Editorials
5 Forgotten Horror Video Games That Should Be Revived
Video games, like movies, tend to fall back on its major successes, cranking out sequel after sequel. Sometimes the truly mega popular games even get film adaptations, which is why games franchises like Resident Evil and Silent Hill have become household names. Even smaller scale releases on current gen consoles have found an audience thanks to word of mouth, spawning sequels, prequels, and spinoffs of their own; titles like Until Dawn and Outlast. But what about quiet releases from before the advent of social media, or even the Internet as we know it today? Games that were innovative, sometimes chilling, and always fun, but slipped under the radar to be forever stuck on older platforms for various reasons. These five games were great and deserve to be resurrected from the land of forgotten video games:
Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem
Originally planned for Nintendo 64 release, it became a launch title for the Nintendo GameCube in 2002. A psychological horror action game with gameplay mechanics like Resident Evil, Eternal Darkness spans four different locations over thousands of years. Interconnected stories that interlace together the occult, religion, and myths across time and space that feels very Edgar Allan Poe. Most intriguingly, though, is the game’s employment of a sanity meter, a bar which decreases when the player encounters evil. As the bar gets low, the player’s game is affected by the character’s losing grip on reality. Things like weird camera angles, bleeding walls, unsettling noises, and even room disorientation. What really made Eternal Darkness unnerving is when the sanity effects caused the game to break the fourth wall, attempting to play tricks on your mind by creating simulated errors on screen and in sound that are meant to fool the player into thinking their TV is malfunctioning outside of the context of the game.
The Thing
This 2002 third-person survival horror game that was set as a sequel to John Carpenter’s The Thing was a commercial success. Released on PC, Xbox, and Playstation 2, the story followed Captain Blake, a member of the Special Forces team sent to the ill-fated Antarctic outpost to find out what happened to the research team. Endorsed by Carpenter, who even cameoed as a voice/character, the game had a unique fear/trust system that determined how characters reacted to Blake. If they didn’t trust him at all, they would attack. Complete faith meant they would follow orders, even attacking others on Blake’s behalf. It was a clever system that played heavily on the paranoia that made the movie such a classic. And that ending was a huge moment for fans of the film. So, with great reviews and a massive success, why did this game eventually fade into obscurity? The developer behind the game, Computer Artworks, was forced to shut down and entered into receivership shortly after pre-production on a sequel to The Thing.
Zombies Ate My Neighbors
Released on 1993 on Super NES and Sega Genesis, this 50-level action-shooter paid homage to everything from classic Universal Monsters, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Tremors, and so much more. That it had a catchy earworm score meant once you started playing, it was hard to get this game out of your head. It’s a simple set up, slaying monsters, aliens, and zombies over various levels of pyramids, castles, malls, neighborhoods, and more as you save unwitting neighbors from being devoured. Even the marketing slayed; the simple yet clever zombie POV commercials ensured this was a must purchase game for me growing up. While beloved, Zombies Ate My Neighbors wasn’t as big of a hit as it should have been. A sequel was released the following year, Ghoul Patrol, but it was more of a re-worked title to capitalize on Zombies Ate My Neighbors. It’s long past time we get a modern sequel.
Condemned: Criminal Origins
While most horror games play off fears of grotesque creatures or the supernatural, this 2005 Xbox release is a grisly reality based first-person survival horror game, following a crime scene investigator on the trail of a serial killer. The player navigates through condemned buildings in a fictional town of Metro, searching for Serial Killer X, the one who framed him for murder. While gathering clues and pieces to the story, you encounter endless psychotics and violent denizens of Metro, and it’s far scarier than it sounds. Cracked out maniacs charging at you is jolting as it is, but the game introduces a whole variety of crazies you never thought possible, like super creepy Mannequins. The lifelike brutality did pave the way for a direct sequel in 2008, Condemned 2: Bloodshot, and a potential film adaptation, but life beyond that for the series has since flatlined.
Phantasmagoria
A point-and-click FMV horror game released for Windows and MS-DOS in 1995, Phantasmagoria followed a married couple who buy a mansion in the middle of nowhere, and soon discover it was once owned by an old magician. As the wife, Adrienne explores the old house, she begins to get flashbacks of the magician and his wives. The further the game gets, the more graphic, violent, and gory those deaths get to the point where it feels almost like watching a snuff film unfold. That it features real actors, well, it feels like something taboo. The rape scene proved to be a controversial point of contention. A horror game aimed toward adults, Phantasmagoria was a massive success at the time of release. Written and designed by Roberta Williams over a very long, labor intensive process, there’s not really been anything else quite like it since. Not even the sequel, written and designed by Lorelei Shannon, which was so tonally different and disconnected from its predecessor. Technology has come a long way since, but with content so dark I’d be curious if developers could get away with creating something like Phantasmagoria today. I’d like to see them try.
“Elevated Horror.” Of all the combinations in the English language, that one is the most insufferable.
It represents almost a decade of scary movies that, for the most part, took themselves too seriously. Horror responds to the moment, so its “why so serious” lean makes sense as we scuttle through the “worst of times” equation of Charles Dickens’ famous opening lines. But there’s still an opening and a need for a lighter approach; one that not only has fun with its audience but takes the piss out of a genre that is seemingly letting its newfound “respectability” go to its head.
Wes Craven believed devotees see horror films to let out their fears one primal scream at a time. At their core, these movies are roller coasters; they bring us as close to the edge as possible before pulling us back into a safety net of reality. The need for a bigger and badder coaster increases during times when the size of that net decreases.
There’s a thrill that comes from imagining being in a foot race with a madman, or outthinking the hordes of zombies on the other side of the door, plus the scavenger humans coming behind them. There’s even a rush that comes from imagining how one might deal with possession to see good triumph over evil in the end. It’s all about building tension and releasing it through catharsis. That cathartic release usually sounds like screams followed by laughter, which signals relief. Genre heavy hitters over the past 10 years offered very little of that respite when the credits rolled. Films like Hereditary, The Witch, Talk to Me, and even Smile (pick one) keep that tension going after the screen fades to black.
Hereditary
As the genre became obsessed with creating trauma metaphors, that lack of release made sense. Anyone with even a small sample size of traumatic experiences knows those emotions don’t magically resolve themselves in an allotted run time. But how much trauma can one take? Especially when there’s a mess going on outside that few of us can escape from. Movies offer that off-ramp, no matter how short.
Everything can’t be, nor should it be, “elevated.” Audiences need thoughtful explorations of life’s ills via monsters as much as they need murdering masked maniacs with kitchen knives. And no, it doesn’t have to go any deeper than that. Sometimes, a knife is just a knife, and it’s still worth our time and respect. As weird as it sounds, that simplicity is comforting not in spite of the trauma but because of it.
The worst of times should manifest more than just anguish. People need to laugh just as much as they need to think seriously about this moment in time. Even the Scream franchise forgot the meta rock upon which it built its church when the latest foray sacrificed the subtle comedy for serious drama. Scary Movie returned at the perfect moment. It provides the necessary laughs, but it’s not a cure-all.
This isn’t a call for Scary Movie imitators but a return to a mainstream landscape where Killer Klowns from Outer Space sat with The Serpent and the Rainbow, nestled neatly with the latest Nightmare on Elm Street, which took nothing away from The Vanishing.
They Live
Even They Live, John Carpenter’s horror sci-fi satire sandwich, kept its tongue firmly in cheek while discussing serious ideas still relevant in 2026. Yes, a film about aliens taking over the world through subliminal messaging only visible through coded sunglasses is, in fact, a tad silly. Carpenter understood that mainstream horror can’t become so self-important that it never looks itself in the mirror and laughs at that inherent silliness.
The thing is, horror historically excels at poking fun at itself. Most of the Scream franchise, The Cabin in the Woods, or The Blackening show adoration without kowtowing. They recognize tropes and trappings but invert them for an audience already in on the joke, but one that also finds solace in said conventions. This keeps the genre on its toes; once something gets parodied, it’s usually time to evolve. That breeds new ideas and fresh filmmakers, which not only strengthen the genre’s collective voice but also amplify it.
Get Out, as “elevated” as some critics want us to believe it is, is a cathartic, populist scary movie that spoke to an untapped audience rather than speaking down to them. Backrooms is one of the biggest horror hits in years, partially because it’s fine-tuned for modern-day teenagers instead of their parents. Movies like these tell everyone the genre is open for business; open for innovation and, yeah, open for new ways in which people can lovingly poke fun at with a wink and a nudge.
Horror needs dread as much as it needs laughter.
Catharsis is just as important as tension, and pulpy populism has the same merit as more high-brow material. Respectability shouldn’t come at the expense of an experience akin to walking through a haunted house. At a time when joy seems in short supply, horror should look to its past to map out its future, and make things just a tad brighter for audiences.
Backrooms
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