Video games based on horror movies have become increasingly rare over the years, but there was a time when it was not all that uncommon for popular horror movies to be turned into playable adventures. Franchises like Nightmare on Elm Street, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Aliens, and Jaws have all made the leap to gaming consoles, but they only represent the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
Here are 10 lesser-remembered horror movie games you may have forgotten about!
1) FROM DUSK TILL DAWN – MICROSOFT WINDOWS
What happened to Seth Gecko after the events of From Dusk Till Dawn? Though we didn’t find out in the sequel, a company called Cryo Interactive set out to answer that very question with a first-person shooter they released in 2001. Story goes that Seth is locked up on a prison tanker, convicted of murder following the events at the Titty Twister. Once vampires invade the ship, disguised as inmates, he’s once again forced to play the badass hero. Not surprisingly, George Clooney did not return to provide the voice for Seth Gecko.
2) ARACHNOPHOBIA – AMIGA, COMMODORE 64, AMSTRAD CPC & MS-DOS
Exterminator Delbert McClintock returned in 1991 for a video game adaptation of the previous year’s Arachnophobia, developed by BlueSky Software and released by Disney. Players controlled McClintock in this simple side-scroller, tasked with wiping out hordes of vicious spiders that are invading buildings and homes all over the United States. Armed with the pesticide Toxi-Max, you went from location to location, spraying the spiders dead before they had a chance to attack you.
3) FRIGHT NIGHT – AMIGA
Three years after the release of Fright Night, Tom Holland’s beloved vampire film became a side-scrolling Amiga video game. You controlled vampire Jerry Dandrige and were tasked with going room to room in a large mansion and draining victims of blood, all the while making sure to avoid the crosses being hurled your way. Sounds like an easy job, right? There’s one big catch. True to the downside of being a vampire, you had to make sure Jerry was back in his coffin before the sun rose up each day, or else he’d become a deep-fried version of himself.
4) PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE – AMIGA, ATARI ST, DOS
For whatever reason, Konami decided in 1992 to release a video game based on one of the worst movies ever made: Ed Wood’s Plan 9 From Outer Space. Taking a meta approach to the subject matter, the point-and-click adventure game had an admirably clever premise, which is best summed up by the description on the back of the box…
Plan 9. The critics hated it. Bela Lugosi died during it. And his double has stolen it.
Lugosi’s replacement is still bitter after 33 years from critics’ reviews dubbing his only movie “The Worst Film of All-Time”. Even though he remained faceless, he intends to bring glory to the cult classic using more footage of himself and … colorizing it. As the studio’s Private Eye you’ll search over 70 locations, find the 6 reels and screen the film, frame-by-frame, to ensure that the warped actor did not cut Bela from the flick. Using actual digitized film footage, you’ll sweat each scene, examining Plan 9 with slow motion, freeze frame, fast forward and rewind. It’s up to you to preserve its original awfulness.
Ed Wood would surely be proud of that wacky concept!
5) THE RING : TERROR’S REALM – DREAMCAST
Two years before Ringu was remade here in America as The Ring, Asmik Ace Entertainment put out this survival horror game for the Dreamcast, which was loosely based on the popular Japanese franchise. In the game, players controlled a heroine named Meg, who gets sucked into a virtual reality computer game called RING. After playing the game, Meg is told she has seven days to live (sound familiar?), and she must use those days to save the world from the deadly computer virus. The game was panned by critics and fans alike, labeled a poorly-made Resident Evil ripoff.
6) ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES – AMSTRAD CPC, MSX & SINCLAIR SPECTRUM
Horror-comedy Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, released in 1978, spawned not only a handful of sequels, but also a line of toys, a children’s cartoon, and in 1986, an 8-bit video game. In the game, you controlled a character named Wimp Plasbot, tasked with fending off three different types of killer tomatoes: walking ones, which you had to crush with a hammer; bouncing ones, which you had to crush into tomato puree; and sitting ones, which had the ability speed up time. If the time ran out before all the tomatoes on each level were killed, you would lose the game.
Another Killer Tomatoes game was released for the NES and Gameboy in 1991, though it was based on the spin-off animated series
7) BLOODWINGS : PUMPKINHEAD’S REVENGE – MS-DOS
In 1994, sequel Pumpkinhead 2: Blood Wings went direct-to-video, and the following year saw the release of this PC game based on the film. You played as an unseen “Keeper of the Spirits,” and your job was to appease Pumpkinhead by traveling the netherworld on a treasure hunt for various different objects. At several points in the game you were treated to clips from the movie, and then forced to answer trivia questions based on those clips. The game was perhaps most notorious for its bizarre video endings, wherein Pumpkinhead would either dance for you or flip you off. Yea. Seriously.
8) THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT: RUSTIN PARR, THE LEGEND OF COFFIN ROCK, AND THE ELLY KEDWARD TALE – PC
On paper, a Blair Witch Project video game may sound pretty boring, considering the movie was about a few friends wandering around in the woods, but this trilogy of PC games from 2000 took the interesting approach of serving as a trio of prequels to the film – telling tales about the creepy basement from the memorable ending and the origins of the Blair Witch herself. I’ve never played the games, so I can’t speak to their quality, but it’s always nice when franchise mythologies get fun expansions.
9) NIGHTBREED : THE ACTION GAME – AMIGA, ATARI ST, COMMODORE 64, ZX SPECTRUM, AMSTRAD CPC & DOS
Hot on the heels of the release of Nightbreed in 1990, the plan was to put out a trilogy of video games based on the movie, but only the first two actually saw release. The first was called Nightbreed: The Action Game, and it followed a very similar plot to the movie. The player controls Aaron Boone in this side-scroller, taking him through Midian and fighting off a host of different creatures in order to save the Nightbreed. Once that task was complete, there was a final battle with Dr. Decker.
Nightbreed: The Interactive Movie was released next, and it was indeed an interactive experience that played out more like a movie than the Action Game. Since neither game was all that successful, the planned third and final Nightbreed game never made it into production.
10) LAND OF THE DEAD: ROAD TO FIDDLER’S GREEN – PC & XBOX
While the three best films in George Romero’s “of the Dead” franchise were never given video games of their own, his lackluster return to zombie-land in 2005 did, oddly enough, spawn one. Land of the Dead: Road To Fiddler’s Green was a first-person shooter that acted as a prequel to the film, telling the story of a farmer who’s making his way to the skyscraper complex featured in the movie. Playing as the farmer, you had to chop, beat and shoot your way through the hungry zombie hordes. At the end, the zombies begin to smarten up, leading into the events of the film.
Can you think of any other obscure horror movie video games? Remind us!
