The Scary Stuff - Best and Worst?

This is a topic I've been considering for a while, just never got around to starting it

What is the best AND the worst (whatever) you've seen/played/read, and why?

Here are some examples:

Best Scary Book?
Worst Scary Book?

Best Scary Movie?
Worst Scary Movie?

Best Scary Casual Game?
Worst Scary Casual Game?

Best Scary Adventure?
Worst Scary Adventure?

Best Scary Game (other genre)?
Worst Scary Game (other genre)?

I'm short on time right now, but I can tell you the worst scary book I've ever read.

Worst Scary Book?  The Resort by Bentley Little.
I would call this book a psychological horror, not for the faint of heart. Some of the imagery is intense, crude, wild... and thoroughly disturbing.  I was so disgusted by some of what happened in this book that I can't believe I kept reading.  I think that it's only the "How in the WORLD are they going to get out of this?" feeling that kept me from putting it down and never finishing it.  *shudder*  It's not a BAD book, the writing is very good, but I hated it, for the reasons mentioned above.

Ooh good thread! I'm gonna have to think about my answers...

Same here, RM -- I'm sure I'll have more ideas as I think on it, but for now...

Best Scary Book? - Right offhand, I'll say Twilight Eyes by Dean Koontz.  Sometimes he's "on", and sometimes he's "off" with his writing, but I think this is one of his very best.  If you've never read it, you're in for a treat!  It's long, gripping, and altogether one I never wanted to put down!

Best Scary Movie? - I don't do a whole lot of scary movies.  I'm more into the psychological than I am gory-scary.  The Sixth Sense was completely awesome -- Suspenseful, interesting, chilling... and if you didn't have this movie ruined for you by some "well meaning" friend, it was even better!

Oooh, I'm going to have to think, too. Good thread, Genki!

For me, the Best Scariest Book would have to be "Pet Sematary" by Stephen King. I don't know why, but that book scared the living daylights out of me! I could not read it at night.

Absolutely no doubt, the Best Scariest Casual Game would be Shiver: Vanishing Hitchhiker. I have way too many Worst Scariest Casual Games, lol!

So far, the Best Scary Adventure would have to be Scratches.

I'm also adding my pick for the Best Psychologically Disturbing Game...MCF: Escape From Ravenhearst. Now, I know a lot of people did not like it & found it offensive and yes, there were some things we had to do I thought were juvenile, but gameplay-wise, it was fantastic!
And I knew the story wouldn't be a pretty fairytale, I mean, we're talking Charles Dalimar here. He's a serial killer & we all know that (from playing previous MCF games).
I have a devoted admiration for the BFG developers for the MCF games, ever since Return To Ravenhearst, a classic must-have for anyone's personal library of games. They definitely were never afraid of trying something new, whether it offended or not.
I don't know how this year's MCF will be (I know who the developer is). I'm just hoping it's good!

Best Psychologically Disturbing Game...MCF: Escape From Ravenhearst. Now, I know a lot of people did not like it & found it offensive and yes, there were some things we had to do I thought were juvenile, but gameplay-wise, it was fantastic!

I absolutely agree!  I could have done without the gross parts, but overall, I think it was an incredibly good game!  Even better if it had been straight adventure without any morphing (or hidden) items!  I played it twice back-to-back, and enjoyed it just as much the second time.

The "juvenile" scenes, I was LMAO, thinking, "Really? Are you kidding me, Devs?"

Never, ever in all my years of gaming, was I asked to perform those kinds of tasks! So, I had a good laugh over that!

djrum wrote: I don't know how this year's MCF will be (I know who the developer is). I'm just hoping it's good!

Oh dear - it's not ERS, is it?

I too found this game brilliantly done, but have never been able to finish it because I was grossed out every time I tried. And the sound track - arrh! It drove me nuts.

It is back in my 'current' folder though, because I want to have another go at it. I am tougher than I was last time

Elephant Games took over the development of this one, and it's called

Spoiler:

I like the graphics, even if they are all in purples~  Just do a google image search to see what I mean

MCF: RTR   I loved everything about it...even when I was grossed out.   I thought the morphing
objects replacing the HO's was brilliant.   It did scare me at times and made me laugh at others.
I need to replay it.

I played Dracula:  Path of the Dragon a few years ago.  That one made my heart skip
a beat a few times.
Scratches was another one...thank goodness it was a group play.  Nice to know I wasen't
alone in my fraidy cat game world.


Best Scary Movie.     I can think of two that for the times were scary and I lost
sleep.   Night of the Living Dead and later  Alien    



Books--I have read so many, I just cannot think right now of best and worst.

Although I remember reading the Alien  book by Alan Dean Foster and still being scared,
having seen the movie first.

I've only played a few "real" adventure games, and only one had a dark theme.  Still, it's one of my absolute FAVORITES!  Best scary Adventure - Nightmare Adventures: Witch's Prison.  What a pleasure it was to play this inspired game.  This was the VERY FIRST game by Ghost Ship, and they did a brilliant job!  The game is rife with humor, if you just take the time to click on EVERYTHING... multiple times.  Each time you click you'll get a different message.  Monty Python references?  Oh yes!  We have a shrubbery!   The humor does not distract from the serious nature of the storyline, and somehow, it even enhances it!  LOVE it!

Thanks, Genki. I took a look at the screen shots and even the beginning of the hour-long demo play. Didn't want to spoil things so didn't watch too long.

Is it wrong of me to say I'm a little wary of it being Elephant? They were a favorite dev but not now. I have to assume the newest MCF will probably have an animal helper, a dealbreaker for me.  
I didn't dare to look far enough into the demo.

Well, I didn't get offered the beta, and I don't dl the hacked betas, so I'm not sure.

It was being discussed at the Pub HERE if you want more info.  The responses varied from disappointment to joy, depending on who was posting   I haven't read the thread too closely, but I did see this:

Gingergal wrote:Black cat as your helper and also in the shop (like other E games) where you spend your english money collectables.

Definitely not, R-Mom. That's what I'm afraid of, too, the animal helpers.

Not that I have anything against them, but I feel we're being bombarded with cute little animal helpers and I'm getting a little tired/bored with the whole general theme.

It's almost like when certain developers started using real people in their games and we started seeing them popup in more & more games.
It's not a deal-breaker, and many times, it's done really well. But I prefer NO real people in my games.

I really don't like having live actors in my games, generally speaking, but I can appreciate a job well done.  MCF tends to do a bad job of blending the live actors with the rest of the graphics, whereas Infected: The Twin Vaccine did a very nice job of it.

Dark Dimensions, House of Wax had live actors.   The lip syncing was so bad that I found myself laughing.    The game itself was good.


The Diving Bell is one area I cannot access.  It always comes up as "Sorry, you do not have permission"
and I am already registered.

Yep, the lip syncing was horrible in DD: House of Wax!

IIRC, luvtoread, you & I were about the only ones who thought MCF: Shadow Lake wasn't all that bad, even though most of the reviews were scathing.
I demo'd Shadow Lake when it first came out (like I do every single MCF game!) and I wasn't too thrilled myself. I picked it up during a BOGO CE sale a few months later.

While there were quite a few things I didn't like: The useless SG, the floating cubes puzzles, the panoramic HO scenes, the annoying sound when accessing Inventory, the placing of pic fragments to charge them and Leah Thompson's over-emoting.
Despite all these things, I still liked it!

luvtoread wrote:The Diving Bell is one area I cannot access.  It always comes up as "Sorry, you do not have permission"
and I am already registered.

That is so weird!  You did not come up as a member awaiting validation, and yet your account was marked as validating.  No worries, being an admin there has its uses *grin*  You're all taken care of~

I have yet to play Shadow Lake.  I had a problem where about two inches of the image was cut off of the left side of my screen, and I gave up.  Now that that computer died and I have a different one, maybe it will work properly -- I haven't checked yet

Oh, yes, it is called Dark Dimensions: Wax Beauty not House of Wax, lol! Although I think House of
Wax was the original title.

djrum wrote:Oh, yes, it is called Dark Dimensions: Wax Beauty not House of Wax, lol! Although I think House of
Wax was the original title.

Well,  we do like making our own titles....how else would we remember games     

Yes, we do and I like our titles better! 

I think I joined the Diving Bell Pub a few years ago but - seriously! - it's too challenging for me to regularly post in more than one place. I try to visit other sites but that's why I almost always posted solely at Limp Fish... it was where I started and I was used to it (even though we were moderated to the hilt). 

Can I just say I'm so *not* excited to hear of the cat we have to dress up in the latest MCF. I think my love affair with them is OVER.

Okay, back to the subject at hand:

Best Scary Book? Probably something by Dean Koontz but I'm blanking on titles right now. It's been a while.
Worst Scary Book? Probably something by Stephen King, maybe It. (The story was fine but the lame-o ending destroyed it.)

Best Scary Movie?: I am a complete wuss, lol, but I love ghost stories and psychological horror. Blair Witch Project scared me, so did Session 9. Not as scary but certainly creepy fun on Halloween is The Skeleton Key (love that one!)

Worst Scary Movie?

Best Scary Casual Game? I don't find any casual games scary (you can't die in them!) but Shiver: Vanishing Hitchhiker has a certain suggestive ambience. Silence in a game can be very effective. MCF: RTR and MCF: Dire Grove were equally delightfully creepy. And Genki I see you enjoyed Witch's Prison too; that was one of my earliest casual downloads and I loved it! For cheesy thrills, I'd say Campfire Legends: Hookman was pretty sweet, as was Cruel Games: Red Riding Hood.
                                                
Worst Scary Casual Game?

Best Scary Adventure?  Maybe it will be Scratches. But when I was a young 'un I played Shivers II: Harvest of Souls (Sierra Games) for as long as I could last. I seriously LOVED this game - it had the most awesome mini-games and puzzles everywhere you turned but OMG it scared the crap outta me when I had to go into the underground caves to look for the whatever-it-was that lurked below and kept killing me. Sierra Games were famous for constantly killing players off, lol, but they were AWESOME. There was another cool old game I remember playing: Amber: Journeys Beyond. Didn't finish it because my computer crashed and was done but it was v-e-r-y creepy/ghosty, and I enjoyed it too.

Worst Scary Adventure?

Best Scary Game (other genre)?

Worst Scary Game (other genre)?

I looked up Shivers 2: Harves of Souls, and found it on Amazon for just over $6.50 (includes shipping  - see the link.)  It's Windows 95, and running in compatibility mode makes me nervous... I always worry that it won't work!   I'll be buying Scratches from Big Fish despite owning it on disk for just this reason!

Same kind of deal at Amazon for Amber: Journeys Beyond, except that this one is compatible up to Windows 98.

RM wrote:certainly creepy fun on Halloween is The Skeleton Key (love that one!)

Never heard of this movie!  Sounds like my kind of thing!

RM wrote:Best Scary Casual Game? I don't find any casual games scary (you can't die in them!) but Shiver: Vanishing Hitchhiker has a certain suggestive ambience. Silence in a game can be very effective. MCF: RTR and MCF: Dire Grove were equally delightfully creepy. And Genki I see you enjoyed Witch's Prison too; that was one of my earliest casual downloads and I loved it! For cheesy thrills, I'd say Campfire Legends: Hookman was pretty sweet, as was Cruel Games: Red Riding Hood.

I have and have played all of these except Hookman (which is loaded on my computer, just haven't played it, yet )

genki, GOG also has Scratches. I have this version and it has been tested on three PCs so far :laugh:XP and 2x Win7.

Best Scary Book? Voting for Dean Koontz too... I read quite a few books, but can't remember which one scared me the most. They were the most scary horror I've ever read, for sure. I don't really like King. Masterton, while disturbing, wasn't really making me see stuff in shadows... One of the more scary books were the one in which a demon/ghost haunted water in a house. I avoided bathroom at nights after it! No idea what it was called or who wrote it.
Worst Scary Book? Any so-called "horror" that transformed into slapstick gore fest. I read several of this type too... All borrowed from a library - can't remember titles!

Best Scary Movie? n/a
Worst Scary Movie? n/a not watching movies

Best Scary Casual Game? Shiver: Vanishing Hitchhiker. It had great ambient creepiness and a few jump scares. I usually play casual games at night and this was the only one that I was reluctant to start when it was dark. I remember I was exploring the upper floor of the house when it was midnight... Hmm :laugh:I wish there were more games of this type.
Worst Scary Casual Game? 90% of them. Is D&E supposed to be scary?

Best Scary Adventure? Scratches. A great example of ambient horror that can scare the living daylights out of people without blood and gore. Again, a unique gem...
Worst Scary Adventure? Dark Fall: The Journal. This game is way too... old and slow and vague and boring and uninspired and even if wandering around abandoned train station is creepy for the first two hours, it becomes only frustrating and not scary at all if you can't progress. The story also wasn't anything to be excited about.

Best Scary Game (other genre)? Does Amnesia: The Dark Descent belong to adventure above, or is it only for point and click adventure?
Worst Scary Game (other genre)? n/a