Even though The Legend of Zelda series doesn’t typically come to mind when you think of horror, I’m sure all fans of the series have noticed that these games have more than their fair share of creepy creatures.  In fact, whenever I think about scary enemies in video games, more often than not, my thoughts wander to the Zelda series and the many unearthly creatures Link must face.  But rather than simply list the creepiest enemies, why don’t I list five spooky denizens of Hyrule that stand out to me the most.  So let’s get started, in no particular order.

#1: The Creepiest Zelda Enemy: Dead Hand – What better enemy to start off with than the absolute creepiest enemy in the series, hands-down (pun definitely intended). If you want flat-out creepy nightmare fuel, then Dead Hand is your man…er, thing.  For anyone who has played Ocarina of Time, you’re probably starting to feel a shiver travel down your spine right about now.  As you may recall, this monstrosity must be faced not once, but twice, as a mini boss for both the Bottom of the Well as child Link and the Shadow Temple as adult Link.  I can just imagine Link’s relief at defeating this thing, only to travel seven years into the future and find that another one is lying in wait for him!

Video from Youtube User: The Red Mist is Coming.

In case you’re not familiar with this particular horror, Dead Hand resides in a room whose floors and walls are covered in skulls, which gives you a little insight into this thing’s diet.  And yet, he won’t show his ugly mug until you allow yourself to be grabbed by one of the hands sticking out of the ground atop unnaturally long arms.  After that, you are accosted by a pale, slow-moving mass possessing a long, thin neck, and, ugh, that face!  It defies description!  And to make matters worse, he bites.  This wound’s gonna get infected for sure….

#2: The Stuff of Nightmares: ReDeads – Okay, I know I already said that Dead Hand was nightmare fuel, and I still stand by my assessment that he is quite possibly the creepiest thing to have ever haunted Hyrule. Nevertheless, it is the shambling ReDeads that have given me many a nightmare.  These emaciated walking corpses are known for the piercing scream that paralyzes its victims.  What happens next when they catch you is…um, disturbing, to say the least.  Moving on…  While it was the Gibdos of Majora’s Mask that are to blame for my first and only scream-related death in the Zelda series (in case you didn’t know, the behavior of Gibdos is identical to that of the ReDeads), for some reason, it was only ReDeads that truly haunted me as a duckling.

My fear was so bad, a ReDead didn’t even need to see me to paralyze me with dread.  I remember countless times while playing Ocarina of Time, I would literally enter a room with ReDeads, only to turn back and cower in the doorway (I know Link can’t really cower, but I’m sure he was cowering on the inside!) until I could scrounge up the courage to run forth and unleash some mad Din’s Fire on their sorry hides.  It was a very real trial completing this game back then because the ReDeads terrified me so.  Not only did they frighten me in-game, but I was constantly terrorized by nightmares of these things, in dark catacombs or even in barren, post-apocalyptic wastelands.  And you know what, that second dream actually happened to me a week ago.  I guess my fear of ReDeads never really left me, huh?

#3: Most Surprising Creepy Foe: Blind the Thief – In all honesty, Blind doesn’t scare me to nearly the same capacity as those listed above. Even so, he always unsettled me enough that I thought he deserved a place in this list.  Now this guy is a bit less well-known, so let me explain.  In A Link to the Past for the SNES, there was a dungeon in the Dark World called…you know what, I honestly never knew the name, but the Internet is telling me that it is Thieves’ Town so…okay.  Thanks, the Internet.  So, in Thieves’ Town, you find a woman in a cell, and she asks you to take her outside.  Instead, for some reason I don’t recall, you disregard her request and lead her to this room with some light shining on the floor.  Walk into that light, and she’ll complain that it hurts her eyes.  And poof!  She turns into a bizarre monster and boss of this dungeon, whose head will leave its body and fly around on its own once you do enough damage.  Let me tell you, the first time I saw this really freaked me out.  Here I was, thinking I was helping yet another damsel in distress, and the light reveals her to be a hideous monster in disguise.  It gives me the creeps to know that thing was following me around all that time.  Shudder.

Video from Youtube User: Foxhound3857

#4: Aggravating and Spooky: Wallmasters – Wallmasters have been in the series for quite some time. I don’t know when they first appeared, but they were definitely around during Zelda’s SNES years, that’s for sure.  The name Wallmaster is deceiving, as these things don’t reside on the walls.  In fact, Ceilingmaster is really a more fitting name for them, but I guess that doesn’t sound as good.  (They also have a floor-dwelling counterpart called the, you guessed it, Floormaster.)  Either way, these are massive, rotten hands that enjoy dropping down on Link from above.  The only sign they are coming is a shadow and, in the case of their N64 appearances, an unsettling whooshing noise.  If you manage to avoid them, they return to the ceiling, or somewhere thereabouts, where they prepare to leap on you from above once again.  You can’t say they aren’t determined.  And even if you manage to kill them before they make their getaway, they usually come right back.

If you have the misfortune of being grabbed by them, well, sorry about your luck because they’ll return you to the dungeon’s entrance.  Which leads me to wonder, are Wallmasters actually malicious or simply troublemakers?  All I know is that these things are extremely annoying, and they are particularly problematic in the Skull Dungeon of A Link to the Past.  In this game, they are harder to avoid, and you can pretty much only spend a couple seconds going about your heroic duties before you must bail out from beneath this thing’s shadow yet again.  Isn’t that fun, progressing through a dungeon three seconds at a time?  Thank you, Wallmaster, it was not a pleasure working with you.

#5: Dolls and Puppets Are Always Creepy: Skull Kid’s Puppets – When I was devising this list, I knew that I simply couldn’t pass up the puppets that stalked us relentlessly in Twilight Princess. I remember this part of the game being quite bothersome, as you were forced to wander the forest’s confusing, maze-like paths as you tried to seek out Skull Kid.  As if that wasn’t annoying enough, the entire time you are pursued by a pack of perilous puppets.  (I love alliteration, even if I have a tendency to use it as a substitute for actually quality writing)  Running around in a dark, confusing forest is creepy enough without rickety, wooden puppets with gangly limbs floating around after you.  And even if you defeated them, a new bunch would soon appear to take their place.  Their spooky appearance, unnatural movements, and complete resolve to hunt you down was absolutely unsettling, to say the least, and they are probably some of the most unique of the creepy enemies on this list.

Video from Youtube User: Below Average Gamers

Well, that’s my list, but the Zelda series is full of creepy enemies, so I’m sure there are plenty more out there that remain undiscussed.  Which enemies do you think are the creepiest?  And which creepy enemies stand out to you as being the most unique?  Please let me know in the comments!

ReDuck, Fear My Paralyzing Quack!