weight. While Backrooms does deflate by the film’s cryptic, cliffhanger-y end, it’s arguably the most effective and scariest yet at capturing the uncanny valley of generative AI.
5) Leviticus
Writer/Director Adrian Chiarella uses an It Follows-like supernatural entity that relentlessly stalks its prey as a launchpad to immerse audiences in the horror of constantly living in fear for simply existing. A conversion therapy ritual among a deeply conservative community plunges a pair of erstwhile lovers into a nightmarish bid for survival when it summons a force that takes the shape of those whom the afflicted desires most. Chiarella refines the horror mechanics and metaphor with much sharper precision, ensuring that the scares and emotional gravity of the young couple’s terrifying predicament reach their intended impact. It’s the central layered performances by Joe Bird (Talk to Me) and Stacy Clausen (Thrash) that clinch emotional investment in their heartbreaking plight, ensuring that the social horror cuts deep.
4) Redux Redux
The McManus Brothers, writer/director duo Matthew and Kevin McManus (The Block Island Sound), dials up the intensity of a classic revenge story by setting it within a multiverse, where Irene Kelly (Michaela McManus) seeks to snuff out every single iteration of her daughter’s murderer, Neville (Jeremy Holm). The more she stalks and slays every world’s Neville, the more she risks losing her humanity entirely. Through a narrative foil in Mia (Stella Marcus), Redux Redux smartly bypasses repetition as it explores the moral complexities and vulnerabilities of Irene’s extremely violent quest. Holm becomes utterly terrifying in the climax, ensuring that no matter whether Irene loses herself to vengeance for good or not, it’s justified if it means ridding the world of this sick maniac.
3) 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
Director Nia DaCosta takes the reins in the second entry in writer Alex Garland and original director Danny Boyle’s trilogy, picking up from the previous conclusion that saw Spike (Alfie Williams) fleeing from the infected straight into the welcoming arms of Sir Jimmy Crystal (Sinners’ Jack O’Connell). From here, DaCosta presents a stark contrast between humanity’s best and worst. The former sees the tender studies of Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) make poignant strides toward humankind’s future, while the latter unleashes more pain and bloodshed courtesy of the Jimmies. The dual paths of light and dark collide in one epic conclusion, an inspired confrontation between good and evil on a stunning set piece of heavy metal insanity. Yet it’s DaCosta’s handling of both extremes that impresses most, teeing up one epic conclusion to this trilogy.
2) Obsession
Sketch comedian turned horror filmmaker Curry Barker (Milk & Serial) wrings blood-curdling terror from a classic Monkey’s Paw wish fulfillment scenario in a way that no one could have ever anticipated. To say that it’s taken the box office by storm would be a massive understatement; Obsession is the top horror movie of the year in terms of gross. It’s not hard to see why, either. While Monkey’s Paw scenarios often yield predictable outcomes, and this outcome is practically telegraphed from the start, Barker manages to surprise with the journey itself. And it’s one insane journey paved with blood-soaked violence and no shortage of nightmare fuel. What truly sets it apart, though, is leads Michael Johnston and Inde Navarrette as the central pair undone by one vicious wish. Expect to see a lot more from breakout Navarette.
1) Hokum
A surly, traumatized writer must break free from his self-imposed shackles of guilt when confronted by a wicked witch haunting a quaint Irish inn in the latest by writer/director Damian McCarthy (Oddity). Adam Scott’s Ohm makes for an atypical but rewarding protagonist, and his complicated emotional journey gives way to a deeply moving story of a man so thoroughly broken by personal trauma that he constantly dwells in darkness. In true McCarthy style, expect the creepy as hell witch to dole out some supernatural retribution for crimes committed, but never in the way you’d expect. The filmmaker has a way of making whimsy pure nightmare fuel; Hokum distorts a kids’ show into eerie, uncanny valley-induced terror in its torment of Ohm. Channeling Stephen King, this creeper plays like a traditional campfire tale in mood and style, infusing genuine scares with a sense of magic and heart.
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