Horror Movies You Didn't Realize Were Made Into Video Games
Horror movies have been thrilling audiences for decades. If there's one thing that moviegoers can't seem to get enough of, it's being scared by all manner of ghosts, monsters, and slashers. As it so happens, gamers apparently feel the same way, which is probably why so many horror movies have been adapted into video games.
You may have even played a few horror film-to-game adaptations, such as Blair Witch or Friday the 13th: The Game. You may have even played a few rounds of Dead By Daylight as horror movie icons like Michael Myers or Freddy Krueger. There are plenty of great horror games you should play during the spooky season, but there are just as many titles that you might have missed. The following games are a few of the lesser-known takes on popular horror franchises. Grab your chainsaws and don't forget to aim for the head; here are some horror movies you probably didn't realize were made into video games.
Land of the Dead: Road to Fiddler's Green
Land of the Dead is an interesting movie in its own right. The film's budget was the highest of horror legend George A. Romero's career, giving his zombie masterpiece an even grander sense of scale. Unfortunately, the video game adaptation of Land of the Dead was considerably less impressive.
Brainbox Games did have a few interesting ideas for Land of the Dead: Road to Fiddler's Green, such as telling a story that acted as a prequel to the film. Zombies in the game had different abilities, with some being able to use melee weapons and others that could explode into a deadly spray. While the team making the game clearly had a lot of love for the franchise, that passion ultimately did not translate into a well-loved game.
Road to Fiddler's Green received almost universally negative reviews. GameSpot's Alex Navarro wrote, "Regardless of whatever effort was sunk into this fool's errand, Land of the Dead is far and away one of the most atrocious gaming experiences to be found on the Xbox." Gamespot would later name Road to Fiddler's Green the worst game of 2005, killing it once and for all.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Bizarrely, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre for the Atari 2600 didn't put players in the role of the hapless teenagers trying to escape certain doom. Instead, the player character is Leatherface, the chainsaw-wielding maniac himself. While The Texas Chainsaw Massacre's crude graphics don't exactly convey a ton of gore, it's still kind of wild that a game from the '80s made the killer the star.
The game's manual paints an even grimmer picture, as it explains that the goal of the game is to cause as much harm as possible. The player scores 1,000 points for every time that Leatherface claims a victim. Every five victims will net Leatherface another can of gasoline, which extends his killing spree even further. The game ends when Leatherface runs out of gas.
Oh, and how would that "game over" be signified in the game, you may ask? Why, the screen would go black and a little girl would sneak up behind Leatherface and kick him in the butt, of course. The Atari adaptation is somehow the worst thing to happen to this franchise — yes, even worse than when Matthew McConaughey played the main villain of the fourth movie.
Predator: Concrete Jungle
The Predator series of films has always struck a balance between action and horror, and many of the games based on the character have followed that pattern. Aside from the long-running Aliens Vs. Predator series and 2020's Predator: Hunting Grounds, the titular monster also starred in 2005's more obscure Predator: Concrete Jungle.
Concrete Jungle allowed players to take control of a Predator while he retrieved his weaponry from a group of gangsters who stole it for themselves. The storyline took place over one hundred years, showing the main Predator becoming more of a threat as the game continued. Predator: Concrete Jungle also embraced the stealthier aspects of the character, delivering something akin to a hyper-violent Assassin's Creed.
As cool as that sounds, Concrete Jungle didn't quite work in execution. VideoGamer slammed the game's terrible camera system, which confusingly gave players four alternate vision modes (all of which were terrible). Meanwhile, IGN's Douglass C. Perry called the game out for its awkward controls, which made using the Predator's huge arsenal way clunkier than it should have been.
The Evil Dead series
The Evil Dead franchise has spawned multiple games over the years, bringing Ash Williams' battle against the Deadites to home consoles. 2000's Evil Dead: Hail to the King picked up eight years after the events of Army of Darkness and followed Ash as he battled his zombified doppleganger, Evil Ash. The sequel, A Fistful of Boomstick, took Ash on a journey through time in an attempt to destroy the Queen of the Deadites. Evil Dead: Regeneration acted as something of an alternate sequel that retconned the events of Army of Darkness and gave Ash a Deadite sidekick named Sam. Despite ignoring the third film, Regeneration otherwise maintained many of the horror-comedy elements of the series that fans love.
Perhaps most importantly, all three of these video games featured the voice talent of Bruce Campbell, reprising his role as Ash from the film series. While the (sadly canceled) television series Ash vs. Evil Dead eventually resurrected the films' storyline, these games were the closest thing fans had to genuine sequels for a long time. They're worth seeking out now, particularly A Fistful of Boomstick, which was praised by Bloody Disgusting for its "pretty damn awesome" story.