The Inherent Silliness of Classic Survival Horror

Classic survival horror can be terrifying, tense, and brilliant.

It also can be very silly.

Silent Hill is probably one of the best examples of this bizarre contrast. While the series is steeped in dark imagery and psychological horror, its puzzles get a little weird. The supernatural elements explain some of them–if the world of the first Silent Hill is influenced by Alessa’s mind, for example, it makes sense that things significant to her will unlock doors–but even outside of the symbolic riddles, things are strange.

Just try to imagine one of Silent Hill 2‘s notoriously weird puzzles from a real-world perspective, rather than the context of a video game. As you’re exploring an apartment building, you happen to find a package of canned juice. Why on Earth would you pick it up, carry it upstairs, and toss it into the garbage chute? I mean, it’s great that doing so knocks an item you need for a puzzle down into the street… but why would you think to do that???

This is a can of light bulbs.
A CAN of LIGHT BULBS.

The sheer number of broken doors in Silent Hill have led to running jokes in the fandom about the town’s desperate need for a locksmith, and of course, Silent Hill 2 believes light bulbs come in a can.

Classic Resident Evil, meanwhile, doesn’t descend to the same levels of weirdness, but it doesn’t have the supernatural angle to justify its puzzles, either. Hand-waving it by saying the designer was insane only goes so far. Just think about the amount of work the average citizen of Raccoon City–or worse, a servant in the Spencer Mansion–has to do to get from one place to another.

I have a slight reference to this in my horror/comedy novella The Accidental Zombie, when George draws on his video game knowledge to deal with a zombie apocalypse and suggests they should have been picking up random objects in case they need them to unlock doors.

I also hope to one day write a parody about some poor businessman who can’t get into his office each morning until he finds a specific book, uses the medallion inside to open a closet where he’ll find the key to the basement, goes to the basement and solves a riddle…

More recent survival horror games, like Alien: Isolation (which I’m close to finishing at last) have attempted a more realistic approach to survival horror mechanics with more environmental puzzles–upgrading a plasma torch to get through different types of doors, for example.

Now, I love Alien: Isolation and its approach to survival horror. It’s fantastic. But still… there’s something to be said for those older, sillier puzzles.

What are some of your favorite bits of absurdity from the survival horror genre?