I know this is more marketing than science, but still pretty fun. Glad to see Hereditary and The Descent rank so high, I fucking love those two.

What is the startlingest* movie ever?

I’m playing through Bloodborne right now as part of my spooky games month gaming (because why not).

While it’s not Silent Hill scary, the Eldritch factor, lore, and atmosphere is eerie and really unsettling for me for some reason. There’s barely any music in the game except for main plot events. The visuals, however, is enough to probably induce nightmares.

It’s worth noting that many of Silent Hill’s ideas are borrowed from Lovecraft lore so having a game that lifts most of its lore from the source is doing a good job.

Also, I’m all about lore in games so it’s partly my fault. Playing the game as “that masochistic Demon’s/Dark Souls type game” would be entirely different.

Bloodborne is amazing. I think it's the most perfect Lovecraftian video game adaptation we will ever get, even though it's not literally based on Lovecraft.

It does the best I think I've ever seen a game do in terms of slowly ramping the Eldritch horror. Other great games like Silent Hill, Eternal Darkness, etc. tend to have abrupt "now shit is going crazy" moments, but Bloodborne sneaks it in through both the world design and clever things like insight.

It's one of those games I wish I could play for the first time again.

Y'know it's weird, I love Lovecraft and I love Silent Hill, but I never really drew a connection between the two.

One definite inspiration for SH, though, is a movie called "Jacob's Ladder". It's not similar plot-wise, but there is one particular scene in a hospital that is absolutely unmistakable.

Many of the gameplay elements take inspiration from that movie. The scene where Tim Robbin’s gets off the subway and can’t get outside because it’s been padlocked. Weird shaky people. The whole "am I dead or not" feeling.

The rituals and the religion/cult that the locals are involved in is Lovecraft. They expand on that lore in the sequels (the whole town is doomed for delving into the unknown).

I debating either getting Alien Isolation or the new Amnesia game for something similar. Any thoughts on those?

I haven’t played those, but my friends who played Amnesia like the new one

Alien Isolation goes on a bit long, but it's a fascinating premise.

My main memory is of trying to open a door, but pressing the wrong key and whacking it with a wrench instead, making an unholy metallic racket. I had an "oh shit" moment, and ran for a nearby office. I peeped out, to see the Alien standing where I had been a moment before, staring at the door. After a few seconds it scuttled off, out of sight.

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