Nightmare Fuel / House of the Dead

Travel north... Hope is such a splendid thing.

For a series infamous for its many cheesy moments, House of the Dead still has more than its fair share of genuine horror.

Be wary: per wiki policy, spoilers are off on Nightmare Fuel pages!

For the examples in OVERKILL go here.

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In General

• Pretty much any of the games in general, even the older games are nightmarish compared to modern First-Person Shooters where you mow down enemies by the dozen, due to not only the generally disturbing faces and forms of the zombies and monsters, but also how some of them are Incredibly Durable Enemies made you stare at the monstrosities for good amount of time and generally slower pace of the game than modern First-Person Shooters where you often shoot zombies and monsters down before you have good look of them.
• As the games are on-rails rather than having free movement and turning like FPSes, the games love to suddenly swing the camera in unexpected angles or open a door to show a zombie right about to smack you.
• Every game has one bad ending where one of the major characters turns into a zombie, and you get to see their form up close as the last thing before "END" appears.
• Seeing civilians run for their lives and possibly die painful, agonizing deaths to the creatures if you fail to save them, because unlike your Player Character, they don't have the skills and training to defend themselves.

From The House of the Dead:

• The original game has perhaps the creepiest atmosphere of the bunch; there's less cartoonish-looking dismemberment of enemies, and the zombie designs in the early stages don't look nearly as gimmicky as what comes later in the series — a reminder that these things used to be ordinary people. Their moans and screams also sound a lot less human in this one.
• The Curien Mansion, though not a Haunted House, is a creepy place being a maze of death. The Gothic appearance and the lack of vegetation does not help.
  • The front of the mansion sports two large semi-circle windows above the front doors. Coupled with the red lighting within, it almost looks like the Curien Mansion is gazing at you malevolently as you approach...
• In the kitchen, players are shown a view of Curien's walk-in freezer with dismembered human torsos with a few zombies camouflaging with said torsos. Outright disturbing, and makes you ask yourself if Curien is a cannibal.
• The sound of the mechanical revving of a chainsaw followed by who is holding that said chainsaw. Be prepared to say Oh, Crap! while screaming at the top of your lungs seeing its rotten face.
• The arcade version of zombie Sophie in the bad ending can be really terrifying and heartbreaking at the same time. Oh, and in the remake, she's not alone…
• In the background for Stage 2's music, a Creepy Child says something along the lines of "I love daddy" and audio can be heard from the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. Especially creepy given that the entire crew onboard Challenger died.
• Of all the boss mutants in the first game, the Hermit had to be the most frightening; imagine being trapped in a dark, narrow tunnel with a giant armoured spider-like monstrosity with razor-sharp claws that crawls after you at horrifying speed for something so big. Its loud, inhuman shrieking; the tentacles coming from its mouth; and the fact that you have to climb across its corpse after killing it — spraying a huge amount of gore from its head as well in the arcade version — helps very little.
  • There's even official artwork◊ of Hermit with its head partially blown-open; complete with fully-detailed gunshot wounds, including one through its eye.
• How "Hangedman" is introduced for its boss battle. You first see it holding up two helpless scientists while it flies through the air. After it taunts you, Hangedman drops the scientists down to their deaths in the courtyard below. Worse, since it's in a cutscene, you can't do anything to save them and you are forced to watch the scientists fall and scream to their deaths before the boss battle commences.
• The Magician. Weak point: "UNKNOWN". For a first-time player, cue frantically firing all over his body trying to figure out where he should be shot, all while he zips around the screen tossing dozens of fireballs at you.
  • And the actual weak points? Parts of his flesh are exposed.
• The House of the Dead: Remake managed to make some moments even scarier. Zombies now look much more realistic and behave in a more animalistic way. Remember the intro scene, where a zombie knocks a human scientist down before going to the player character next? In the remastered version, he outright bites into the poor sap's neck graphically.

From The House of the Dead 2:

• Put yourself in the shoes of a woman hanging on for dear-life while a zombie prepares to drop a barrel on her so she could fall to her death.
  • In the Practice mode, both of these men and the same woman◊ in the same situation above.
• Imagine being one of the children NPCs in the game being chased by zombies who are not playing tag-you're-it with you.
• In one of the paths, you save a child from a Fat Zombie and you enter a bar. Once you save the bar tender from a zombie, he asks you where his son is. Because you successfully saved them both, you can feel good about yourself. However, if you were a parent caught up in a zombie apocalypse and were separated, you would immediately worry about your child's safety.
• One of the pathways in Muddy is a dungeon-like tunnel full of skeletons hanging in the chains. The fact that Kageos are in it makes it already unsetting. Makes you also wonder how one woman ended up in that tunnel.
• In the alternate path in the beginning of Muddy, one female civilian clad in a red shirt and blue jeans asks you in a genuinely terrified voice "What's going to happen to the city?" right as you watch a news report of a chopper flying above Sunset Bridge (showing the boss of the chapter). Her tone catches how bad the situation really is, which is lampshaded by James and Gary upon meeting Harry and Amy at Sunset Bridge or the Wharf.
  James (if single player or multiplayer at Sunset Bridge): Amy, Harry, the chaos in this city is increasing!
  Gary(if single player at Sunset Bridge): Amy, Harry, the state of this city is too much!
  James (if single player at the wharf): What's going on? This city's chaos is increasing!
  Gary (if single player or multiplayer at the wharf): This city, the state that it's in. This is too much!
• Although it looks like Narm when James and Gary were pulled by the Ebitans to the canals of Venice, you would not laugh upon finding out what creatures lurk in the murky waters below.
• The third chapter has you ride on a speedboat... and encountering Jump Scare Ebitans which lunges at you quickly.
• The tunnels of Venice: Dark, murky, full of zombies, and a snake-like hydra boss. Some poor civilians got caught in the maze.
• The boss fight with Strength is particularly intense, as you fight him in the maze of the Roman Coliseum. The fact that a giant zombie with an enormous chainsaw and axes impaled in it is out for your blood, chasing you through a dark, dilapidated maze is terrifying enough. It does not help when he disappears and suddenly crashes from the walls or jumps from a high ledge to try and drop down on you.
  • Strength's reddish, horribly-rotten face, only briefly visible when you shoot its gallow hood-like mask off, does not help either.
• The Peter zombie — encountered in Chapter 5: Dawn — has parasitic worms erupting from its chest (a la Aliens style) that try to bite your face off.
• A revived Magician appears as the penultimate boss — but horribly scarred and rotting to the point where he's even covered with wriggling worm-like tendrils — one of which protrudes from his hollow eye socket.
• Goldman has an army of robotic zombies that protects his headquarters. Some of them are Narm while some of them are outright terrifying especially due to the Nightmare Face. Special mention to the ones that could pass through walls and the one that could walk on parallel surfaces, as in upside down or sideways on walls!, and the ones that suddenly teleports above the bonnet of the fifth chapter's car you drive!
• Zombie Goldman from the bad ending may drift into Narm territory for some and it's to be expected, though his appearance is still unnerving. In fact, many users on YouTube commented that when they were children, they actually turned off their Dreamcast in terror upon seeing the Zombie Goldman.

From The House of the Dead 3:

• The game takes place in a world where the Zombie Apocalypse has lasted for almost two decades. Makes one wonder if humanity is indeed facing extinction.
• Apparently, Lisa does not know what happened to the world prior to the apocalypse, implying that she and several other children grew up in a world where one needs to survive and be on constant alert. Not a good way to spend your childhood.
• The opening treats us to Yukio, the second to last remaining man of Thomas Rogan's team, being grabbed and subsequently killed by the zombies, with blood spilling about. It's disturbing to say the least. You later fight a zombified version of this same man in the final level, which is a tougher version of other Rogan commando zombies. Even freakier? He actually speaks as you fight him.
  Yukio: "We're humanity's last hope! We can't lose!"
• One of The Fool's attacks consists of him shaking up his cage, raining his meal — a collection of horribly mutilated corpses — down upon you. Most of which will damage you if you don't shoot them out of the way.
  • Not to mention, The Fool himself is rather frightening. There's his soulless eyes and sharp teeth, rabid snarling, and the fact that, unlike regular sloths, he's fast — fast enough to catch up and try slicing you up with his claws, and determined enough to keep coming even when three of his limbs are hanging limp.
• The bad ending of III, where Daniel Curien and Lisa Rogan have just survived their ordeal, only for Daniel to start writhing and ranting about his father's legacy and what his purpose is. He uncovers his face just as he transforms into a zombie, and the game ends on Lisa's terrified scream. Because of that, there's a bit of Fridge Horror on whether Lisa was able to defend herself, and if Rogan and G were too far enough away to hear the commotion.
  Daniel: What life do I have to live...?
  Lisa: AHHHHHH!!
• Before the battle with the Wheel of Fate even begins, Dr. Curien foreshadows it by gleefully ranting about it to his son Daniel, laughing maniacally as he does so. This scene alone shows that Curien's obsession with his research has made him forget why he even started it in the first place ^note which was to save Daniel from dying and drove him completely insane.
  Curien: I've found it, Daniel! These genes will change the future... "The Magician," and the "Wheel of Fate!" Hahahahahahahahahahaha... AAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...!
  • When you finally do confront the Wheel of Fate, his appearance alone is eerie. His entire body is covered in chrome-like metal. His eyes are solid, glowing white, his arms are covered in sharp, razor-like spikes, and his body is literally covered in blue, sparkling electricity, all coming from the giant metal ring spinning around him. Most unnerving is the lifeless, robotic tone that he speaks in.
  Wheel Of Fate: I... am... Curien. I shall destroy everything, and... resurrect everything.
  • If all that wasn't frightening enough, the Wheel of Fate soon reveals that he isn't just an ordinary experiment... he's a resurrected Dr. Curien. It quickly becomes apparent that in the end, Curien has lost all traces of his humanity, and has become just another one of his many, many monsters. The fact that his own son has to be the one to put him down just makes it all the more tragic.

From The House of the Dead 4:

• The zombies and bosses in the fourth game. Especially Justice. To elaborate, he's a four armed muscular humanoid behemoth with decaying skin, exposed muscle (especially on his face), and a lot of sharp teeth. Not helping matters is how he monstrously shambles in a rather deranged manner as he chases the players with the camera angles showing how intimidatingly huge he is compared to the players. Then, one of Justice's attacks involves grabbing you, and you have to shake the SMG fast in order to break free of his grasp or he will bite you, during which you are treated to a lovely close-up of his face, especially with that tongue. He's kind of notorious for scaring a lot of younger arcade goers back then, especially thanks to his Wolverine Publicity on the game's attract mode, other promotional images, and even on the holsters for the gun controllers in the deluxe version of the arcade cabinet.◊
  • The Empress is a close second, being a gigantic yet very fast creature with dark blue skin and glowing red eyes on an otherwise seemingly featureless face, wielding a double-ended chainsaw that it uses to cut apart the subway cars James and Kate are trapped on.
• The sewer and the subway tunnel is terrifying knowing it is dark, murky, wet, and has monsters on every corner. Oh, we forgot to mention there are Damians, frog-like creatures with whip-like tongues swimming on the murky waters of the sewer.
• At the end of the fourth chapter, Kate and James are treated to a view of the burning cityscape, implying that the Zombie Apocalypse this time around has reached catastrophic levels. Kate's Heroic BSoD is very much justified.
• The Star, the penultimate boss of 4, is a greatly improved version of the Magician. That in itself is the scary part — Goldman learned from his mistakes.
• Out of all the final bosses, The World is probably the most chilling. He's essentially an improved version of The Emperor, emerging from beneath Goldman's headquarters for God knows how long in dormancy. It appears as a giant humanoid insect, specializing in cryokinesis.
  • Bonus points have to go to its introductory quote. Whilst normally these are ridiculously Narm-ridden due to the series' voice acting, it's one of the few occasions where it actually works — thanks to The World's chilling, withered tone that's laced with Tranquil Fury.
  The World: I am the ultimate being. There is no hope. My hammer of death shall rain down upon you.
  • The music to this fight is dark, quiet, tense, and off key — a perfect indicator that you're fighting perhaps the most threatening and outright dangerous monster in the franchise thus far.
  • To add to that, The World has at least two forms. Even after beating the second one, he molts his skin and begins growing despite Kate and James' bullets. The latter is forced to sacrifice himself in order to destroy the beast and save what's left of humanity from destruction. Whatever form The World was going to mutate into, it certainly wouldn't be pretty.
• While Zombie Goldman was more on the Narm side in 2, he is absolutely terrifying in this game.
  • Goldman in general is much more menacing than in the second game. Gone are his goofy lines about protecting the "loyfe cycle" and his dull voice - his rants in-between the chapters are given more insight, showing that he was prepared to face the first defeat and the subsequent death. The preparations he made successfully caught the European AMS branch off-guard and took almost all of them out quickly, and the whole city is rendered a graveyard full of mutants in just several days, with no savable civilians to be found and the areas littered with bloody footsteps and handprints, but nothing else besides zombies. And finally, given this incident was one of the many which caused the civilization to collapse by the year 2019, it can be all but assumed that Goldman got exactly what he wanted, even with the nuclear missiles stopped just in time.
• The arcade version of 4 Special utilizes a special cabinet with a screen on either side of the player, and a rotating seat. Meaning you could be heading down a hallway...and then your seats rotate and you have to deal with zombies behind you! Even better, this mechanic was planned to be used as far as in the first game, complete with two screens instead of one, the other one directly behind the player.
• In 4 Special, if you fail to counter The Magician's final attack, he summons at least three clones of himself, and it looks like there's an entire army's worth. Given that one Magician is already a nightmare to deal with in-universe and out, it's no surprise that the game just cuts to black and gives you a bad ending right there. You're just left to imagine what happens to Kate and G, but presumably, they both get smothered in fire. And then the rest of humanity is next.

From The House of the Dead: Scarlet Dawn:

• Due to III, 4, and Special (which have more modern looking graphics) not having a civilian mechanic, this is the first game (not counting Overkill) since 2 to feature civilians that need rescuing, and that means we see the zombies attacking humans with graphics on the scale of most triple-A games, and it doesn't look pretty.
  • The opening sequence show Thornheart's zombie horde overtaking the party at Scarecrow Manor. Because of the big amount of people there, numerous people are unable to escape the zombies and are soon overpowered by them, thus explaining why a lot of the zombies are in formal wear. This marks the first time in the series where we actually see a zombie horde attacking multiple people on an otherwise peaceful evening, where previously we've seen individual people being threatened by one or a few zombies.
  • The first level has a man trying to escape suddenly jumped and killed by a zombie, which actually bites into him, making it look more horrifying than zombies killing people in the first two games, where they only died to scratches, kicks, or simply a weapon. Sadly, just like the first civilians killed in the first two games, he dies no matter what after a zombie pounces on him.
• The stage select theme. Which has an INCREDIBLY eerie background tune that sounds like a ghost wailing.
• The Chariot in the first game was a Warm-Up Boss for the entire series. It's back, and it's now strong enough to take a direct hit from a rocket launcher and still keep coming.
• The Hanged Man is back too. Worse, he can talk, just like in the first game. Not only that, but he is also introduced grabbing a helicopter with his claws and then throwing it away!
  Hanged Man: I'll crush your foolish hope underfoot. You two are going down next!
• Then, of course, there's the first of two original bosses for this game, The High Priestess. Imagine a mutated/zombified octopus/lamprey/eel hybrid that looks like something H. P. Lovecraft would come up with and vocalizes like a whale. Now imagine that this thing can follow you out of the water, pursuing you with Combat Tentacles while its mouth shows off a nightmarish nest of fangs.
  • And then there's the creature's death; since it can't be defeated the usual way through depleting its health, it's instead doused in flammable chemicals from a ruptured tank which are then ignited with a napalm cannon; graphically burning it alive and then exploding it into massive giblets.
• All of this pales before the Final Boss of this outing: The Moon. The cathedral you confront the Big Bad in is destroyed as this nightmare manifests itself — first as nothing but a titanic, ghoulish head that vomits acid at you, then slowly emerging from the water/building upon itself by absorbing zombie minions to reveal an equally-massive body. That's when things really get bad, as the entity reveals itself as a Winged Humanoid that unleashes blasts of raw energy to rival anything the Magician ever did.
  • It gets worse: this isn't a mindless abomination. As you fight it, the Moon begins taunting you, revealing that It Can Think.
  • Oh, and the crowner? You can't kill the Moon. Your guns do nothing to harm it; you can only fend off its attacks long enough for Ryan to get the idea to use a lightning rod to hit the Moon with the fury of the raging storm overhead.

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