Video games based on movies are a mixed bag, but horror cinema has proven to be a pretty fertile ground for game adaptations. Iconic villains from horror films, like Jason Voorhees and the xenomorph from the Alien franchise, translate beautifully into games. They can be even more terrifying in game form, because players are in their victims’ shoes.
From Alien: Isolation to Friday the 13th: The Game to Evil Dead: A Fistful of Boomstick, there have been plenty of great games adapted from horror movies. With more and more masterpieces entering the horror movie pantheon each year, there are a ton of scary movies with untapped adaptation potential.
10 Halloween
Technically, John Carpenter’s seminal horror masterpiece Halloween got a video game adaptation in 1983 for the Atari 2600, but in the wake of the 2018 reboot’s success, it’s due an update. A Halloween game’s gameplay could closely follow Until Dawn’s use of multilinear narratives and butterfly-effect decisions to translate the slasher genre into video game form.
Playing multiple teenagers who get targeted by Michael Myers on Halloween night across an open-world rendering of Haddonfield would be a delight for horror fans.
9 Mandy
The gonzo world of Panos Cosmatos’ Mandy is so immersive and thoroughly developed that it could work wonders as the setting of a horror game. The movie is a surreal trip in which a blood-drenched Nicolas Cage (at his Nicolas Cage-est) engages in drug-fueled fist fights and chainsaw duels on his way to brutally avenging his wife’s death.
Throughout the movie, Cage rotates through a cache of big, fun weapons and battles demon bikers and S&M monsters. This cult hit is crying out for a video game adaptation.
8 It
The Losers Club’s efforts to vanquish the titular supernatural foe in It would make an interesting video game, especially with the episodic structure of the story and abundance of spooky set pieces that could each form the basis of a level.
Pennywise could join the lexicon of great horror game villains alongside Vaas, Mr. X, Alma Wade, and Pyramid Head, especially if Bill Skarsgård returns to do the voice.
7 The Cabin In The Woods
In the same meta spirit as Scream, The Cabin in the Woods takes its titular trope to another level by revealing that an underground facility is secretly controlling all the clichéd events.
This world would make a fascinating setting for a video game, as players would have to not only contend with all kinds of monsters, but also uncover the conspiracy behind them.
6 Bone Tomahawk
Kurt Russell and his party encounter some backwoods cannibals on the frontier in Bone Tomahawk, S. Craig Zahler’s genre-bending gem that brings stomach-churning levels of gore to a traditional western story.
Western games with a horror bent like Red Dead Redemption’s Undead Nightmare expansion pack are always fun, and they’re in short supply. Bone Tomahawk is primed for a game adaptation.
5 The Descent
The genius thing about the premise of Neil Marshall’s The Descent is that the first half sets up one terrifying scenario, then the second half introduces an even more terrifying scenario on top of that.
A group of friends squeeze into a network of uncharted caves and get trapped in a cave-in. Then, in the pitch-black, they discover a race of bloodthirsty cave-dwelling mutants that want to feast on their flesh. This would make a petrifying video game.
4 Train To Busan
The visceral thrill-ride of Train to Busan is as much of an action movie as a horror movie, which would make it ideal to be turned into a video game that puts players on the titular transport.
The zombies in Train to Busan can sprint, so avoiding them in a video game would be more of a challenge than games with slow, shuffling, Romero-esque undead.
3 A Quiet Place
John Krasinski successfully shed his seemingly unbreakable tie to the role of Jim Halpert when he directed, co-wrote, and starred in A Quiet Place, one of the most popular and critically adored horror films of the past decade.
The movie’s post-apocalyptic setting, after an invasion by aliens who can’t see, but have hypersensitive hearing, would make a terrific foundation for a horror game.
2 Kill List
After a psychologically scarring experience at war, a soldier returns home and becomes a contract killer to get by. However, he unwittingly runs afoul of a sadistic cult and his life suddenly gets a whole lot worse.
Ben Wheatley’s Kill List is one of the most disturbing and unforgettable horror movies ever made. A video game version could be truly unsettling if it’s done right.
1 It Follows
The only thing scarier than watching Jay getting mercilessly pursued by the paranormal entity inextricably attached to her in It Follows would be getting mercilessly pursued by that entity yourself.
David Robert Mitchell’s movie is one of the most acclaimed horror films of the 21st century so far, but one common criticism is its inconsistent worldbuilding. A video game could fix that.