For the Skinz: are they wearing lyrics from Nazi Punks Fuck Off from the Dead Kennedys to prove how unshakable they are with their beliefs? Or were they just idiots who didn't recognise the insults were against them for being white supremacists? The member that as killed by Ramirez in the opening cutscene of "White Trash"; did he not realise who Ramirez was? Or was his stupidity just the result of being violently drunk?
Awesome Art: The character designs are outstanding and memorable, with none of the charm from their concept art lost from the transition from drawings to models, but the most striking out of all of them has to be Piggsy, who manages to be the most memorable of the lost due to just how shocking and obscene his design is.
The first game in particular sports an excellent synth soundtrack in the style of John Carpenter and 1980s slasher films.
The BDSM Club theme from the second game is pretty dark, but counts as this.
If Bittersweet Ending had a theme song, then the second part of "End Credits" would be a good example, where after taking out Starkweather at last, Cash has finally left Carcer City after fighting for his own freedom.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: At the end of the credits of the first game. There is a Video Clip of... something that looks like a robot chef hosting a cooking show, and it has absolutely nothing to do with anything in the game. The implication of the brief scene seems to be that the events of the entire game were playing on a VHS tape that had been used to previously record something else, and the player has now reached the point in the tape where the previous recording is coming through on the magnetic tape.
Lionel Starkweather is a rich man who creates snuff films for his own pleasure and profit. Using his fortune to acquire convicted death row inmate James Earl Cash, Starkweather sets him loose in Carcer City while having him hunted by gang members and corrupt law enforcement. Starkweather constantly ups the stakes by putting others in danger and has Cash's innocent family kidnapped to face almost-certain death. Starkweather's prize fighter is an insane, naked man wearing a pig's head named Piggsy, who has clearly lost his mind through what Starkweather has put him through. Starkweather's voice dogs the player throughout, as the depraved millionaire positively revels in the horror and brutality he creates.
Ramirez is Starkweather's right-hand brute, who controls the gangs of Carcer City and uses them to put on "good shows" for the snuff business. Introduced strangling a goon to death just to establish his dominance, Ramirez threatens the rest of his men with death on a regular basis. His personal gang of Wardogs kidnaps Cash's family to use as bait and threatens to kill them one by one, and Ramirez cruelly orders his men to sever Cash's genitals when they find him, proving himself to be the most sadistic "star" of Starkweather's films.
Mr. Nasty, the mysterious head of Valiant Video Enterprises, is the de facto ruler of Carcer City. Having turned the entire city into a crime-ridden hellhole with an empire of murderers and rapists under his control, Mr. Nasty finances and distributes Lionel Starkweather's snuff films for profit and to "honor pain". Always guaranteeing "absolute satisfaction" to buyers, Mr. Nasty resells the various murder tools used in the snuff films to interested clients, and gives his depraved minions the chance of finding work as mercenaries through his company.
Gary Schaffer, the corrupt chief of the Carcer City Police Department, takes bribes from Starkweather, and is responsible for making sure that all atrocities committed in his snuff films are covered up. Schaffer runs the CCPD in the most cruel way possible, with his underlings enjoying beating up and murdering the homeless on a regular basis, and letting some of the cops "star" in Starkweather's films. Not above sending his own men to eliminate Cash when he becomes a nuisance to Starkweather, it is Schaffer's greed that led to the horrors of Carcer City going unpunished for so long.
Manhunt 2:
Dr. Pickman is the head of the Project and the man responsible for their countless atrocities. Obsessed with the idea of creating assassins via the Pickman Bridge—which would allow two personalities to inhabit the same body—Pickman has a psychopath placed inside the mind of Daniel Lamb, condemning Daniel to rot in Dixmor Asylum with other failed subjects when he inevitably goes on a killing spree. Other experiments overseen by Pickman include: driving a man insane by forcing him to feed on corpses; engulfing a man in flames until his skin and nerves were permanently damaged; and exploding a soldier to see how his squad would react. Not content with the experiments, Pickman runs a front for the Project in the form of a strip club where clients are made into "Project zombies" and snuff filmmakers take their victims to a torture dungeon.
Leo Kasper is a murder-obsessed assassin who had his own personality placed inside the mind of Daniel Lamb by the Project. Taking the opportunity to cause as much death as possible and erase Daniel's past to assume total control over his body, Leo starts by killing people close to him—including his best friend and his therapist—culminating in a killing spree that ended with Leo stabbing Daniel's wife to death. Armed with a katana, Leo breaks into a TV station owned by the Project and slaughters more than twenty people inside, dismembering some of them and hanging one with a microphone. Despite his sadistic crimes, Leo maintains a façade of being Daniel's ally, instructing him into killing his enemies in the worst ways possible just so he can see Daniel becoming a "sick fuck" like himself before he can destroy his personality.
Contested Sequel: The second game, while uniformly more poorly received than the first game, still has its defenders.
Piggsy genuinely believes he's a pig, suggesting he suffers from "Clinical Lycanthropy" a condition where a person believes they are an animal. It's also suggested that he might have schizophrenia; as he thinks this is all a game and stating he doesn't want to "play anymore", he also believes he's a pig, and his theme "Deliverance" has pig squeals playing in the background, indicating that this is something that Piggsy possibly hears as an auditory hallucination. His speech is also disorganized and he attacks indiscriminately during his own rampage, as he attacks Cash, someone who had nothing to do with Piggsy's imprisonment and torture.'
The Babyfaces are composed of pedophiles and the intellectually disabled. Some referring to Cash as a rabbit and imply to be hallucinating as well. They have also been hearing voices and having mood swings. One of the babyfaces also appears to have soiled themselves, as evident by the yellow and brown stains.
It's not exactly clear what kind of conditions the Smileys suffer from, though they are all violent, have no grasp on reality, and tend to speak complete nonsense or in irrational bloodlust.
Disappointing Last Level: The last few levels of the first game mostly abandon the stealth elements and executions in favor of gunplay. A large chunk of the second game falls prey to this as well.
Difficulty Spike: In the first game, the increased emphasis on gunplay from about the tenth mission onwards makes the game substantially harder since it removes the player's key advantage of stealth and forces them to rely on Cash's rather bad aim with guns.
Don't Shoot the Message: The game has vital social commentary about the media's morbid obsession with violence and criticizes its own audience for using video games as a sadistic power fantasy and a form of escapism. Rockstar even goes as far as to use Piggsy as an allegory for human savagery and the glorification of violence to say their audience is as inhuman as Piggsy if they enjoy violence this much and over-indulge in these kinds of media. Ironically enough, the game famously garnered controversy for being too violent and the message of the game went over their heads.
At least some of the hunters from the first game (see Tear Jerker).
Cash after watching his family get butchered. He's not a very nice guy, but even he was pissed at that.
Piggsy. Implied to be mentally disabled, his mind was only further broken after "starring" in several of Starkweather's films.
Love to Hate: Starkweather, utterly vile and monstrous as he is, can still be morbidly entertaining, thanks to his hammy personality and Brian Cox's vibrant performance.
Magnificent Bastard: James Earl Cash himself committed an unknown crime that landed him on death row. A callous, nearly emotionless killing machine, Cash is "rescued" from execution by Starkweather and forced to become the new "star" of his latest snuff film, violently but efficiently killing his way through waves of murderous gangs with both brute strength and cunning stealth. Enraged upon seeing his family murdered after he'd just rescued them and then being double-crossed by Starkweather, Cash swears revenge upon the depraved director, protecting a journalist from corrupt cops so she can release dirt on Starkweather in case he doesn't survive the night. Infiltrating Starkweather's mansion, Cash stealthily butchers the director's heavily armed mercenaries and lures the deranged, chainsaw-wielding cannibal Piggsy to his death before personally bringing Starkweather's life and his snuff ring to a deservedly gruesome end, ultimately getting away scot-free and undetected, and starting a construction business.
Moment of Awesome: Really, just Cash's entire one-man assault on Starkweather's mansion. Here's a guy who has spent a night picking off petty street gangs, dim-witted white supremacists that live in a junkyard, criminally insane inmates, crazed militiamen and Vietnam vets, pedophiles and Satanist junkies, and he finally ends the night single-handedly slashing and shooting his way through trained and heavily-armed mercenaries before taking on a deranged pig-masked man with a chainsaw while Starkweather cowers in his office, knowing that he is royally fucked.
It wouldn't be far off to say that Starkweather was past this point before he stole Cash away from his death to become his new "star". But what really does it for the player, as well as Cash himself, is when he had Cash's family butchered on film after all the effort he went through to rescue them.
In the sequel, Leo crosses this before the game's events when he uses Daniel's body to kill his wife.
The second game's use of Your Head A-Splode reaches ridiculous levels, and about half of the game's weapons have at least one execution resulting in most of the hunter's head vanishing. Even a flashlight will tear a head apart.
Some of the Pervs lines can come more across as hilarious than disturbing, given that one of them can come across as a Cloud Cuckoolander who thinks that Daniel Lamb is his lover instead of the Depraved Homosexual he was intended to be, and another's rape-y threat of "The Slimy Walrus is going to lick you up and down!" can be extremely hilarious due to it being an unintentional case of Crosses the Line Twice due to how ridiculous it sounds.
The fact that the Innocentz consist out of pedophiles and Satanists who are all addicted to drugs can come across as this, given that it can feel that the developers were trying too hard to be edgy.
Piggsy is a very terrifying character when he's not saying anything or while he's squealing in pure animalistic fury. However, whenever he actually does talk, he loses a lot of his menace. His voice sounds goofy and his Hulk Speak just makes him out to be a dimwit rather than a raving psychopath who's lost all semblance of humanity.
Even though they're deranged, pedophilic manchildren, one of the Babyfaces talks in a funny Simpleton Voice that gives the impression that you're being hunted down by Big the Cat.
The noise that comes with the "static" scene transitions in the second game sounds like a sped-up slide whistle. As if your character just slipped on a banana peel before brutally murdering someone.
Once Original, Now Common: This was one the most controversial games of its time, featuring a lot of brutal violence and disturbing content. However, younger gamers are unlikely to see that thanks to games made in the preceding years boasting even worse-looking violence with better graphics and just as much, if not more, edginess.
Overshadowed by Controversy: Both games had gathered mixed reviews, damning the gore but praising the atmosphere. Yet politicians bring this up as an example of a "murder simulator", and one murder incident led to a public outcry in Britain, which normally never censors a game, and shops there were hesitant to sell the game until it was proven the game wasn't to blame and the perpetrator never played itnote the victim, in fact, owned a copy.
If you wear a headset while you're playing the original title, any sound that you make into it can induce noise in-game. This literally allows you to lure hunters to kill them, but the inverse is also true: If you're hiding in the shadows, you must physically remain quiet.
One of the lesser known facts about Deliverance is that Piggsy can find you in the shadows, he can sniff you out if you wait too long in the shadows.
Rated M for Money: "Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Use of Drugs." These are the content descriptors for the second game. The first game only had the first three. The second even had an AO ratingnote The highest rating available for the ESRB, which console manufacturers will not allow on their systems in the US!
The scariest thing about Lionel Starkweather, disregarding his massive power and influence over Carcer City, is arguably his behaviour and possessiveness towards Cash, which borders on a disturbingly realistic portrayal of an abusive relationship, as Lionel's only interest in Cash is to satisfy his sexual sadism and doesn't actually care for him at all aside from him using him to indulge in his fetish. There's also him ordering Cash's family to be killed so that he has nobody else to turn to except for Starkweather himself, due to Cash being a wanted criminal, which is also another frighteningly accurate depiction of how abusers force their victims to stay with them by isolating them from any positive influences.
The three scariest groups of hunters in the first game are arguably the Skinz, and the gangs that make up the Innocentz, the Skullyz and Babyfaces, given that they represent three very real horrors in the form of white supremacist gangs, drug cartels, and pedophiles.
Another horrifying thing about Starkweather is how much influence he has in the film industry to get away with his crimes. Just replace "snuff films" with "sexual misconduct," and you get the idea. It doesn't help that Starkweather bears a pretty good resemblance to Harvey Weinstein.
Scrappy Weapon: The shotgun with the tactical light attachment. While it has the same effect as the standard counterpart, the said attachment tends to give away players that are hiding in the shadows.
The final mission, Deliverance, remains one of the memorable levels in the game because of Piggsy, the morbidly obese cannibal who's only wearing the severed head of a pig as a mask as he wields a chainsaw. Many players and critics regard Piggsy as one of the scariest characters in the history of video games because it takes players out of the offensive and forces them to stay under Piggsy's radar in order to catch him off-guard and outwit him by tricking Piggsy into standing on a loose grate. The haunting music and dark claustrophobic environment also contribute to the fear factor of Deliverance and makes it clear you're in Piggsy's territory and not in control anymore.
The second game has the BDSM level, memorable for having a few hunters bordering on Narm and the Torture Cellar. When discussing the brutality of the series, many outlets will point to the execution there involving the chair.
As far as the executions in both games go, the most memorable are the ones involving the plastic bag. While ironically they are among the tamest in terms of violence and gore, they are considered to be among the most disturbing due to the realistic strangling animations and voice acting.
Cash watching the videotape of his family being killed by the Innocentz, followed by him knocking over the TV and Starkweather taunting him about it. For a ruthless killer who never displays emotion and even shows irritation towards his family when he rescues them, it's really sad to see him of all people break down the way he did.
Some of the Hunters' dialogue surprisingly falls under this. A member of the Skinz and the Smileys are revealed through dialogue to have been abused by their parents. Specifically, the Skinz member had a physically abusive father that he felt the need to impress, and the Smileys member's mother beat him for things as minor as losing his shoes. Then there's a Hood who has a family and will tell you as such to try and dissuade you from killing them. Unfortunately, you had to kill them in order to survive the bloodbath, though. And special mention goes to Barry, a Smiley who abused his wife, eventually murdering her and assuming her identity out of grief.
Manhunt 2 also features this, such as Daniel's Heroic BSoD when he realizes that Leo killed his wife. Even the canon ending also counts as well.
Graveyard Shift is a level that's one of the worst combat stages due to Cash initially starting with only a sawed-off shotgun and the game forcing you to trade bullets with entrenched enemies with revolvers that can hit you easily at a distance where it's random if the shotgun will hit them at all and in general the level forces you to fight enemies without actually giving you a decent chance to ambush them or get close meaning you are constantly getting shot with little to no means of mitigating damage.
Three words: Divided. They. Fall. First you have to kill a few Wardogs, then you're free to head into the apartment complex and save your game. But do you think it's all uphill from there? It's not. You have to hack and shoot your way through numerous Wardogs on the apartment's many floors, then when you reach the top, Ramirez will flee and call for backup, at which point you have about two minutes to kill him before he doesnoteYou won't fail the scene if you do, but you will likely need to kill his backup. And killing him — assuming you can't find him from the upper level and snipe him — entails going all the way back down, killing another batch of Wardogs, then killing his bodyguards and sneaking up behind him and shooting him in the back of the head (you can't execute him, because he'll just shove you off of him if you try). Oh, yeah, and that save point you get once you're in the apartment? That's the only other one you get. So if you die — and there's a good chance you will — you have to redo that whole process all over again. Have fun.
Not far off in regards to Divided They Fall is the level Wrong Side of the Tracks, which has you enter a subway station occupied by police searching for you. Entering the first hallway on your left has you walk right into the firing line of an Uzi wielding cop, who can quickly shred your health if you don't expect him and get a headshot in time. Moving on has you enter the train tracks, where you're introduced to a cutscene of the Swat Team rushing from the far end of the track ahead, and directly behind you from where you came from. Your only option is to run like hell and hide before you get caught in the pincer attack. Unfortunately, unless you saved the crowbar from the level before, you won't have a reliable way to quietly execute the SWAT, so trying to shoot one will instantly incur the wrath of the rest of the team, who can and will cut you down in seconds. To make matters worse, most of them come with flashlights on their shotguns, so hiding will eventually become futile once they're checking the shadows for you. Finally, there's another few squads worth of SWAT dead ahead who can't be ran past without a fight, so avoiding the ones that tried to ambush you and engaging the other squads will very likely end up with the squad you ran past rushing back in to shoot you in the back while you try to outgun the ones hold up.
Border Patrol and Key Personnel takes a step further regardless of which difficulty you're playing. The first one involves you trying to infiltrate into Starkweather's estate while you're out in the open trying to deal with the Cerberus. Aside from having only one save point just like Divided They Fall, there's no painkillers in fixed locations (they only spawn if you kill one of the mooks if your health is low enough). Upon reaching the snipers' nests and take them out, you'll proceed to Key Personnelwhere things get worse down there. The only good news is that there's an additional save point in either the main entrance or the second basement but you'll have to rely on camping or die trying. Once you slaughtered all remaining hunters and the Cerberus leader, you're off to take out Piggsy and Starkweather themselves in the last level, Deliverance.
Monkey See, Monkey Die is the hardest of the bonus scenes (as the two survival have no target score outside of a 30 kill score target for an trophy in the PSN re-release) as you're forced to get in shootouts exclusively with the inaccurate shotguns and sometimes without cover, it's pretty much a Luck-Based Mission as you don't even have the option of eventually using a more accurate handgun like in Graveyard Shift.
They Censored It, Now It Sucks: Manhunt 2 had heavy effects applied to the execution scenes that made it nearly impossible to see what's happening on-screen, since the unfiltered executions were so gruesome that they earned the game an AO (Adults Only) rating from the ESRB. This was actually necessary because video game console makers have a policy of not licensing AO-rated games for release on their consoles, which meant that leaving the scenes untouched would've effectively made the game unsellable. Gamers were not impressed with this (but hey, they got it uncut for the PC). And with hacking, even consoles have the uncut versions- there's ISOs floating around for Wii and PSP that have the blur turned off, and on PS2 it can be disabled with a GameShark/Action Replay code.
The Woobie: Daniel Lamb He was once a normal man who was desperate to support his family, who volunteered for a dangerous experiment to get money to pay off his debts. The result was having the alternate personality of a psychopath who caused a massacre that ended with the death of his wife. Spending the next few years in an asylum, he is pursued by his former boss and forced to kill to save his own life. Only to discover that the man he thought was his friend has been manipulating him from the beginning to gain control of his mind. And even though he is given the opportunity to start a new life, that doesn't change the fact that the poor guy lost everything he loved.
Unintentionally Unsympathetic: The civilians in Manhunt 2 due to game mechanics are literally just reskins of Hunters with different voice lines, this causes alot of their dialogue to fall flat considering how they're willing to charge and try to beat Danny/Leo to death even if they're unarmed as they just come off as Hunters with different voices lines especially since they often come out of their homes to attack Danny/Leo.
The 2019 Irish film:
Angst? What Angst?: Retroactively stemming from The Reveal. Michelle, Jono and Barry don't seem to show any awkwardness at attending a party for a child they know is born out of adultery, or that they've helped keep this secret. You could hand wave it by saying Jono and Barry (possibly Adam too) didn't know Sean was Tommy's child, just that he and Sarah got together.
Captain Obvious Reveal: The dirty secret between Tommy and Sarah is easy to telegraph, given that other characters repeatedly slut shame Sarah. Sure enough, Sean is Tommy's son. Having that as the killer's motivation was however quite unexpected.
Designated Hero: Tommy is a massive dick to everyone, spends a good portion of his screentime glaring or giving everyone a Kubrick Stare, and slept with his best friend's wife. The fact that he claims to be suffering from depression makes him a little more sympathetic, but still you're not sad to see him go.
Growing the Beard: Many commentors noted how this happened between The Lads and this - with improved production values and direction, as well as a more challenging story.
Helena McInerney as the mother of Eddie in the prologue - who still goes Mama Bear on him and tells him to get to safety.
Jono barely has any screen time, but Ian Adams is definitely having a good time being a shameless dick that he makes an impression.
Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: All the characters are screwed up in some way, and the protagonist is a massive tool (see below), so it can be hard to care if they live or die. Sarah is probably the most likable of the lot and even she cheated on her husband and raised the resulting child as his.
We're meant to see Adam as a Dirty Coward for leaving Michelle to die and hitting Sarah during their argument. A combination of James McClean's performance and Adam displaying legitimate Friendship Moments otherwise in the film - he comforts Michelle when Jono is found dead, defends her when Tommy snaps at her, and at the start is at least trying to be a supportive friend to Tommy - makes him seem less like the Asshole Victim than probably intended. Thankfully he gets a Dying Moment of Awesome.
Michelle is meant to be seen as The Load for that one moment where she stops walking and says she needs a drink. Admittedly a silly demand, but a perfectly reasonable reaction considering the circumstances. Tommy's response is to yell and manhandle her.
Some fans feel this about Eddie, given his extremely sympathetic backstory - having recovered from trauma that would make anyone snap...only to discover his wife and best friend had an affair and the boy he'd been raising as his son for years wasn't even his. The fact that none of the friends express sympathy or regret for keeping the secret adds to it.
The Woobie: Sarah wakes up separated from her husband and son, and has to see her friends slaughtered in front of her - with no idea if the former two are safe or even alive at all. The fact that she committed adultery and tried to raise Sean as Eddie's child makes her a little less sympathetic but she still seems to suffer the most out of all the characters.
from the second game is pretty dark, but counts as this.