Ah, horror movies. Especially around Halloween, there are few things as cozy as cuddling up for your favorite spooky movie. With all the suspense, carnage, and close calls as characters narrowly avoid masked murderers and monstrous creatures, it just makes sense that these films would be adapted into big-screen movies. Unfortunately, these movie-to-game adaptations usually drop the ball in more ways than one, but there are still quite a few that have squeezed out a small semblance of entertainment. Today, as we prepare for the creepy and spooky week ahead, let’s take a look at all the major horror movies and the video game adaptations that often failed to launch.
Friday the 13th – NES, 1989
There are few masked horror villains as popular as Jason Voorhees, so Friday the 13th seemed like a perfect franchise to give the video game treatment. However, in this NES classic, you don’t control Jason, but rather a group of camp counselors who must evade the masked monster as they roam around Camp Crystal Lake. Weapons can be found to combat Jason, but more often than not, you’ll run into him unprepared, kicking your overall progress to the curb. The NES version of Friday the 13 wasn’t just boring to play; it just wasn’t all that scary: both things that hopeful players were expecting as the bare minimum.
A Nightmare on Elm Street – NES, 1990
Just like Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street seems like a no-brainer to bring to game consoles. It centers around Freddy Krueger, a disgusting serial killer who traps his victims within their own dreams. Sounds pretty cool for a video game, right? Wrong. In this side-scrolling beat ’em up, you spend more time punching bats and dodging other Halloween-style enemies and obstacles than you do fighting Freddy. The whole game operates on a “Sleep Cycle”, and if your sleep meter runs out, you’ll have to deal with stronger attacks from Freddy. Far more confusing than it needed to be, and with much less Freddy Krueger than a fan would want, this was a challenging NES title that didn’t live up to the hype.
Evil Dead: Regeneration – PlayStation 2, 2005
In the early 2000s, classic horror movies were still plenty popular, thus bringing us Evil Dead: Regeneration, one of several adaptations of this irreverent and gory cult classic. In short, Regeneration does what so many other movie-to-game adaptations fail to do: give players the experience of the movie with an enjoyable gameplay loop. Evil Dead: Regeneration picks up after the events of the second movie, and sees Ash and his small buddy Sam journeying around familiar locales, all while Ash uses his chainsaw arm and shotgun to blast through Deadite scum. If you’re an Evil Dead fan, this is one horror movie video game adaptation that’s worth checking out.
Alien Isolation – PlayStation 4, 2014
Often referred to as one of the scariest games ever made, Alien Isolation is a peak example that you don’t need to change too much about a movie’s theme to make it work for a video game. In this highly suspenseful sci-fi horror game, you play as Amanda Ripley, an engineer who boards the space station Sevastopol, and discovers that a xenomorph is prowling the ship. Combine this with the hostile androids roaming the ship, and you’ve got a super intense, edge-of-your-seat stealth horror game that is sure to make you jump. Seriously, if you like Alien and you like spooky, slow-burn horror games, Alien Isolation is a must-play.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre – PC, 2023
There’s been a running trend as of late, likely started by the excellent horror game, Dead by Daylight, which has made many horror movie games feel quite samey. In these asymmetrical multiplayer horror games, one team plays as the villains, while the others control the victims, doing their best to escape the clutches of the would-be killers. These games add a definite feeling of anxiety to each match, but unfortunately, the fear starts to wear off just a few matches in. After a while, the suspense and terror are almost completely gone, and you’re left with a game that feels bare of content. Worse yet, these games are often left to pasture and the online servers are shut down without a second thought. There have been multiple games that have experienced the same demise in recent years, but it always seems like horror movie games are the ones that receive the short end of the stick.
