Horror as a genre has existed for so long that it’s become obvious what characters in the genre need to do in order to escape a killer or a horde of zombies. This is why it’s always tense when horror characters do things that the audience knows are stupid, as it’s clear they’re not going to last long.
However, some characters manage to make level-headed decisions and still end up meeting a grim fate. These are characters that worked incredibly hard to stay alive and despite their best efforts they still managed to fall victim to the unfortunate circumstances they find themselves in.
7 Harry Mason (Silent Hill)
Harry is an interesting case, as he did everything right during the events of the first Silent Hill and managed to survive the ordeal. In the best ending, he managed to escape, saved a police officer caught up in the horror and left with a reborn version of his daughter.
However, while he made an effort to conceal both his and his daughter’s identities in order to stay hidden from the town’s cult, the horrors managed to catch up to him eventually. Seventeen years later in Silent Hill 3, while waiting for his daughter, now named Heather, to return home from the mall, he is unceremoniously killed while watching TV as part of a mission to lead Heather back to Silent Hill.
6 Oswald Mandus (Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs)
The protagonist of Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, Oswald Mandus, wakes up to find a grotesque machine hidden beneath his property, and severe amnesia over how it could have gotten there. Even more so, he discovers his route through the lower areas is guarded by hideous creatures known as Manpigs.
However, in his efforts he does manage to avoid the Manpigs and learn the truth about what’s going on. Sadly for Oswald, he was the creator of the machine, a device designed to feed all of humanity into to avoid two World Wars, and the only way to shut it all down is to sacrifice himself to it. While his efforts do save humanity, he doesn’t get to see this for himself.
5 Edward Roivas (Eternal Darkness)
Eternal Darkness begins with the death of Edward Roivas, leaving his granddaughter, Alex, to uncover what happened to him. As she soon discovers, he spent much of his life investigating the cosmic horrors threatening humanity by gathering tales of supernatural deaths across history and setting the stage for humanity to fight back.
However, he is soon killed off by a servant of one of the Ancients he’s fighting against. It is implied that he may have allowed this to happen to bring Alex into the picture and get her to complete his work for him. He does return as a ghost to motivate Alex, and his plan ultimately does succeed thanks to her efforts.
4 Kei Amakura (Fatal Frame 3)
The Manor of Sleep is a phenomenon in the world of Fatal Frame 3 where victims of grief are drawn into a supernatural mansion in their dreams. If they are lured all the way in, the ghosts residing in the mansion spirit them away forever, leaving only a pile of ash where their bodies once were in the real world.
Kei Amakura becomes mixed up in the phenomenon when his niece finds herself trapped in the Manor in her dreams. However, while he too gets drawn into the Manor, his approach is much more analytical than emotional, and he does everything he can to avoid too much conflict. This sadly doesn’t prevent him from being the only playable character who can die. In fact, the only way to prevent his death can only be done on a New Game Plus playthrough, which makes this extra rough for him.
3 Lee Everett (The Walking Dead)
As the protagonist of the first season of Telltale’s Walking Dead adaptation, Lee Everett is resourceful in a zombie apocalypse. He works for not only his survival but that of others, becoming a co-leader of a group of survivors and taking care of Clementine, a young child he met shortly after the outbreak. He consistently shows himself to make smart decisions in order to stay alive.
However, despite all his resourcefulness, he is taken by surprise in the final episode, getting bitten by a zombie who managed to sneak up on him. His fate is left up to the player, but neither option is good – either Clementine has to shoot him before he turns, or leave him to become a zombie.
2 Joel Miller (The Last of Us)
Joel is a survivor. After losing his daughter during the initial outbreak of the Cordyceps infection at the start of The Last of Us, he spends twenty years living a life of intense difficulty, doing whatever is necessary to stay alive. He’s successful at this too, carving out his own place in the world, even if he has to do some questionable things to achieve this. He is rewarded by the end of The Last of Us by finding a place at his brother’s fortified commune where he can begin to live a normal life again.
However, this proves short-lived, as the actions he took to stay alive lead to his own death in the second game. A woman named Abby arrives at the commune and kills Joel, taking revenge for him killing her father during the first game. This also happens in full view of his unofficial adopted daughter, Ellie, leading her to launch her own revenge mission.
1 Marvin Branagh (Resident Evil 2)
Marvin Branagh was a cop in Raccoon City when the T-Virus broke out and turned a significant portion of the public into zombies. Being a trained police officer served him well, as he manages to survive this outbreak mostly unscathed. That is, until either Leon or Claire find him in the police station, where it’s clear he has been bitten by a zombie.
It’s clear from the outset that he won’t survive his bite, and yet he continues to show the resourcefulness and pragmatism that kept him surviving as long as he had. He even urges the new arrivals to stay away from him as the virus begins to take its toll on him. Despite being a small role, Marvin is a beloved character simply because he didn’t deserve the fate he got.