Resident Evil/Nightmare Fuel



"... Are the faint sounds of footsteps those of survivors?"

Don't let the numerous cheesy voice overs and infamously corny lines fool you. With more living dead, scary monsters and Body Horror than you can shake a stick at, the Resident Evil series is a Nightmare Sandwich.

Serieswide scares

 * The spiders... and it gets worse. There's the Black Tiger. Technically, the Black Tiger is a huge tarantula in the first game, as are the other giant spiders. The remake bases its design on the Australian funnelweb, about a hundred times more deadly. Course, if you're an arachnophobe, this doesn't help at all.
 * The atmosphere of the games. Just about every game, but particularly those with the Sprite Polygon Mix, will have several rooms that have no enemies whatsoever in them, and yet will make your skin crawl, via a combination of lighting, camera angles, environment details and the series's love of Hell Is That Noise with their soundtracks. Just which empty room is worst varies from player to player, but every game has at least one of them...
 * The T-Virus infected animals are even worse then most of the zombies.
 * Owing to the fact that the backstory of Umbrella is developed over several games in the series, this belongs here. Quite simply, the people that work at Umbrella are terrifying even before any infection or transformation. Take their top researchers, Wesker and Birkin. Birkin is one of the series' most frightening creatures after his transformation, but he and Wesker were monsters far before their respective infections. Just look at how they developed their viruses, particularly their treatment of Lisa Trevor. Callously and without any concern or remorse, the experimented on her and others for years, and casually discarded her once they had the prototype for the G-Virus. Despite this, Birkin later had a family, including a daughter not much younger than Lisa was at the beginning of her experimentation. It was originally Spencer and Marcus who had her (and her mother) used as a specimen; the lack of humanity in the Umbrella higher ups is quite frightening in its own right (especially since such human experimentation apparently free of ethics has happened in real life).
 * The music. Probably unnerving for some first time players, but it still messes with you. Especially if music randomly plays (i.e. Resident Evil 4) and you're just wondering what the hell is to come... And in some moments,.
 * Save rooms. They're known as places of safety, down to the music they play. Resident Evil 4 uses music alone to mark safe zones. Consequently, the few places where they break safe zones are absolutely terrifying.
 * Windows. Yes, windows. It's almost a Running Gag in the Resident Evil series. Ever since the first time you run into Cerberus in Resident Evil 1, you eye every window with suspicion. Any pane of glass in the Resident Evil series may have some unknown horror behind it. It's especially ominous when you see the zombies banging on them, attempting to break in. More often than not, any window you see is likely a Chekhov's Window. Something at some point in time will leap through it and try to kill you.

Resident Evil 0

 * Resident Evil Zero doesn't have the REmake's Crimson Heads, but it makes up for that with a new enemy called a Humanoid Leech (often referred to as "leech zombies"), a swarm of T-Virus leeches that gather together into a human-like form. Aside from being full-blown Demonic Spiders, the things just love to hang around in narrow, claustrophobic hallways, move with a disturbing, boneless walk, and have a really disturbing musical theme. What's more, humanoid leeches can and will make their way into rooms that were previously empty, meaning that you will reenter a "safe" area, only to find as soon as the screen finishes loading that one of these abominations is right in front of you.
 * The worst part? They look like normal people.

Resident Evil 1 / Remake

 * The game warden's diary, where you read exactly what happens to someone as they transform into a zombie, are extremely disturbing. "Itchy itchy Scott came ugly face so killed him. Itchy. Tasty." And you are attacked by said zombie as soon as you've finished reading it.
 * Most people will see the rattling closet, and even if scared, know that the zombie will come out. The bad thing is when the door opens, you see a box of shotgun shells or a taser battery on the ground, the equivalent of resident evil gold bars, right behind the zombie. Even worse?
 * The Chained Creature, aka . There's the first cutscene, then the unexpected appearance in the underground caves, but the journal entries and the creature's general backstory make it the most disturbing thing in the whole game.
 * Her pants-wetting anguished "MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!" out of NOWHERE.
 * The Crimson Head zombies. Nothing like entering a room you killed a zombie in a while back, but you were somehow unable to decapitate/burn it at the time, only to discover that They let out player-bowel-voiding noises, have almost shining-neon-white eyes, crimson-red skin (hence the name), and COME OUT OF NOWHERE!
 * The worst possible way to run into one of them? When you only have a pistol, and they're between you and where you need to get to, and their back is turned to you. You can see their face reflected off a mirror, but they're completely oblivious if you keep your distance, so they just stay in one place, waiting for you to make the first move.
 * The L-shaped hallway. This is a hallway where, as you walk through, you catch the attention of two Cerberus dogs outside. In the original, they come crashing through the windows and attack. In REmake, the window glass cracks loudly... but the dogs don't come crashing through, so you make your way to the other end of the hall watching the windows in wide-eyed paranoia. And of course, should you think that was just a Red Herring and decide to come through that hallway from the other side, the dogs do come through the windows.
 * Seen the uncut intro to the original, where Joseph gets gruesomely mauled to death by zombie dogs? It's worse in the remake.
 * There's a certain hallway that you go through multiple times, with nothing interesting happening each time. But for some reason, after a certain number of trips there, two crimson heads decide to jump in from the windows.
 * Jill pulling the stopper out of a bath tub.
 * There's a freaking door that has a broken doorknob that can break after a certain number of uses, blocking off a major shortcut and forcing you to backtrack around the entire mansion. Barry fixes it in Jill's version, but Chris is out of luck.
 * In the Remake, Wesker fixes the door for Chris after completing the Courtyard section.
 * There is a room where you find a dead zombie and the body of a scientist who hung himself. Then a note that explains the heart-wrenching process of him having to kill his best friend and then hang himself, with the pistol used to kill himself on top of the note -- called the "Suicide Pistol." But the worst part is that you go into an adjacent bathroom to collect an item, then hear a *THUMP* as he FREAKING CUTS HIMSELF LOOSE.
 * In the 'Advanced' mode of "Directors Cut", some of the zombies are able to move much faster than their regular shuffling companions. Of course, we're never actually informed of this at any point (not even in the manual), so you won't know that this is the case until you encounter one during play. Oh, and there's absolutely no way to tell them apart from the 'regular' zombies either... cue paranoia and genuine fear of the lowliest enemy in the game!
 * So, you just came back from a trip through the garden and the lab underneath and are back at the mansion with a shiny new key to unlock all of those pain in-the-ass doors. So far, the worst regular enemy you have faced is a giant spider. Then a cutscene plays. First person perspective of something running through the garden, bashing open every door it can find. No problem, you may think. Just another Cerberus. Then you see a long, green arm pull open a door. The door you just came through, the door right behind you. Wheel around and come face-to-face with a green humanoid squealing beast that -- if your health is low enough -- will leap across the hallway like a frickin' Ninja and slice your head off. Say hello to the Hunter. And if you manage to kill this one, his brothers have now taken over the mansion. And most of the zombies are gone....

Resident Evil 2

 * Chief Brian Irons. . Just goes to show you don't have to be infected to be a monster.
 * While the T-Virus might be horrible, what the G-Virus does is even worse. An infected individual becomes a monster, just like the T-Virus. Unlike the T-Virus, the G-Virus mutates both itself and the infected individual. Every time an infected organisim is "killed", the virus mutates and brings it back to life, eventually leaving almost nothing of the host organism left., who injected himself with the virus, goes from this, into this. The virus also drives the infected to "procreate" by implanting a G-embryo into a person of similar genetics, or in other words: blood relatives. If they aren't blood related, the embryo explodes out of the host body and turns into a horribly malformed creature.
 * Files you find in the police station are mostly from police officers who survived the initial zombie attack. They talk about plans to take the station back and rescue survivors, but all of it failed. The most disturbing one is from an officer named David. He talks about how he ran as a fellow officer who saved his life was killed, screaming for help and how hopeless and insane the situation is. He ends the letter mentioning how his old friend Mossberg is going to be "turning one more body into fertilizer".

Resident Evil 3: Nemesis

 * Nemesis. He's big, takes a ridiculous amount of ammo to knock down, and is capable of getting up. Early in game, it's unlikely you'll have enough ammo to take him out. Ah well, there's always the ability to run; Tyrants are always slow in their first form. Except for this one. He can chase you down right from the get go. Add in the rocket launcher, and his instant death attack in his first form, and you've got nightmares.

Resident Evil Code: Veronica

 * There is one point where the player enters a small clinic. There are two gurneys, one with a dead zombie, the other with a body bag. Reading the journal on the table reveals that the doctor here was severely screwed up, and going into the back room, a freaking torture chamber, pretty much drives it home. But that's not the worst part. The worst part is when the player returns to the clinic room, and the body bag opens up and the zombified doctor leaps out and runs right at you.
 * The Iron Maiden room. Going through a room filled with various torture devices? Check. Finding out there were sadistic people here to watch? Again, check. Reaching the end to find a room that rapidly fills with gas, forcing you to stop it via a statue, then Check. One final caveat: Running out of the room doesn't mean you're safe.
 * Bandersnatches. Those things with one elastic arm. Yeah, they look a little goofy, but they have the talent of always appearing in the worst place at the worst time, and they're difficult to outrun because they can use that elastic arm to hookshot their way across the room and attack you.

Umbrella / Darkside Chronicles

 * The Radio Chatter from HUNK's level. Among other things, you hear demands from a police woman as she tries to regroup survivors, the last broadcasts from a radio station being surrounded by zombies, ads for Umbrella medicinal products, the desperate pleading of an injured, trapped survivor of HUNK's Alpha Team, and, perhaps the creepiest, a nameless man's psychotic breakdown, with fits of insane laughter and weeping assertions of the hopelessness of the situation.
 * Alfred Ashford. On the way to Alfred's 'training centre', you see insane, demented graffiti on the walls showing people dying bloodily, a family drawing with his father scribbled over in red, and images of a boy and girl saying 'hello' and 'goodbye'. And this isn't normal graffiti, mind you. It's all drawn as if it was done by a small child. The elevator ride down reveals a door surrounded by drawings of eyes and the word 'die' scribbled so many times over the door it's almost illegible. And then you get to the actual 'training centre' ... which is called a 'Kill House' filled with targets, zombies, and more insane graffiti. Yeah. Frankly, you'd rather face an entire island of monsters than deal with a guy this insane.
 * That giant freaky doll inside their mansion is even worse in this version.
 * The licker hallway is worse too. It's just a huge bloodbath now, literally.
 * The redesign of Steve as a monster. It's creepy. The way his face is incorporated in the monster form is gaunt, fanged, in a perpetual scowl, and somehow melancholy, like It gives that impression that he knows what he's doing and can't stop himself from following Alexia's orders. And how he mutates. His skin bubbles. It's not a smooth change. It looks like it hurts. A lot.
 * The actual design of Monster Steve's body has changed very little (they gave him a semi-exposed heart... and that's about it). It makes more of an impact because it's being rendered with much better graphics. The Nightmare Face, however, is new, and it makes all the difference in the world, along with the relatively small detail of his neck, namely that in order to bring his head up to look at you, the neck was made visibly longer than the human norm, and is twisted at a somehow disturbing angle.
 * The Black Tiger spider. They redesigned it from a tarantula reskin to resemble funnelwebs. Rebecca has the displeasure of fighting two of them face to face in Umbrella Chronicles. And Darkside Chronicles has Leon legging it when he faces two spiders, who had again gone through a mild redesign, crawling along the walls towards him.
 * The ending, where Wesker speculates that the mutations are based on emotions, which are linked to the various chemicals in our minds. Think about this for a second. If you looked down a few posts, you'll see that the mass produced tyrants are made from a special chemical extracted from the brain, which is produced in excess from stress (i.e: being scared out of your pants). This means that the Tyrants are literal fear incarnate.
 * The ending, where Wesker speculates that the mutations are based on emotions, which are linked to the various chemicals in our minds. Think about this for a second. If you looked down a few posts, you'll see that the mass produced tyrants are made from a special chemical extracted from the brain, which is produced in excess from stress (i.e: being scared out of your pants). This means that the Tyrants are literal fear incarnate.

Outbreak

 * The cutscene on Main Street in Outbreak. The sheer scale of the outbreak hits home right then, and it's an Oh Crap moment both in-game and out.
 * "Wild Things", which takes place in a zoo full of zombified animals, such as lions, hyenas, and crocodiles. But the most terrifying is easily Oscar the elephant, or as he's now known, "Titan". As if ordinary rampaging elephants weren't scary enough, Titan is a rampaging elephant with decaying skin, jagged, bladelike tusks, and his entrails hanging out of his side.
 * The artwork for Nyx makes it obvious the dev team was just outright going for the Eldritch Abomination look. Boy, did they pull it off. A monstrous jelly being with a single core, capable of absorbing you and any corpses around. Including a Tyrant. The kicker? Some of the guys are still alive, including the Tyant, as Nyx tries to devour and absorb them.
 * In Outbreak 2, an Abandoned Hospital in the middle of an empty woods, with zombies infested by plants that pop out from underneath your feet. And then, of course, there's the mutated, axe-wielding serial killer stalking you through the place intent on chopping up your corpse and feeding it to the monster plant in the basement that he believes is the reincarnation of his dead wife.
 * The Hive. It's not the creepy abandoned hospital setting that got me, but the fact that the Leech Man would pop out of the air ducts. Constantly. And he was invincible. You spent half the time going through that level praying that you'd manage to get what you needed before he showed up in the room you were in... or that he didn't block the door. He also showed up more often when you were wounded and could attack you from 20 feet away.
 * And if your partners go down he or she becomes a new Leech Man.
 * And in the rare case you can have MULTIPLE Leech Men facing you... really. Just reset. It'll save you from either snapping your controller or suffering a mental breakdown.
 * Additionally, the new Leech Men are truly invulnerable and will not fall for the same trap that can kill the first one. They're there to stay. Resetting really is the best option at that point.

Gun Survivor

 * In the first Survivor, you learn from a file that Sheena Island, the mass production plant for "Mr. X"-style Tyrants, has achieved this role by making use of a hormone found inside of teenagers' brains, and it's produced when they're frightened/stressed. Umbrella knows maximum fright/stress levels are caused by excrutiating pain. Yes, Umbrella tortures kids to death in order to further their goals. Just let that sink in.
 * Worse, they open their skulls while ALIVE AND FULLY CONSCIOUS in order to get said hormones.

Resident Evil 4

 * The Iron Maiden, which is this page's picture, is considered by many fans to be the most horrifying enemy in the game. They're like Regeneradors, but are much worse.
 * Dr. Salvador... .He is a chainsaw-wielding Ganado that can kill you in one hit, and it's nearly impossible to kill.

Revelations

 * The Scagdead. Essentially, every 1 in 100 people are "resistant" to the T-Abyss virus. What this actually means is that the viral infection just progresses much slower, and the host is left alive and conscious for the duration. The transformation is also far more grotesque than regular T-Abyss mutations; the host's body is enveloped by an irregular mass of flesh and bone acting as a "new" body, sprouting another head similar to that of a lamprey's, and their left arm mutates into a massive organic chainsaw. The host is still semi-conscious even at this stage, but notably they are unable to control their own body; when you meet your first Scagdead (the comms officer of the Zenobia), you can hear him pleading to Jill that he's still human as he attacks her.
 * At the beginning of the game while trying to find a key, you stumble across some Ooze attacking a woman. After leaving for the rest of the ship, Jill is forced to return to the lower area. When looking for the corpse, nothing's there except a disturbing entry on how somebody is slowly decomposing and becoming a . After reading that, it turns out that the

Resident Evil 5

 * At the end, Albert Wesker
 * The Executioner and chainsaw Majini are horribly disfigured and can kill you in one or 2 hits.
 * Uroborous is a virus that causes its victims to be covered in black slithering tentacles that literally eat the victim from the inside. It gets worse when the Uroborus virus infects someone; the person is left in agonizing pain until they are killed or absorbed by the virus. And Wesker was trying to spread this.
 * When you get killed by the town Majini in Chapter 1-1, you are left to watch as Chris and Sheva are violently killed by them with farming tools.
 * Some old friends are back! And if they had eyes, they would be happy to see you. Nobody has fed them in a long time.
 * There's one area near the end of the game, that has a group of corpses being disposed of in a incinerator. The creepy thing is, if you get even close to those corpses, they will get stand up and attack you while others are awoken. These were live test subjects being burnt in a incinerator.
 * The swamp level. The infected Ndipaya tribe are horrifying to behold, their lips and hands eaten away, their hearts bulging out of their chests, and the look of sheer hatred on their faces. They charge screaming at you with inhuman agility and stamina. Then there are the crocodiles lurking in the water to eat you when you least suspect it...

Resident Evil 6

 * In one of the trailers, they show the transformations of the C-Virus on screen.Its very similar to the Alien films.