Sleazy grungy horror media

[wndrbr]

Hobos, junkies, serial killers, snuff film producers, organ harvesters, psychos, sexual deviants, Albanian human traffickers, and other fine gentlemen hiding in dirty alleyways ready to shank you in the liver. It's something we can all potentially encounter in real life. How come there aren't many horror games exploiting such settings?

Grit, grime, and urban decay. Basically I'm looking for something like this:

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[wndrbr]

SWAT4 and its spiritual successor Ready or Not come to mind. Both have their fair share of edgy and disturbing missions where you raid houses of crackheads, serial killers and even child pron distributors.

[wndrbr]

Butcher's Creek is an upcoming indie FPS/horror inspired by Manhunt and Condemned. You play as some guy who was captured by a gang of serial torturers, but managed to get free and now must defend himself using various improvised weapons.

[Gregz]

Your thread title is a bit misleading. Media in general, or games specifically? There are so many films that focus on this subject.

[asf]

shooting hobos gets boring after a while

[Oyster Sauce]

[Vergil]

8mm is a good movie and Nicholas Cage is an amazing once in a generation actor.

[wndrbr]

Your thread title is a bit misleading. Media in general, or games specifically? There are so many films that focus on this subject.

at first I wanted to ask for both, but then changed my mind and forgot to change the thread's title.

If you drop the action genre (i.e. Deathwish, Robocop, etc), then there aren't all that many films that tackle this theme tbh.

[wndrbr]

Found another game - 2Dark. Stealth-adventure game from the guy who created the original Alone in the Dark back in the early 90s. You play as a private investigator on a mission to rescue children abducted by a bunch of maniacs.

The description sounds pretty creepy and cool, but I just can't take this art style seriously

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[Irenaeus]

Found another game - 2Dark. Stealth-adventure game from the guy who created the original Alone in the Dark back in the early 90s. You play as a private investigator on a mission to rescue children abducted by a bunch of maniacs.

The description sounds pretty creepy and cool, but I just can't take this art style seriously

► Show Spoiler

Lol I was about to say the game looks awful with the weird big headed nigga (is that black power hair?) you are supposed to play. Overall, graphix too cute for the story.

[Nammu Archag]

would stuff like Silent Hill and Cry of Fear qualify?

If you drop the action genre (i.e. Deathwish, Robocop, etc), then there aren't all that many films that tackle this theme tbh.

Wouldn't a ton of modern crime dramas fall into the theme though? Something like True Detective S1 comes to mind

[wndrbr]

would stuff like Silent Hill and Cry of Fear qualify?

I like these games, but they are a bit too supernatural to fit the bill.

Wouldn't a ton of modern crime dramas fall into the theme though? Something like True Detective S1 comes to mind

...I guess, but a line was needed to be drawn somewhere, otherwise every crime thriller would fit.

[gerey]

Hard to find games focusing on urban decay - there's obvious stuff like Max Payne, Bloodlines and the like. Call of Cthulhu - both of them - fit if "modern" is not part of the requirement.

Vampire: Requiem with the second half of the game taking place in modern times, though it's not really horror.

There's Gloowood though it's set in the 19th century, or some simulacra of it.

Resident Evil 7 tries to emulate grungy, sleazy horror, but it's not urban decay.

[Nammu Archag]

I think some jrpg/rpgmaker games might fall into this category but can't remember any names off the top of my head, maybe one of the weebs here will know better

[Element]

Puppet Combo is probably what you're looking for. They make very low budget games and are packaged in ps1 era graphics, but they've gathered something of a cult status among horror aficionados.
Of the stuff I've played, Power Drill Massacre and The Night Ripper fit the bill. PWD I played years and years ago. First encounter with the maniac nearly gave me a heart attack. The low fidelity graphics add to the horror, imo.


Unfortunately they seem to keep a bunch of their games behind patreon. Between Steam and Itchio, they're missing a bunch of stuff that I've seen on youtube. Also keep in mind that their steam and itchio don't overlap and host only a portion of their games. Stay out of the House on steam might be worth a shot as well.

The first Outlast and especially the DLC - Whistleblower.
It's not quite the grimy sleazefest like PC's games, and it lacks the "urban" part of urban decay, but it does have a lot of psychos and serial killers. Set in an asylum for the criminally insane that's secretly conducting experiments on the inmates. Whistleblower is better than the base game, and has the more memorable antagonist.

[Nammu Archag]

Puppet Combo is probably what you're looking for. They make very low budget games and are packaged in ps1 era graphics, but they've gathered something of a cult status among horror aficionados.
Of the stuff I've played, Power Drill Massacre and The Night Ripper fit the bill. PWD I played years and years ago. First encounter with the maniac nearly gave me a heart attack. The low fidelity graphics add to the horror, imo.


Unfortunately they seem to keep a bunch of their games behind patreon. Between Steam and Itchio, they're missing a bunch of stuff that I've seen on youtube. Also keep in mind that their steam and itchio don't overlap and host only a portion of their games. Stay out of the House on steam might be worth a shot as well.

The first Outlast and especially the DLC - Whistleblower.
It's not quite the grimy sleazefest like PC's games, and it lacks the "urban" part of urban decay, but it does have a lot of psychos and serial killers. Set in an asylum for the criminally insane that's secretly conducting experiments on the inmates. Whistleblower is better than the base game, and has the more memorable antagonist.

This reminds me, games that you'd find on itch.io probably have a lot more titles that fits into this niche, I already see several just by filtering via psych-horror https://itch.io/games/top-rated/tag-psy ... cal-horror

[rusty_shackleford]

at first I wanted to ask for both, but then changed my mind and forgot to change the thread's title.

well, I'm answering for the original title
The Green Elephant

maybe not horror but it covers the rest

[Dead]

Hotline Miami is pretty sleazy from what I remember

[Element]

Just remembered : Welcome to the Game.
It's a series about deep web dark stuff as the player is trying to break very obscure puzzles whilst avoiding the attention of the freaks. I remember that it can get tedious. Also the dev is a weirdo iirc. Still, it has the urban decay and the psychos + deviants

[gerey]

This seems exactly what you're looking for @wndrbr, though I can't vouch for its quality.



It does look like the recent first-person Resident Evil games, only that you're fighting juggalos.

[Oldtimer]

If you are ready to dig deep into history, Phantasmagoria and Phantasmagoria 2 might be your thing. Also Conspiracy (aka KGB) was also pretty good, and was interestingly enough set in the USSR in 1991, when the country began to crumble.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KGB_(video_game)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantasma ... ideo_game)