Once you open the 'fridge,' Dracula himself becomes this when you realize that the technical good guys of the setting, like the Order, have just about no chance of beating him because, if it wasn't enough that he's the most powerful vampire to ever walk the earth, then The Reveal that God STILL favors him as His champion, rendering him almost completely immune to holy weapons and thus making him effectively immortal, makes things that much worse for anyone who dares face him. Maybe in the grander scheme of things, it's for the best, but it's not so great for the vast majority of ordinary people who lived under constant threat of him during the height of his power. Think about it: A nigh-unstoppable monstrosity who ravaged the land and has consumed countless innocents has God's blessing to do so.
Soon after he wakes up in the present, a starved-of-blood and half-berserk Dracula is given a meal by his old friend Zobek; it consists of a family of three, including a daughter who couldn't be older than thirteen. After the husband tries in vain to beat Dracula to death with a metal pipe, Dracula slits his throat in a single strike, killing him. He then drinks the mother's blood until she's little more than a desiccated husk, then turns on the daughter and the screen cuts to black as he lunges for her (did we mention you have to be the one to press the button to make him feed?). When he regains consciousness and looks into the room, the quick expression to cross his face makes it seem as if even Dracula was disturbed by what he did while he was insane from bloodlust.
Dracula's eyes. Especially when you see them up close and he's mad or angry. The mere fact that they're red doesn't make them scary. The pupils and irises in his eyes dilate and look utterly inhuman. This, in conjunction with the fact that his eyes glow red more or less depending on how enraged he is, adds to just how fucking scary they look.
The Blood of the Castle is a very disturbing form of corruption that proves that not only is the Castle now a Genius Loci, it's very angry and wants to kill you. Standard fare for possessing something is to wait until they prove their intentions are to help Dracula, then a giant clawed hand shoots out of a pool of blood and drags them downward, and they re-emerge a moment later possessed by the Blood. This is a force with so much hatred that even Dracula's servants, who have held Undying Loyalty for nigh-on a millennia, are turned into his enemies in a matter of seconds.
Every time Dracula enters or leaves the castle, it speaks in schizophrenic echoing madness, ranging from Yandere tendencies to outright hatred. All while Dracula is walking through a tunnel of blood.
It gets even worse when you fight Inner Dracula, a blood-tentacle monster with Dracula's face that puppeteers a giant flesh golem. The worst part? This is Dracula's dark side manifested. This scary factor somehow manages to get even higher, when it starts whispering "I'll always be with you..." Over and over again.
Dracula is stalked twice; by Carmilla and Agreus. Carmilla is a collection of Gabriel's nightmares of the actual Lord of Shadow, given form by the Castle and turned into a creepy Yandere. Agreus has been driven mad by the death of his brother Pan, and hunts Dracula down in a garden maze.
The level where Dracula has to make his way through the aforementioned maze and elude Agreus is not only annoying as hell, but pretty damn scary as well, especially when Agreus detects you, swiftly catches up to you, attacks you, and sends you right back where you started, meaning you'll have to go through the maze all over again.
Each of the Acolytes has a moment when they pray in Black Speech to Satan, Hell, and everything unholy for their ultimate dystopia, where good is dead, no man is equal, and suffering is eternal. It's an unnerving Badass Boast before they make their move and show their true powers.
Satan's daughter Raisa Volkova, gets in on the promises of a Fate Worse than Death for our Prince of Darkness, and anyone standing next to him.
Raisa: Ah, my dear Zobek! If only you could see what I see... I see you hanging while my brothers skin you alive! I will bathe in your blood in the presence of my father! The lost souls of the Avernus will welcome you with their cries. Bless me, father. For today I will deliver unto you the Dragon!
The first time you fight the Riot Police qualifies as a classic example of Mook Horror Show. Put yourself in one of those men's shoes; you and two of your buddies are tasked with killing civilians infected with a demonic virus that is turning your home into a literal Hell on Earth. Before too long, you come across a dark-haired man in a red coat who's apparently immune to the virus, so you ask him to come with you. He politely tells you no.So you decide to bring him in by force, and find out the hard way just who you're dealing with when he starts tearing into you and your mates with a whip that looks like it's made of solid blood, zipping around far faster than any human should be able to, and occasionally swapping out for a glowing sword that saps the life from you and a pair of flaming gauntlets that shoot fireballs that turn your jetpack into a useless lump of metal. Next thing you know, he tears one of your friend's throats open with his mouth and drinks his blood, then fries your other friend's skull inside his helmet with those gauntlets. He sends you flying with another blow from that whip and you quickly get back up, already knowing how completely and utterly screwed you are... But he's gone. Maybe he decided to let you live so you could warn the rest of the police to stay away. Suddenly, you feel his hand plunge through your chest from behind, and the last thing you see before you die is your still-beating heart, clutched in his fist.
The lore reveals that most of the Riot Police are Sociopathic Soldiers who will shoot any civilians they can find, so you won't feel too bad about killing them... except, of course, they were turned into sociopaths by a combination of institutionalized sadism at the academy, and dark magics covertly integrated into their battle frames. They've been turned into trigger-happy psychos by an Acolyte ruling through a mega-corporation, just like the mutated humans that they hunt.
Nergal Meslamstea, the second Acolyte, may be the scariest enemy in the entire LOS trilogy aside from Satan. With his calm, assured demeanor and initially overwhelming power, the only thing you can do is crawl away from him like a whipped dog while he casually stalks after you, zapping your very soul with lightning. And what happens if he catches you? He'll open a portal and send you to the pits of Hell. His taunts during your boss fight with him certainly don't help, considering that, as a child of Satan, he knows exactly what he's talking about.
Nergal: Your suffering will make Hell itself cry! Your soul will go mad in eternal agony! Your existence will know only pain! My father eagerly awaits you in his kingdom. Don't make him wait. Perhaps my Lord will allow me to...look after you, once he's tired of your soul.
And then there's what the third Acolyte, Guido Szandor, did to the church; corrupt sermons, rewritten histories, a hidden cult of evil hiding beneath the church, and the most devout members of Hell are buried alive so they can turn into liches that guard the cult with mass demon-summoning. What should be a quick jaunt through the church turns into a harrowing battle against four liches who burst out of statues and merge into a ghost-demon.
During the boss battle with the Necromancer, he resurrects the zombies hidden in the statues, which then burst out halfway and scream so loud they wake the zombies in the ground. All in a cathedral secretly ruled by a madman.
Satan himself, is arguably the most terrifying character in the entire Lords of Shadow series. He is a self-centered Fallen Angel who feel's entitled to rule above God, and is responsible for almost every atrocity to happen across the games, from the creation of the Lords of Shadow themselves, the death of Marie, the separation of the Heavens and Earth that drives the plot of the first game, to Gabriel's downfall into villainy. In the first game, after being defeated by Gabriel, he threatens him by saying "I will have such fun with your Marie. I will introduce her to such great pleasure!", heavily implying that he intends to rape and torture Marie's soul, which thankfully didn't happen. He only gets even more heinous and scary in the sequel. When he is finally summoned to Earth by Guido at the end of the game, how does he repay his loyal son for freeing him from Hell? By slowly and graphically rippinghis face off (Granted he didn't kill him without reason, as Guido failed to have Dracula killed, and even failed to notice that Dracula and Alucard were in the same room as him while he was summoning Satan, but still). It certainly doesn't help that Guido's face is still alive when he throws it aside. Not long after, Satan reveals his intentions to destroy Earth for no other reason than out of spite for Dracula thwarting his plans for the last time, and summons the Leviathan, an Old God that he tortured into being loyal to him, to do the deed. After Dracula and Alucard destroy the Leviathan, Satan possesses Alucard, and forces Dracula to fight his own son, all the while taunting him with cruel references to child abuse.
