The Creepiest Things You Can Find In Resident Evil Village

"Resident Evil Village" is the latest installment in Capcom's iconic survival-horror franchise. "Village" features a wider variety of environments than its direct predecessor, each with a themed antagonist, producing several different shades of horror. The game has a more action-oriented approach to survival horror as well, with a heavier emphasis on treasure collection, weapon customization, and combat in general, particularly when compared to "Resident Evil 7" (which the devs felt may have been too frightening).

The player once again adopts the role of Ethan Winters, now a distraught father searching for his abducted daughter, Rose. He finds himself in a village populated by seemingly supernatural horrors, ranging from garden variety werewolves and vampires to some really creepy enemies. Led by the mysterious Miranda, the lords of the village each command distinct powers and pawns. But the game's creep factor extends well beyond the immediate threats posed by enemies. Dark symbolism and disturbing set pieces suffuse the game's haunting environments.

Here is a countdown of the most disturbing finds in "Resident Evil Village."

While not everybody finds them frightening, those suffering from pediophobia will likely find the creepy collection of dolls in Beneviento's house more frightening than many subsequent scares. The clusters of pint-sized porcelain horrors are bad enough when completely stationary, but since this is a horror game, you can bet they don't stay that way.

The Beneviento House is one of the game's finest sequences, with gameplay that is primarily driven by puzzles as opposed to combat. Fairly early on, Ethan is stripped of all his weapons and forced to navigate the house unarmed. Given the game's narrative of a father searching for his baby daughter, there is a symbolic layer to the menagerie of dolls that helps the visuals hit the player on a whole other level. Every doll appears dead on the surface, but possesses the horrifying potential for life, which is a grim inversion of Ethan's quest to save his daughter.

Regardless of players' phobias, the dolls are one of the milder scares waiting in the Beneviento house, but more on that later.

Even though they are a somewhat predictable horror fixture, mutilated animals possess an inherent scare factor that simultaneously evokes systematic butchery and ritualistic sacrifice. The game does not wait long before assaulting players with macabre images of animal corpses, beginning with a darkly ironic murder of murdered crows. The player comes across them by flashlight as Ethan first makes his way into the village, and the scene is striking, with the black bodies and red blood starkly contrasting the surrounding snow.

Things only escalate from there. Around the village, severed goat heads hang from ropes, looking like the world's least appealing Christmas ornaments. Torn crow wings adorn the crests of many doors throughout the village. Other examples include beheaded horses, and more typical piles of bone, blood, and offal. Between its vampiric violence and needlessly slaughtered animals, "Resident Evil Village" puts on a clinic to claim the title of "Least Vegan-Friendly Video Game of 2021."

While animal corpses are gross, and doubtlessly tug at players' heartstrings, dead human bodies are the perhaps the most immediate visual shorthand for triggering fear. Again, in a horror game, players expect a high body count and some gruesome images, but some of the village décor really takes things up a notch. While wandering the hills and pathways leading to and from the village, players will occasionally encounter bodies that appear to be crucified, or lashed to planks and left to starve.

There is a second level of creepiness to this vaguely religious imagery. The various in-game texts, arcane symbols, and fervent prayers from the few surviving villagers suggest the place is gripped by frightening zealotry. It seems like the villagers engaged in all sorts of superstitious and sacrificial practices to try and please Mother Miranda. While there is no question that people were dying in the village before Ethan arrived, images like these make the player wonder who has the larger body count: the monsters, or the villagers?

As if to answer the previous question, the basement of Lady Dimistrescu's castle is literally flooded with blood. Again, players who suffer from a specific fear of blood will likely find this area particularly unpleasant to traverse, but it also hosts a nasty mechanical surprise as well. Vampires will periodically rise out of the blood to attack Ethan unexpectedly, occasionally waiting for him to pass by before popping up behind him.

This setting appears to be a reference to Erzsébet (or Elizabeth) Báthory, one of the world's most infamous lady serial killers. As explained by Medical Bag, Bathory, paired with Vlad the Impaler, served as an inspiration for Bram Stoker's "Dracula." The myth of bathing in virgin's blood to attain everlasting youth began with Báthory, who tortured and exsanguinated those who displeased her. While there is no way to know Báthory's exact body count, legend has it that she killed as many as 650 girls. This historical figure bears more than a passing resemblance to the breakout star of "Resident Evil 8," the alluring Lady Dimitrescu.

It is an old horror cliche, but the "bad advice on a scrap of paper scare" is always good for cultivating some quick dread. When Ethan Winters investigates a shack on the outskirts of the village, he will encounter a note that simply suggests the player "look out the window." Of course, this direction is right up there with investigating the strange noise in the basement, or going to take a look around outside by yourself. 

Those who take the advice at face value are in for an unpleasant surprise (warning, explicit language), even though they should really know better. But just because you know a scare is coming does not necessarily mean it is any less effective. Regardless of whether players take the bait and suffer the scare, the note is a clue for a quick and clever perspective puzzle.

Savvy horror survivalists who are looking to avoid the jump scare can circumvent it by waiting a few seconds with their weapon trained through the window, or by exiting the building and blasting the would-be boogeyman before it can get into position.

Even if you aren't afraid of dolls as a rule, the wooden autopsy mannequin in Beneviento's House is all kinds of unsettling. It is also a rare case where creepy and cool collide, as it is at the heart of one of the best puzzles in "Resident Evil 8." Just after the player is bereft of all their weaponry, they will find a life-sized doll on a table that hosts a number of disturbing and clever secrets. Players will need to detach limbs and remove bloody dressing, both of which conceal secret compartments.

One gets the sense that Ethan is not merely trying to escape, but in a way, he is also exhuming (and working through) the troubles in his marriage that related to his wife, Mia. The doll has several odd resemblances to Mia, including a gauze wrap across its breast and shoulder in an area that roughly corresponds to where Ethan first buried an axe in the possessed Mia's shoulder in "Resident Evil 7" (warning: clip is graphic).

Even though it is a common presence following Dimitrescu's Castle, doors bearing the 'unborn wing sigil' are the stuff of gothic nightmares. A fetus-like organism lays curled in a ring that is lined with severed crow wings. While players will likely acclimate to the sight given its frequency, the image never quite stops being disturbing, serving as a grim, extremely graphic reminder of Ethan's central quest.

Like the animal corpses, crucified bodies, and blood lake, the severed crow wings suggest an element of bloody, old world magic. And the fetus at the center of the sigil is an obvious representation of Ethan's missing daughter, Rose. Indeed, as players progress through the story, characters will make repeated references to Rose, and the sacrificial ritual that Mother Miranda plans on performing. 

If there is a unifying theme across "Resident Evil 8," it would probably be living through a parent's worst nightmare — and few nightmares are more traumatizing and bleak than complications relating to conception and birth.

As the player moves through the underground caverns in the village stronghold, they will come across a cracked tunnel providing a peek into what can only be described as a monster feeding ground. Dismembered bodies hang from the cave ceiling in the darkness, while vampires and lycan enemies crawl all over them, sucking and biting. The fact that Ethan is barely concealed within the tunnel also adds to the tension of the scene, as it feels like the player could be discovered at any moment. One gets the sense that if the vampires truly flooded the tunnel, he would have no hope against them, regardless of firepower.

The whole section has a distinctly insectoid feel to it, which is fitting as both the Baker family of "Resident Evil 7" and Dimitrescu's vampires have an affinity for buzzing bugs. The intensely claustrophobic sequence also recalls elements the classic spelunking horror film, 'The Descent,' though it is not as pronounced as some other modern video game homages to the movie.

All of Mother Miranda's lords are disgusting or disquieting in their own way, but Moreau is a truly lovecraftian horror: a bulbous, mutated wretch whose entire back looks like a tumor — which appears to be sporting tentacles. However, it is more likely that these extra appendages are advanced Cadou mutations.

Though referenced repeatedly in Moreau's diaries, the true nature of Cadou, which is the Romanian word for "gift," is unclear in the game's English translation. In the Japanese translation of Mother Miranda's diary, however, the presence of a certain kanji reveals that Cadou are nematodes — parasitic worms — that have been fed the same psychic mold as the Baker family in Resident Evil 7. So those are not tendrils exploding from Moreau's back, but enormous nematodes.

The scene where Moreau violently vomits dubious fluids is deeply gross. When Moreau allows the Cadou in his body to completely take control during his boss fight, he becomes almost comically disgusting.

The fourth lord chosen by Mother Miranda, Heisenberg, is a classic mad scientist type, manufacturing an army of biomechanical horrors in an enormous underground factory. While fairly standard fare for a "Resident Evil" title, this raw, utterly dehumanized presentation of human bodies feels like something new.

Interminable lines of limp bodies are dragged along rails like dry cleaning, criss-crossing the architecture. It doesn't help that many of these bodies will drop from their assembly line, or wake from sleep with a thirst for blood, and these metal-plated monstrosities don't go down without a hard fight, either. But it is the symbolism of the place that sticks with the player, as the mechanized, military aesthetic, paired with the sheer volume of death, has overtones that recall Nazi death camps. This setting and the native creatures have drawn heavy comparisons to the 2013 horror movie "Frankenstein's Army."

But there is another potential influence that also bears mention: the Japanese cyberpunk body-horror film, "Tetsuo the Iron Man." This cult classic tells the story of a man whose body is slowly being corrupted and overtaken by metal and machinery, similar to the way the Cadou parasites gradually corrupt the denizens of the village.

The game's ultimate McGuffins are too good to reveal without warning, in the sense that they are simultaneously tragic, disgusting, and emotionally traumatizing. Players who are intrigued should play a few minutes beyond finishing Lady Dimitrescu's Castle before reading further. Major spoilers are ahead.

The nature of the first flask is initially inscrutable. Its jaundiced fluid seems to glow in the dark, but Ethan cannot bear to take a closer look until Duke urges him to face the truth. Wiping away a film of filth, Ethan discovers that the flasks contain pieces of his daughter. While Ethan was knocked out and in transport, Rose was abducted and her body was divided into four flasks, which Mother Miranda distributed to her four lords. Fortunately, thanks to the signature blend of super-science found in the "Resident Evil" series, there is still hope for Rosemary Winters.

In hindsight, it is unclear why Miranda divides up Rose in the first place, as she needs to re-collect the flasks to perform her dark ritual. But who can fathom the mind of a mutated, shape-shifting serial killer controlled by psychic mold and nematodes?

After the players finish solving the autopsy doll puzzle in Beneviento's house, another hide-and-seek enemy is introduced, and it will likely stand out as one of the franchise's most disturbing monsters. Players return to the doll's table to find a long, pulsating, umbilical-cord-like strand of entrails leading through the house.

The pot of gold at the end of that gore-soaked rainbow is a massive, malformed fetus-like slug that coos, gurgles, and tries to devour the player. Even in a game with many standout spots of horror, the baby maze/boss-fight is one of the most terrifying. It is also the only boss monster that Ethan simply flees from instead of killing.

There is a great deal of symbolism in play as well, as the all-consuming baby monster could be mapped to a fear of losing one's individuality to parenthood. Or, given the baby's proximity to the autopsy doll resembling Mia, it could also be seen as the monster that "killed" Ethan's marriage.