Nightmare Fuel / LISA

"Look at it smile... Disgusting. I've watched this beast kill dozens. Yet at this moment, I can just sit here and stare into its eyes... And it just stares back... Smiling..."

LISA is set in a post-apocalyptic hellhole packed to the gills with rapists, murderers, horrifying looking beasts known as Joy Mutants, and all sorts of human depravity. As amusing as the series can be, to say that the games are downright horrifying more often than not is an understatement.

Moment Subpages are Spoilers Off. You Have Been Warned.

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LISA: The First

• The whole idea that you're exploring the broken mind of a child who is sexually abused by their father. The game makes every minute of its short length count, and then some.
  • The very first minute does a great job of setting the tone of both the game and the series as a whole. You start out playing as Lisa, the titular character; you walk out of the Armstrong residence, and walk alongside the forest leading away from your home. A Heartbeat Soundtrack plays the moment you walk out the front door, which is ominous enough. As you move further to the left into an area with a couple waterfalls, the area quickly warps into a mess of white lines, garbage littered everywhere, and Marty heads polluting the background... while the music from earlier is replaced almost immediately with the harsh TV background noise from when you were still in the house. Then you run into Marty at the end of the trail of lines and trash, who taunts Lisa for trying to run out on him. It all serves as an INCREDIBLY effective combination of Sensory Abuse and a major sense of foreboding that kicks things off perfectly.
  • The sheer atmosphere of the game alone is just... wrong. Even when nothing overtly scary is happening, you always have that feeling that something disturbing is around the corner, or about to happen. It easily makes going into each new area a borderline test of willpower.
• The entire OST is just unsettling at best, and terrifying at worst. Standout examples include Creepy Sax, Dead End and the appropriately named Fear. Generally speaking, you can pick any one track out of the whole thing, and will probably be unnerved when it's over.
• The way the Marty heads appear anywhere, at random, and are spread through the entire world. They don't do anything, but somehow, this is even scarier.
  • Looking closely, a lot of the backgrounds are just his face. Even in empty space, Marty is everywhere.
• The White World, containing only a few settings and each holding its own Smiling Marty, whose creepy smiles add to the unsettling nature of the whole area.
• The Palace that Lisa is transported to is relatively nice-looking and safe. That is, until the end, when Lisa reaches the final corridor and is greeted by Marty, represented here as a grotesque, veiny mound of flesh covered in scraggly hair◊, and surrounded by vomit stains and broken beer bottles. It's undoubtedly the most intense instance of body horror in the entire game, which is compounded by the fact that the only way to access the entrance to the next area is to go through him. By "through him", the game means get absorbed by his flesh, as the name of the next location is internally called "Inside Him".
• Tricky Rick has his own separate room within the inventory area. Try to speaking with him and what does he have to say? "Don't mind me... I'm just waiting..."
• The last few minutes or so of the game are horrifying from start to finish.
  • Once you collect almost all the required items, you're transferred back to Lisa's room. Try to exit, and you'll be teleported to a pitch black area with nothing but TV ambience playing. Then, you run into a naked Marty who further taunts you for wasting your time with trying to get away from him; you're then teleported to a blinding white area, where he further taunts you for your efforts. Notably, the background noise stops when you first run into Marty, then an incredibly unsettling track plays about a few moments after you're sent into the white area, and when he resumes mocking you.
  • After a bit of some unsettling visuals, you collect the final item you need, then are transported back to the hub. The game comes to a close with Lisa entering the TV, walking forward for a few moments, then discovering who appears to be her mother... only for her to turn around to reveal Marty, yet again, as a PANTS-SHITTINGLY TERRIFYING track plays. The game ends shortly thereafter. If all of this doesn't keep you up at night, nothing will.
  • The horror can be witnessed here, if you're willing to watch.

LISA: The Painful

• It very quickly becomes obvious that the world of LISA is not a very nice place to live in. You have violent bandits and marauders murdering anyone they run into, men trying to molest other men to compensate for the entire population of women being wiped out, there's grotesque mutants who used to be human beings with their minds torn apart and reduced to animalistic states, and the sole fact that one day, humanity itself is going to shrivel up into nothing. It's a very bleak setting, especially for a game inspired by EarthBound.
• The Joy Mutants themselves are far from pleasant to look at, much less talk about. They're the end result of a Joy addict's death/emotional development; giant, horrifically fleshy monsters that are almost entirely hostile towards anyone who dare approach them. Their minds have been shattered to the point where the only thing they seek is their deepest desire, which in most cases makes them violent and cannibalistic. These violent tendencies and their capacity for brutality make them some of the few enemies in the game that can perma-kill your party members, which is it's own can of peas. There's also the fact that during battle, most mutants spend their turns crying and moaning while only occasionally dishing out devastating attacks. This can be interpreted as them still having a little humanity left and being dimly aware of the monsters they've become, which makes them both horrific and sad.
  • Some of the party members you can obtain are Joy addicts, or can be MADE into Joy addicts, so no matter how much you develop them through battle, somewhere in their life they'll inevitably mutate.
• The Shadowy Figures you fight in dark tunnels can be rather unsettling. They attack either by scratching and punching, or by licking and groping you. There's also the fact they have 1 pixel large glowing eyes, which are made worse as a result of the entire battle background being pitch black. Additionally, they seem to... pose extremely strangely, which doesn't make them any less disturbing.
• The constant hallucinations of Lisa that Brad suffers are quite unnerving. He sees her everywhere he goes, standing just out of reach and silently observing him.
• Rando's horrifically scarred face is quite unnerving to look at. Even worse is how it got that way: Buzzo attacked and destroyed Brad's dojo to punish Brad for not preventing Lisa's suicide, and when Rando tried to stop him, Buzzo carved his face off.
• Instant Kill attacks are just plain unpleasant whenever they happen to your party during battle. When a party member gets hit by an attack like this, they're not just dead; they're DEAD dead, meaning they get removed from your party permanently. Seeing your unique, quirky, useful and hilariously odd party members grow strong, powerful and capable, only to be instantly removed forever from your party, with no hope of getting them back, is deeply disturbing. Easily doubles as a Tear Jerker.
  (x) bites your head off. (Party member) dies.
• What's especially scary about the Great White Flash is that, initially, almost next to nothing is known about it. We don't know what caused the women to die off or HOW they died off... then we find out that the weird dude playing a trumpet at random parts of the game is behind it all. This revelation is more than disturbing enough to completely erase whatever humor there was in his previous appearances, as described in the folder for The Joyful.
• The confusing scenario with Jonathan and Slave Lord Jim during your stay at Dismal Island, which quickly goes from somewhat amusing to downright TERRIFYING. The fact that it all happens within a couple minutes or so at most, and with no explanation whatsoever, only makes it worse. The peak of horror is easily the fight against Jonathan himself; a disturbingly human-like Joy Mutant who makes noises that no other character ever emits.
• The Nice Neighborhood, a Bonus Level in Area 2, is arguably the scariest area in the entire game, for many reasons:
  • For starters, you are greeted with the lovely image of a scientist's hung corpse, as well as this extremely disturbing piece of background music, titled "Blood For Sex". Really makes you feel welcomed, huh?
  • Little, blood-coated, zombie-like creatures called Creeps infest the area. While they're pushovers in battle, the sheer speed at which they scuttle around can easily catch a player off guard. The fact that most of them don't have battle music in their fights only adds to the creep factor. The truth behind them, however, is probably the worst part; they're failed attempts at creating Super Soldiers.
    • One of said Creeps is encountered eating some kind of bloody flesh. Killing it yields a Locket. The implications are obvious, but no less terrifying.
  • You then find out that these were the homes of Joy Project scientists, who were trying to make a Super Serum drug but made a hyper-addictive drug that later mutates its users. Given that there’s copious amounts of eerie blood writing on the walls, it really makes you wonder how many volunteered as living test subjects for Joy.
  • One of the houses has Doctor, a Joy Mutant whose design differs from most of the other mutants in that he has incredibly pale skin, bloodshot-red eyes, and yellow teeth. After defeating him, you find a note from a man known as Dr. Lemont, a scientist who worked on the Joy project. The note start out with him expressing relief over being able to go home... before degrading into borderline nonsense about how he wants to smash his wife's face in over and over again. This implies that Dr. Lemont was the mutant you just faced, and that Lemont wrote this note while he was turning into a Mutant.
  • Doctor gets even scarier once Fridge Horror settles in. The giant lump that is the majority of his body presumably prevents him from moving. Given his decayed appearance (pale skin, yellow teeth), and the note implying that he mutated around the time that the Joy project wrapped up, this implies that Dr. Lemont was sitting and decaying in the basement for years, possibly before the Flash occurred.
  • The bloated, Joy Mutant-like Creep in one of the basement floors that appears attached to the wall.◊ This one is completely inaccessible, as the staircase leading to the basement of that house is blocked. The fact that this unique Creep can't be fought at all, nor does it do anything but sit there, immobile, only makes it worse. Brad doesn't see it, but thanks to the side-view of the game, you do.
  • If you're playing on Pain Mode, you'll be able to access the Joy Lab, a secret laboratory located to the right of the neighborhood. The lab in general invokes a massive amount of Nothing Is Scarier, but there's two things that really make this location stand out:
    • The third room has tanks containing various subjects. Two mutants (one of which is labelled "My favorite"), a fishman, and a Creep. Notably, the two mutants resemble ones previously encountered... which brings up some SERIOUSLY disturbing implications.
    • The final room has a relatively fresh corpse and a note saying "Sorry darling, but my actions are just". The kicker? The corpse is a female. In other words, whoever killed that person essentially screwed over the entire human race.
• Wally's, the fast food area at the second crossroads. It easily rivals the Nice Neighborhood as the game's scariest area, due to all the disturbing and horrific details surrounding it:
  • In the cave leading to Wally's, there is an NPC who is facing a cavern wall. When interacted with, he reveals his mutilated face and has this to say;
  "I have no eyes to see. But I can taste it."
  • The entire area up to the mountain climb can lower your guard, as the entire time, it's quite funny, with men kneeling and hilariously basking in the glory of a fast food mascot. Then you encounter Lil' Nuggie, the sub-mascot of Wally's. When you run into him, he strangely shuffles from left to right, making a... ticking noise of some sort. As for his appearance, he's an arm-less, green... thing with glossy black eyes and blood seeping out of his mouth. There's a small likelihood that it's just some dude in a suit, but for the kind of place Wally's is, this might not even be the case.
  • Wally himself, of course, is easily the entire area's crowning jewel of horror. As you walk into the establishment, it's a small room filled with some kind of unspecified meat (which is implied to be human flesh). Going deeper has you meet Wally, whose appearance consists of a mangly clown costume with a bloated head, bulging sickly eyes and a speaker for a mouth.
    • His pre-battle lines only make things worse; it's all just insane ramblings switching between pleading with Brad to downright hostility. Then he LOUDLY laughs before attacking you.
  Wally: "Hi, welcome to— No! Stop! You can't be here! Hooo ho ho, go away! Hoo hoooo! Don't! Where's Nuggie? No! Don't! Did you hurt him?! Wally's got what ya need, kids! Hooo hoo! No no no! You want to Wally size it?! No no no! Welcome to Wally's! Don't! Please, I just want to die!" (Battle starts)
  • Wally has an absurd amount of health, and it's only near the end where his mask starts cracking off, revealing his flesh to be rotting. The fact that he doesn't drop any Joy after you kill him effectively removes any possibility of him being a Joy Mutant, as well, meaning that you have no way of knowing why his body is like this, or why he's utterly bug-fuck nuts.
  • Probably the most horrifying thing about Wally's is that, unlike the neighborhood area, absolutely nothing about it is explained in-game or by Word of God. You're left with all of these questions about the absurdity and sheer horror of the area, and none of them are answered, leading the player themselves to fill in the blanks.
• The Devil's Bathhouse in the third area; a series of winding, dark, and implausibly large communal bathes deep within the earth. The corridors are narrow, the lighting is murky, the music that plays is creepy, and most rooms are filled with the (presumably) hallucinatory Marty spiders from the first game. The whole place is decorated with gorgeous tile murals and is relatively clean, in sharp contrast to the dirty, broken-down wasteland outside, making it feel even more unnatural.
• Throughout the game, when resting at certain rest points, there's a chance for one of Brad's companions to get kidnapped by one of the local gangs. This is easily resolved by giving the gang a certain amount of mags to get said companion back. When arriving at Area 3, you'll come across a new gang that consists of bikers. They don't do or say anything; they just stare at you, and block your path. Resting at the Area 3 rest point inevitably risks one of your companions getting kidnapped by the biker gang. At that point, you'll probably be thinking "I'll just pay the toll to get my companion back.". Well, joke's on you; when you get to the biker gang's hangout, you'll be greeted to a lovely sight of all the bikers' mutilated bodies on the floor, and the grass caked in blood. You'll then come across the giant, mutated leader of the gang, marching around like a madman.
  • And naturally, you're able to fight him, if you so choose. Said fight is probably harder than any other Joy Mutant fight, which doesn't help. He uses his bike to slam into you and your companions, possibly killing them in the process.
  • Then there's the ultimate fate of your kidnapped companion; once the mutated leader is killed, behind him is a pile of flayed flesh. Inspecting it will cause this text to pop up: "Is this...?", the obvious implication being that your companion is dead. There's absolutely no way to save your now dead companion at this point in the game, and it's made even worse if it was a companion who was extremely powerful, like Birdie or Fly.
• It's implied that the "snow" on Snow Mountain is actually ash from the piles of corpses being cremated at the summit. At the top of the mountain, the player encounters a man running around frantically while engulfed in flames. It's a jarring contrast to the lifeless bodies surrounding him, and it has unfortunate implications.
• Brad finally confronting Marty is a non-stop parade of terror, wrapped in a blanket of tears. Beyond the fact that the once intimidating, domineering Abusive Parent is now a near-defenseless, elderly man, Brad is so caught up in his blood-lust and vengefulness that he's willing to beat Buddy into unconsciousness just to get his revenge on his former abuser; the confrontation ends with Marty's upper half blown to bits, and Buddy herself nowhere to be found. It's every bit as horrific as it is sad.
• The final battles against Brad's former party members, Rando's army, then Rando himself, have no shortage of scares:
  • The fact that right before Brad's former companions show up, Lisa's theme from The First, The Sireen's Call, plays very faintly in the background. It's the only other point in the game besides the title screen where it plays, and it sets the mood VERY effectively.
  • The simple fact that Brad's own party members have to fight him is not only utterly heart-breaking, but terrifying; the implication that their own leader has completely lost his mind has unavoidably dawned on them, and it's utterly jarring having to kill them after using them for roughly 6-7 hours. The tragedy and horror are amplified further if the companions Brad fights are ones you recruited early in the game, such as Terry, Nern and Olan.
  • The fight against the army itself is appropriately brutal; Brad effortlessly cleaves through dozens of men, as the familiar hallucination transition graphic flashes at various points, and Rando's men both react in shock and shout in horror as they die. Brad is called both a monster and a freak... and at this point, he really is.
    • The music adds onto the horror, as well; it gradually shifts from eerily triumphant sounding to downright disturbing as the battle rages on. The fact that it begins to sound like the theme that plays during Joy Mutant fights when Brad is down to the last handful or so of enemy soldiers is downright haunting, to say the least.
    • The remains of the soldiers◊ are downright REVOLTING to look at, due to the sheer, gruesome volume of Gorn on display. The fact that you don't really get a good look at what the hell Brad is doing to them until the fight is over only makes it worse.
• The ending. Jesus Christ, the ending.
  • After Brad dies from his injuries, the credits roll, accompanied by Live in Joy. Apart from being eerie-sounding, especially given the context of when it's played, it's not so bad by itself. The horror kicks in when the screen starts flashing things like "LISALISALISALISALISALISA", "Love", "Kill her Brad Armstrong", "Special Thanks to Martin Armstrong", "Taste Her It's Your Fault" and "Wake Up Buddy Buddy Buddy". It's INCREDIBLY disturbing, to say the least. Then the screen flashes with the usual hallucination transition graphic...
  • ...and we get what might be the most horrific image in the game, period; a mutated Brad. All you can do is slowly crawl forward, as you gaze in terror at Brad's now horrifically swollen, blood-soaked body. After a minute or so, he enters a small shack, where Buddy happens to be sleeping. With that, we get the final line of dialogue in the game as Brad slowly inches towards her.
  Brad: Lisa...

LISA: The Joyful

• Sweetheart, the most powerful Joy mutant in existence. Even worse? It might be a she.
• The absolutely horrific landscape of The List by the end of the Joyful: dead bodies from Buddy's crusade are littered everywhere, slain mutants dot the hills, blood and gore and maddening scrawls cover the walls and floor, and Brad, his friends and Rando all looking on at you, disappointingly. It really hammers home just how awful Buddy's destructive crusade was, and her shattered mental state by the endgame.
• Just the way that the hallucinations creep into the landscape; first there's just a few bodies... then Joy Mutants.. then suddenly Brad's corpse at the end of The Painful sits on a hill just above you.
• The Reveal that the dude playing a trumpet throughout The Painful is Dr. Yado, the one responsible for the Great White Flash and one of the scientists responsible for the creation of Joy. This revelation turns the entire plot of the series on its head, and it all comes from the fact that this psychopath has a major God complex, coupled with a willingness to cause a SHIT-load of deaths just to see his plans come to pass.
  • The fact that the trumpet he's always playing is actually controlling all those Joy Mutants Brad and Buddy have fought, as well as the numerous Joy Addicts you come across. It explains a lot, to say the least... and it effectively obliterates whatever humor his previous appearances had.
  • It's also made evident that the dead woman found in the neighborhood lab in the previous game was his wife, confirming that he DELIBERATELY fucked over all of humanity just to accomplish his warped goals.
  • The worst part of it all? His complete remorselessness about all the damage he's caused; all the death, destruction and tragedy he's responsible for means nothing to him, so long as he gets to rule over the remains of Olathe all by himself. This guy almost makes Darkseid look like a saint.
• The horrific fate Buzzo suffers at the end of the game. After talking about how Buddy didn't deserve the pain that he inflicted upon her and remarking how Lisa would've loved the world as it is now, he begins crying out for Lisa in a rather disturbing manner... before the screen cuts to a certain hallucination transition, then cuts back to Buzzo beginning to mutate. His head has become disproportionately swollen, and a new arm begins growing out of it. Soon after, we see his mutated form, which is all bloodied and (literally) twisted. Upon his death, he slowly remarks how he’s finally free from Lisa's grasp. Granted, one might argue that he deserved it, but it's absolutely terrifying regardless.

Definitive Edition-Exclusive Content:

• The Definitive Edition of the game adds a hidden secret sequence into The Painful: Brad’s Nightmare. It's accessed by sleeping at the very first Campfire of the game after all of the boat parts have been collected, and the events that happen within it are several degrees worse than anything else in the game, which is REALLY, REALLY saying something. The entire thing is a direct manifestation of Brad's trauma, his father's sexual violence towards his sister, and her associated suicide. Jump Scares are all over the place, and the whole nightmare is punctuated by unnerving undertones and a perpetual sense of tension. Even the Nice Neighborhood and Wally's both pale in comparison to how terrifying this entire sequence is:
  • The sequence begins as Brad makes his way through a sort of eldritch version of Olathe from the start of the game; massive blue mounds of joy and blood puddles litter the area. The signs throughout spew nonsensical and off-putting messages like "DON'T WAKE UP" and "Can you see me?"
  • After making your way into a cave, you see a vision of Rando approaching Buddy, before the screen flashes blood-red, and Lisa's corpse can be seen hanging next to Marty. Before you're given time to process this, a massive, grotesque and monstrous version of Marty (or possibly BRAD) shows up completely out of the blue, then begins to chase you as you're forced to remain helpless and cornered before the screen flashes white again, finding yourself back at the beginning of the game.
  • Navigating through the playground where Brad was beaten shitless, you find a Save Crow nearby. If you thought there'd be any sort of reprieve and a spot to save the game, you'd be dead wrong. The crow screeches as a combat encounter begins, to which you're faced with an enemy called the Crow of Remembrance.
  • Once the Crow is defeated, an image of Buzzo flashes violently on screen. Its the sprite is fully animated, turning from side to side while he laughs, taunting you.
  • After defeating the enemies, you make your way through the neighborhood as the music builds up, and are greeted to the sight of countless insectoid creatures with Joy masks on. Fun stuff, right?
  • Making your way through Brad's childhood home, you're greeted by a bizarre personification of Marty, rubbing the side of the couch he's sitting on, coercing Brad to come closer. He says things that range from slightly off-putting to downright manipulative and predatory, all deliberately accentuated with small gaps of time in between words spoken. His face actively rots after every sentence, to the point where his bloodied skull shows, and then without a head altogether.
  Joy Marty: So. Mature. For your age. You... and your sister. Thanks. TO ME.
  Joy Marty: Foolish. Baby. Soft... little... baby... You'll be ripped. Apaaaaart. Limb by limb.
  • An addendum to this is that dreams and nightmares are often manifested through memories or experiences we've had, so there's a possibility that Marty has said these things to Brad's face.
  • Leaving the house leads to a sea of blood, and within it resides a disturbingly familiar sight; the massive mound of flesh topped with Marty's head. What transpires next is less of a boss fight and more of an outright war, as he has 100,000 HP, rendering the fight extremely lengthy and escalating the hopelessness of the situation. The sheer amount of health he has, coupled with a nigh-guaranteed Permadeath move, makes fighting him both a test of endurance as well as mental strength.
  • The fight itself is prefaced with a black screen, the thunderous sounds of rain, and the ominous message "Brad rallies his party for a tough fight...", which, considering all the challenges and horror up to this point, isn't a good sign of the things to come.
    • The first phase involves wading through the sea of blood and being set upon by images of your current party. While they're initially not too challenging, they will become progressively deadlier the more attempts it takes to defeat Marty, with the copies gaining invulnerability to the attacks of the original, obtaining a reflective shield, and eventually becoming able to self-destruct on death, instantly KOing the character it's copying with no way to block it. All of this alone creates a major sense of foreboding and dread.
    • The second involves fighting an army of strengthened Marty Spiders, which are capable of draining life from your characters in a difficult battle of attrition. The fact that they can take the appearance of your consumed party member's heads is easily the most disturbing thing about them, including the fact that some of the deceased party members they imitate look nothing like their living forms (such as Mad Dog).
    • The final stage is at the peak, where you fight the Manifestation of Marty proper, surrounded by spider-spewing boils and a raging storm. While the player is probably used to One-Hit Kill mechanics by this point, this fight makes them especially horrifying: the battle animation shows Marty slowly reaching for them before biting down, taking them to a unique cutscene, where the character is slowly dragged into the fleshy folds of the mountain. This instantly spawns another spider-boil, and any future spiders created in Phase 2 will have a chance of having the devoured characters’ head, as explained above. As the battle goes on, Marty becomes more unhinged and nightmarish, with his head detaching and bouncing around on a spinal cord, drooling bile, and opening his mouth to reveal an abyss of teeth to drain all of your character’s stats, permanently. The music becomes progressively more nightmarish as the fight drags on, too.
  • Following the fight, a heartwarming exchange between Brad and Lisa is abruptly cut short as the screen turns blood red, with a message delivered with the narrative weight of an anvil to the noggin. Doubles as a Tear Jerker, as it puts all of Brad's actions into perspective by the end of the game.
  Brad: THAT WAS THE LAST TIME WE EVER SPOKE. THE LAST CHANCE I HAD TO HOLD YOU.
  • Once you wake up from the nightmare, going right from the campfire will reveal that your party members are actually dead, and that there's a mass of blood spattered around the area where your party members once were. It's implied that Brad either killed them in his sleep or that Joy has a supernatural element we've never known about up until this point. Either way, none of what happened is ever properly explained, and the nightmare itself makes Brad's vicious beat-down of Marty at the final stretch of the game even more understandable than it was in the base game.
• While satisfying, the way Buddy's Definitive Edition-exclusive "Reason You Suck" Speech towards Buzzo at the end of The Joyful starts is quite scary. After Buzzo claims that Lisa would've love the post-Flash Olathe, the screen suddenly flashes in faint, pink light and is accompanied by a banshee-like screech. It's almost like Buzzo's statement didn't piss off just Buddy, but Lisa from beyond the grave as well.
• Ever why there wasn’t a remake of The First with the Definitive Edition? That’s because Dingaling adapted it into a short surreal horror film similar to Skinamarink. While it was already a creepy game, the film makes it even worse, such as the backwards talking Marty and uncomfortably detailed Tricky Rick.