Why These 7 Video Game Horror Movie Adaptations Actually Work

Sure, the first of Paul W.S. Anderson's many Resident Evil movies may not exactly be lore-accurate, but it does a pretty damn good job at capturing the tone of Capcom's iconic zombie horror franchise in that it's cheesy (need we remind you that this is the same gaming series that had Chris Redfield punch a boulder and Leon Kennedy drop the iconic ‘bingo' line after fighting off hordes of infected villagers), gory and heavy on the late '90s/early 2000s vibes.

Milla Jovovich's amnesiac Alice may not be part of the Resident Evil game universe, but with her completely combat-inappropriate outfits she definitely wouldn't be out of place, whereas Michelle Rodriguez's badass Rain could easily match up to Jill Valentine and Ada Wong in the female fighter stakes. Speaking of the latter, the iconic Resident Evil laser room death scene even inspired a similar outcome in Capcom's Resident Evil 4: Separate Ways DLC, proving the movie's legitimacy in the Resi-verse.

We're obviously a little biased here as big fans of Heart Eyes director and FANGORIA Chainsaw Awards co-host Josh Ruben, butWerewolves Within is genuinely a fantastic video game adaptation that accurately nails both horror and comedy, an exceedingly hard feat, feeling like a lovably chaotic game night with buddies.

Based on the VR game by Red Storm Entertainment, in which players have to guess who among them is a lycanthrope intruder, Ruben and writer Mishna Wolff‘s Werewolves Within aces the feeling of small town paranoia by crafting an ensemble crew of fully fleshed-out characters, and making you feel like you're along with Sam Richardson's forest ranger Finn for the ride.

Much like Resident Evil, what this particular adaptation lacks in game accuracy it more than makes up for in capturing tone. Mari Asato's 2014 Gothic J-horror, also known as Gekijōban Zero, is based on Koei Tecmo's survival horror series Fatal Frame, specifically a spin-off novel titled Fatal Frame: A Curse Affecting Only Girls. 

As that title suggests, the Fatal Frame movie sees a group of students at an all-girls Catholic school haunted by what they believe is a curse spawned by kissing the photo of the person you have a crush on. Although the film lacks the game's central mechanic of capturing spirits with a camera, Asato's Fatal Frame has beauty in abundance, a haunting atmosphere, and themes of female and queer oppression and repression that are sadly all too relevant to this day.

Based on the side-scrolling game of the same name by Red Candle Games, John Hsu's 2019 horror Detention follows two students in 1960s Taiwan who become trapped in their rural high school after falling asleep in class. As the pair try to escape, they're faced with a hellish alternate reality full of monsters, and must discover the realities behind the school's dark past to survive.

Detention takes the gloomy, rainy vibes of the game and cranks them up to eleven, fleshing out the scares as it does so – set against the cultural backdrop of Taiwan's period of violent martial law, Detention‘s representation of real-life horrors rival the supernatural ones lurking within the Silent Hill-esque otherworld. The film works so well because this historical context never takes a back seat to the action, instead both working in harmony to create something truly creepy and contextually relevant.

While Christopher Gans' Return to Silent Hill was initially reported to be a direct adaptation of Konami's 2001 Silent Hill 2, his first foray into the foggy town with 2006's Silent Hill was a blend of the first three games in the psychological survival horror franchise. Gans and may have taken some liberties with the lore of the source material (us Silent Hill 2 nerds will be quick to remind you that Pyramid Head literally shouldn't exist in any game or film that doesn't feature James Sunderland), but Silent Hill accurately captures the lonely, mournful vibes that often accompany the horror of the series.

Thanks to the inclusion of Akira Yamaoka's masterful score, the truly nightmarish set and creature design (those nurses still freak us out to this day) and effective performances from Radha Mitchell, Laurie Holden, Alice Krige and Jodelle Ferland that evoke the campiness of the games' voice acting while still retaining emotional depth, Silent Hill is undoubtedly one of the best video game adaptations out there – maybe even THE best?

The Blumhouse team had a pretty daunting task ahead of them when they signed on for a film adaptation of Five Nights at Freddy's. Since the first game was released in 2014, the horror series quickly expanded with twelve main games (in one year nabbing a Guiness World Record for “most video game sequels released in a year”), plus a plethora of spin-offs, fan games, comic books, graphic novels, and even a cookbook, posing the question: how exactly do you please both lore-obsessed fans while introducing newcomers to the extensive universe of Fazbear and co.?

With Five Nights at Freddy's, director Emma Tammi did just that by focusing on what really made the point-and-click game so scary in the first place – those terrifying, yet oddly adorable, animatronics. Audiences clearly agreed, as Five Nights at Freddy's quickly became Blumhouse's highest-grossing release worldwide, with a sequel that might not have been a hit with critics, but still had hardcore fans turning up in drove.

On paper, creating a scary, compelling film adaptation of Exit 8 seems like an impossible task. After all, the walking simulator from Kotake Create features a nameless, faceless protagonist walking through a seemingly endless Tokyo subway station in pretty much total silence, looking for minor inaccuracies in the scenery to try and help them escape.

However, Genki Kawamura's adaptation, which was a hit at Cannes last year, not only makes the search for Exit 8 terrifying, but also crafts a compelling narrative for its central character who, thankfully, is much more fleshed out in the film. We won't say too much more, but just make sure not to miss Exit 8 when it hits theaters early next year via NEON!