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A dozen scary video games and ten amazing horror flicks to watch after playing them
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Brian Crecente
As we approached Halloween last year, I mentioned that I was fast approaching having watched 2,000 horror movies. You’ll be delighted (more likely horrified) to read that I’m now closing in on 2,150. Instead of doing the math to sort out how much time I spend watching these nail-biters, why don’t you check out this year’s pairings instead?
Since this is now the second time we’re doing this (I suppose that makes it an annual list), I decided to focus on games that have come out in the past year or so, and the great horror movies you should watch if you enjoyed them.
As with the first list, these selections aren’t meant to be one-to-one retellings. Though Until Dawn did get a movie remake this year. Instead, these are horror flicks that dwell in the same spooky settings, play with similar themes, or have comparable antagonists.
Alan Wake 2One of the best horror games of recent memory happens to also be a sequel to one of the best video games of 2010. Alan Wake 2 drops players neatly back into the story of best-selling novelist Alan Wake, who remains trapped in a shadowy alternate dimension. This time around, Wake tries to escape his complicated situation by writing his way out … with a horror story.
While the game hit back in 2023, it received two expansions last year: one in June and another in October. If you haven’t played them all yet, pick it up; you’re in for a treat.
I Saw the TV Glow (2024)
There are numerous possible pairings for this fantastic video game. Perhaps the most obvious is In the Mouth of Madness, but I thought players of Alan Wake 2 might be more into the surreal, trippy feel of the game than the blatant horror of a writer writing his own future.
I Saw the TV Glow is a must-see for fans of bizarre storytelling tinged with psychological horror. I don’t want to give anything away other than to say that I found it more enjoyable than director Jane Schoenbrun’s We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (2021).
Cronos: The New Dawn
Players take on the role of the Traveler in this Bloober Team-developed sci-fi survival horror game. In the third-person shooter, players must traverse a post-apocalyptic wasteland to find junction points that allow them to travel back in time, specifically to Poland in the ‘80s. Once there, the Traveler has to extract people who didn’t survive a cataclysmic event that turned some people into monstrous creatures known as Orphans. All of this is done at the behest of a faceless agency known as the Collective. Its story and effects deliver a gory greatest hits of some of the best sci-fi horror you’ve heard of or perhaps played over the past decade or so.
Sunshine (2007)
Sci-fi horror movies have a very specific flavor, and there are quite a few redeeming titles to check out among the list, including Event Horizon, Annihilation, Ash, and Life. There aren’t a lot of great one-to-one matches for the story of Cronos, but I personally love Sunshine as a wonderful horror romp about a spaceflung crew out to reignite the sun and save humanity. It has a bit of an Event Horizon vibe and was directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland.
Dead by Daylight: Sinister Grace
Dead by Daylight delivers excellent new chapters to its long-lived asymmetric, multiplayer horror survival game throughout each year. But what I love most about it is how the developers go to such lengths to ensure that the horrors from around the world make it into their game. The most recent is a doozy that explores Thailand’s horrifying Krasue.
Keeping to the game’s structure, players can take on the form of the chapter’s killer, in this case, a disembodied woman’s head that hunts its prey, its entrails dangling from its neck. The survivors, meanwhile, get one more potential victim in the form of Vee Boonyasak.
Inhuman Kiss (2019)
When this Thai movie about the hunt for a Krasue hit in 2019, it was so well received in the country that the movie became the Thai entry for Best International Feature Film at the 92nd Academy Awards. Running a bit more than two hours, and with an unusual plot structure for a typical horror movie, Inhuman Kiss is worth the viewing to see the climax the movie builds to and how things wrap up.
Dying Light: The Beast
What started out as downloadable content for Dying Light 2: Stay Human, The Beast took on a life of its own and was released to solid reviews earlier this year. The standalone game has players returning to the world of Dying Light 2 as the protagonist from the first game in the series. The game picks up with Kyle Crane escaping the clutches of the Baron after enduring 13 years of torture and experimentation. Crane takes to the zombie-filled world as a creature with a mix of zombie and human DNA. Even if you don’t enjoy the wildly exhilarating sensation of a good running jump kick, Dying Light: The Beast offers a chance to explore an open world reshaped by zombies.
28 Years Later (2025)
A return to the movie franchise that helped to reinvigorate the zombie horror genre, 28 Years Later arrives 23 years after 28 Days Later smashed onto the scene. I know, it’s a lot of numbers, but the math is worth it if only to see another creation from the minds of Danny Boyle and Alex Garland. In what is essentially a reboot of the franchise, the focus of this film is on a world that either remains in the grips of the Rage virus or has simply moved on. But, as with the original, there’s a deeper meaning to plumb from the depths of the gripping tale.
Grand Theft Auto V EnhancedClearly, GTA Online isn’t a horror game, but once a year, it certainly does a good job of dressing up as one. This year’s Halloween Haunts from developer Rockstar includes zombies in Cayo Perico Survival and Ludendorff Cemetery Survival, a Cthulhu-themed slasher mode that takes place in the confines of the Ramius submarine, as well as other weekly Halloween-themed modes, and the chance to take pictures of ghosts or UFOs.
V/H/S Halloween (2025)
The latest in this anthology franchise drops five new horror shorts just in time for Halloween, all threaded together with an odd tale of … diet soda? The premise of the V/H/S series of movies is that they’re all meant to be tales told through found footage, often discovered in a found tape with its own sordid tale. This time around, V/H/S drops the connecting tissue of a framing story and instead just splits one of the tales up into a series of interstitials. While I miss the meta theming of the framing device, I think this latest entry in the series is among the best.
SILENT HILL fIn a series first, Silent Hill f takes place in a Japanese town, rather than the eponymous setting of Silent Hill, Maine. The game follows high school student Hinako Shimizu as she explores the 1960s town of Ebisugaoka, which is suddenly shrouded in a thick fog.
The Howling Village (2019)
Takashi Shimizu is perhaps best known for his horrifying Ju-On movies. But he continues to turn out creepy creations. A relatively recent flick by him is The Howling Village, which focuses on a mysterious village and the curse that seems to afflict it.
The movie’s creepy backstory and setting are based on the Japanese urban legends about a tiny village lost in the Inunaki mountain pass that decided to reject the Constitution of Japan. Lots of real-world homicidal behavior is linked to visiting the village or the tunnel to it. The real Inunaki Village, though, was lost to time when a dam submerged the site in 1986. While the tunnel remains, it has been sealed off.
The Sinking City Remastered and The Sinking City 2While the original Sinking City (and its remaster) are both solidly action-adventure games, they are heavily inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft, with the player fighting off madness as he explores the flooding of a town in the 1920s. The sequel, though, is a survival horror game that takes place in another flooded city in the 1920s: Arkham.
Dagon (2001)
There are quite a few movies that either tap into the cosmic horror of Lovecraft or rip bits and pieces from his prolific works to deliver strange tales. But when it comes to direct adaptations, there are surprisingly few. Among the best, in my opinion, is Dagon, a film that essentially retells the horror of The Shadow Over Innsmouth, though borrowing the name of a different short story for its title.
This 2001 movie has it all: fishy people, an unsettling mystery, a small town, and—of course—a cosmic horror. It even throws in a crazy twist ending.
System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary RemasterIf you somehow missed playing System Shock 2 (don’t be embarrassed, I haven’t played it either), now is the perfect opportunity to revisit a game that many believe was the spiritual successor to Ken Levine’s BioShock. The remaster, released earlier this year, features cross-play and co-op multiplayer as well as support for mods and up to 144 FPS performance. That touch of modernity pairs nicely with the untouched original plot and gameplay, which has you awakening on a citadel station with amnesia, but knowing something has gone terribly wrong. Players explore the corridors of the derelict ship, the Von Braun, as they unravel the horrors of what happened to its crew.
Pandorum (2009)
As with System Shock 2, this movie opens with crew awakening on a spaceship from hibernation with partial amnesia. They know something has gone wrong, but not what. The Elysium is a sort of space ark carrying 60,000 people on a 123-year trip to colonize another planet. One of the many twists of the movie is that both crew members might also be suffering from something called pandorum, a disorder triggered by space travel and stress that causes psychosis. Much of the movie is the crew members exploring the vast ship and dealing with what they discover. While the film isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, I loved it. It’s directed by Christian Alvart, who would go on to direct Case 39, another dark, twisty horror flick you might want to check out.
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2The long-anticipated sequel to 2004’s Bloodlines, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 centers around the awakening of Phyre, an elder vampire, in 21st-century Seattle. Phyre has to navigate the modern world, maintain the secrecy of the Masquerade, and investigate a 100-year-old cold case. All while navigating the dangers of a city packed with power-hungry mortals, conniving vampires, and dangerous hunters
Sinners (2025)
It may not be my favorite vampire flick of all time, but this highly stylized film starring Michael B. Jordan as two brothers in 1930s Mississippi was certainly one of my favorite horror movies of 2025. I suppose you could try to apply the World of Darkness’ Masquerade—a promise among vampires not to reveal themselves—to the plot of the movie. But really, I’m not suggesting you watch this for its adherence to the tabletop RPG ruleset. I’m pairing this one up for its compelling storytelling, amazing music, and superb acting.
Vlad Circus: Descend into Madness and Vlad Circus: Curse of Asmodeus
Pixel-art meets horror in Vlad Circus: Descend into Madness as you point and click your way through the story behind a 1920s freak circus that burned to the ground. The game opens with you taking on the role of Oliver Mills, a traumatized clown from the circus, attending a reunion hosted by circus owner, Vlad Petrescu, who wants to reopen the circus. In the recently released prequel, Vlad Circus: Curse of Asmodeus, you see the story leading up to that fire as you play as Josef Petrescu, brother of the circus owner, and arsonist later sentenced to death for the fire. It’s a bewitching duo replete with grand storytelling and some lovely puzzles.
Hell House, LLC (2015)
Speaking of demons, fires, and attractions: Hell House, LLC and its sequels tell the story of a haunted attraction, the tragic malfunction that led to the death of 15, and the horrific reasons behind everything that happened that cursed opening night. This first installment in the series is the best of the bunch, but I enjoyed watching all four. Truly scary stuff.