The Sunday Scaries are upon us once again! Yes, as the weekend concludes, most of us feel an oncoming sense of anticipatory dread about the week ahead. Anxiety about work manifests itself into a feeling that’s known as the Sunday Scaries. However, we at Awards Radar are here to combat that, by taking back the name. Now, we want you think about a horror-centric piece on the site when you hear the term. So, let us continue on with another installment of the Awards Radar Sunday Scaries! Today, we’re looking at which horror video games we might see on the big screen next…
Horror video games have a notable pipeline to film, as many an adaptation has been mounted over the years. Often, they’re terrible. Sometimes, it’s the game that doesn’t support the movie version. Other times, there’s something like Silent Hill 2, a masterpiece, that gets turned into garbage like Return to Silent Hill. However, this weekend, Exit 8 opened in theaters, and is very good, easily taking the mantle of an upper echelon adaptation. That indie game became a strong indie flick, so now I got to thinking about other horror games that deserve to be adapted next.
As a reminder, this here is what I said earlier this year about Return to Silent Hill:
Silent Hill 2 is considered an all-timer of a video game, certainly on the Mount Rushmore of horror games. The Silent Hill cinematic franchise has never fully captured what the games do so well, but the first film especially was able to somewhat translate the atmosphere and vibes. That movie adapted the first game, but the next game was where it really all came together. So, an adaptation was probably inevitable, considering the potential within. Unfortunately, Return to Silent Hill is a complete misfire. It doesn’t work at all, paling in comparison to what the interactive version was able to pull off so successfully.
Return to Silent Hill is the worst film of the year so far. It’s early, but it it wouldn’t surprise me to find it hold the dishonor throughout 2026. The added insult is how this could certainly have been a good movie, or even a great one. Silent Hill 2 was revolutionary in how the plot was the focus of the game, as opposed to combat with an excuse of a plot. So, in theory, an adaptation should have a leg up. Instead, the shortcomings are made even more apparent.
On the flip side, here is what I said a few days ago about Exit 8:
Despite being reasonably knowledgable about video games, I’ll admit that The Exit 8 had snuck below my radar. A so-called “walking simulator” of sorts, it’s a genre of game I don’t always vibe with, but on occasion can become engrossed within. Firewatch, for example, I fell in love with. I say this bring up how I went into Exit 8, the adaptation of the game, without any clear expectations, beyond wondering how the spartan premise could be faithfully executed. Well, for (mostly) better and (occasionally) worse, this film has managed to do so. Just in terms of pulling it off, the movie has to be considered one of the more effective and successful video game adaptations we’ve seen to date.
Exit 8 takes the first person game and, while not expanding the world, finds the cinematic version of things. Once the premise settles in, it takes a bit to get on its wavelength, and on occasion, some restlessness sets in, but when this flick is firing on all cylinders, it’s hypnotic and unsettling, even if it does fall short of the greatness it manages to hint at. Still, if this seemed unfilmable, the filmmakers have found a way to prove that thought wrong.
So, this year alone, we have a classic game getting bundled when made into a movie, as well as a film that takes a presumably unfilmable premise and did something compelling. That means that the sky is the limit. We see cinematic games like Until Dawn become mediocre films, while classic franchises like Resident Evil (until Zach Cregger‘s take later on this year) go in a very different direction to become their own brand of mediocrity. If Return to Silent Hill is a roadmap for how not to do it, Exit 8 can be one for how to actually pull it off.
Here are eight video games/game franchises that could become solid scary movies:
Alan Wake (specifically Alan Wake 2)
Condemned: Criminal Origins
Dead Space
Evil Within (specifically Evil Within 2)
Left 4 Dead
Manhunt
Outlast
System Shock (specifically System Shock 2)
These all represent different types of horror, though they all do share the same quality in having scared gamers for years now. Dead Space especially could be a giant blockbuster style horror franchise, if done correctly. Something like Alan Wake, especially Alan Wake 2, is working off of David Lynch vibes in a way that both lends itself nicely to cinema, as well as presents its own challenges. Still, these are some options that should be on the table.
We’ll see if any of these games end up being adapted, and if they turn out to be any good, but the adaptations are not going to stop, that’s for sure. We can only hope that everyone involved starts taking the lessons of the few successful ones, while heeding the warnings of the many unsuccessful efforts. One can hope, right?
Stay tuned for another Sunday Scaries installment next week!