Categorisation of Successful Creatures

Here i identify themes and successful features of creatures from different franchises and try to relate them to the fears from my previous post.

This is the design for the Lying Figure from Silent Hill 2. It is a predominantly human creature, and is supposed to show a figure contorted in agony. It does this by joining the arms and head to the torso with thick sheets of skin, almost like a strait jacket.

Relating this back to the primary fears i explored in my previous post this creature is relevant to the fears of "Mutilation" by being a deformed human, though it shows no overtly agressive features. It also relates to "Loss of Autonomy" with its constricted movement and few limbs.

One of the gatherers from Amnesia: The Dark Descent. For the majority of the game you will never be this close to one of the monsters, but its physical appearance is still important. It has a long extended mouth and humanistic face, its body is that of a human but it is grotesquely proportioned.

Relating back to the 5 fears this one mainly applys to "Mutilation" as it both has the classic mutilated human shape, but also seems dangerous.

A Necromorph from Dead Space. Again a predominantly human shape, however this one has serious changes to its anatomy and looks far more dangerous that the previous examples. This is because of the spikes and extended limbs.

The Necromorph mostly relates to "Mutilation" because of its spikes and teeth. It could also be relevant to "Extinction" because of its inherant danger.

Scarlett from Silent Hill : Homecoming. After the development of Silent Hill moved out of Japan a lot of the character designs really went down hill, but this is one of the more succesful ones of the more recent games. It is based on a doll that has been possessed and has turned into a horrific representation of the girl it used to belong to. It has long extended limbs, and a strange posture simmilar to an insect. It still has some distinctly human elements such as the face and hands, but the head is misshapen.

This fits heavily into "Mutilation" as it looks dangerous and in pain.

The Thing. This is a very interesting monster, using parts of anatomy from both humans and animals combined to make somethign disturbing to look at, even though you cant really tell what it is your looking at. It has allot of elements of combining animal anatomy into creature design which is something id be interested in looking into.

Fits mostly into Mutilation because it is so grotesque and dangerous looking.

Regan from The Exorcist. Different from the others, she is scary because seh is something that is seen as non threatening acting in a very peculiar way. She is a child, seen as safe and unintimidating, but suddenly has a grotesque appearance and is acting agressively and insane.

From the five principal fears ive had a hard time categorising this one, but im going with "Mutilation" again because she poses a threat to your health, physically and shows mutialtion of the mind.

Common themes in creatures or characters to inspire fear in the viewer seem to be 

- Simmilarity to humans

-Combined anatomy with humans and animals

-Taking something that is seen as being safe and making it dangerous

-Stretching or contorting human anatomy to shapes it shouldnt be

-Making more aggresive creatures with growths or spikes