10 Horror Franchises That Should Be Turned Into Video Games

Wes Craven’s Scream franchise, which began back in 1996, has since produced four instalments, each building on the original concept. Increasingly self-reflexive, the series explores and scrutinises the conventions of the slasher genre, dissecting tropes whilst indulging in those tropes wholeheartedly. Last year, MTV produced a television show of the same name, which shifted the focus of the franchise from film conventions to TV.

With that in mind, I ask: why not use Scream as a vehicle for exploring the conventions of video games, or more specifically the conventions of survival horror? Until Dawn did something similar, but it was more of a tribute to slasher films, rather than a critique.

It was also particularly concerned with the nature of films, whereas a Scream game would emphasise the banalities of other games, such as Silent Hill, Dead Space and Resident Evil.

The Game: The setting would be an American high school, and the killer would be Ghost Face, but the game itself would task players with predicting survival horror tropes, and navigating their way through hostile situations accordingly.

The game would also draw attention to various limitations of the medium, such as quick time events, bosses always exposing their own weaknesses, characters having limited dialogue options, and certain areas being conveniently inaccessible for seemingly no reason.