10 Most Underrated Horror Monsters In Video Games

Anyone who's been a gamer for any length of time will be able to recall at least one terrifying encounter with a monster. Whether it was the zombie bursting through the trapdoor in 1992's Alone in the Dark or being stalked by Resident Evil Village's malformed fetus-thing, video games have long delighted in assaulting their players with nightmares given digital flesh.

Many of these macabre creatures have gone down in video game folklore, but but for every Pyramid Head or Nemesis that receives their rightful recognition from the terrified masses, there is a horde of deserving monstrosities left languishing in the dark.

This list, then, aims to shine a light on some of the more overlooked members of gaming's bestiary of terrors, from suicidal ghosts to overwhelming kaiju. Naturally, most of the monsters covered here come from horror-focused games, but there are a couple of entrants who warranted their inclusion despite - or maybe because of - appearing in less overtly terrifying games. After all, few things are scarier than a nightmare creeping into where it's not supposed to belong.

And on that note...

...F**k the f**king Wallmaster and the wall it rode in on.

Ahem. Apologies for the salty language, but Wallmasters were the bane of many a nineties kid - specifically, those who played Ocarina of Time.

Ocarina may be the least scary game on this list, as you'd expect from a game rated E for Everyone. However, like all good children's stories, there's a dark undercurrent running through the whole experience. From the apocalyptic tone of the future timeline to the haunting shriek of a Redead, this is a game that clearly believed in the power of horror to tell it' story. And nowhere is that horror more apparent than in the Shadow Temple.

As the name implies, the Shadow Temple is the darkest of OoT's dungeons both literally and metaphorically. Amplifying the sense of dread felt within its walls are the dreaded Wallmasters - disembodied hands that fall from the sky to pluck the player and warp them back to the start of the dungeon. As a child, the anxiety induced by these b****ds was torturous. Tiptoeing around the dungeon, waiting for them to silently drop from the sky, was a special kind of fear that was only amplified by Link's agonized scream if one managed to catch him.

Wallmasters are very tame by today's standards - they've certainly been replaced as gaming's premier hand-based horrors by Elden Ring's Fingercreepers - but given how much anxiety they caused back in the day, they deserve their day in the sun. Even if it's only so we can see the creepy gits coming this time...