Video games are filled to the brim with weird and creepy monsters, but if I had to narrow it down, humanoid creatures are probably my least favorite foe.  It could be the inherent creepiness of the uncanny valley, or it could just be that I don’t like facing off against something that either used to be human or isn’t human at all, but merely resembles one.

Take the Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise.  I…don’t actually find the vast majority of the animatronics to be particularly scary.  Fictional robots resembling animals don’t tend to bother me, and ironically enough, real-life animatronics that were never intended to be scary tend to freak me out far more than the ones we find in FNAF.  And then there are the Music Men of Security Breach (and FNAF 6, but I never played that one), which I already touched upon in my previous post.  I already don’t appreciate getting chased through vents, even on the best of days.  But when I turn around and discover that my pursuer has a hauntingly cartoonish human face, complete with a big pink nose, black eyes, and teeth that chomp up and down in a decidedly inhuman fashion, I just get a little creeped out, y’know.  And it doesn’t help that it has eight limbs like a spider and gloved hands holding cymbals like those creepy monkey toys! Oh, and there’s also DJ Music Man, as pictured below. He’s massive and can crawl on walls. I have no idea why he was made for kids.

My most dreaded video game monsters, however, have always been the ReDeads and Gibdos from The Legend of Zelda franchise.  Although I first encountered these undead monstrosities in A Link to the Past, they never really disturbed me until the Nintendo 64 entries into the franchise, Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask.  Their appearance alone is creepy enough.  ReDeads resemble emaciated corpses with black holes in place of their eyes and a mouth.  And Gibdos are basically ReDeads with mummy wrappings.  Based on their physical looks alone, however, this pair of creeps would probably remain as a spooky, but largely forgettable, entry in a long list of undead monsters.

The reason why ReDeads and Gibdos haunted my childhood, to the point of giving me actual nightmares, and blessed me with crippling terror that made certain parts of the game almost unplayable for me are the bone-chilling screams these things make, paired with their ability to paralyze you in place.  When this first happened, I had no idea that you could break free, and so I found myself trapped in a helpless panic as I watched the Gibdo shuffle slowly towards me until finally latching on and stealing all my hearts, one by one.

Yes, the manner in which these guys drain your health has long been the subject of jokes.  But let me tell you, everything leading up to that point is utter nightmare fuel!

Other examples include the twisted monstrosities present in Little Nightmares, such as a janitor with long, spindly arms and far too many elbows and a teacher with a disturbingly long neck.  I also was thrown into a panic way more times than I care to admit over the head crab-infected zombies in Half-Life 2.  It doesn’t matter if people insist it’s not a horror game.  Ravenholm petrified me, and I don’t care who knows it!

And seriously, I know that everyone says Slenderman is pretty overrated at this point, and…he kind of is.  But would you really not be at least a little unsettled if a faceless guy was stalking you through the woods?  I’d much rather encounter a bear or a rabid pack of wolves than get hunted by a humanoid entity that can teleport.  No matter how undeniably well-dressed he is.

Because let’s face it, in a world filled with creepy bugs and animals that could easily tear us limb from limb, it’s human beings that will always be the scariest thing out there.  And that includes anything that resembles us, as well.  And for me, when something looks human, but isn’t, that’s about as unsettling as monsters get.