Childhood Horror: The Legend of Zelda

We look at the top five creepiest creatures in the surprisingly scary non-horror video game franchise “The Legend of Zelda”.

I already know what you’re thinking, “The Legend of Zelda isn’t a horror franchise!”

While that is technically true, it doesn’t mean that it cannot create situations of paralyzing fear.

Not all of us, especially as children, begin our enslavement to the Horror genre with the most potent content. Like most things, the foundation for my love for horror was a gradual process. Although it may seem strange, The Legend of Zelda was instrumental in my eventual conversion to all things sinister.

Allow me to elaborate…

Simple as it may seem, The Legend of Zelda has quite an impressive lore behind it.

Though there are many timelines and reincarnations of characters, certain things remain constant: Link’s courage makes him our hero, Zelda is wise (and often our mission), and Gannon is powerful and evil. The land of Hyrule is constantly besieged by all manner of creatures from a dimension much darker and more terrifying than we can comprehend.

The world of light is so overrun with Lovecraftian fiends that only godly intervention can save them.

I have ranked five exceptional scary characters from the series and listed them here.

5. The Skull Kid’s Puppets (Twilight Princess)

Deep in the lost woods, we come across a child. In the darkness, he has nothing but a lantern, a horn, and a wicked grin on his face. Whenever he plays his instrument, wooden puppets with matching smiles descend from above. Their movements are rigid and stiff, moving with wooden joints as they circle our protagonist.

Wave upon wave of the creatures appear. The skull kid leads us deeper into the woods, towards our destination, summoning more and more puppets along the way.

At the end of the encounter, the child laughs and disappears into the forest, offering our character a chance to play again whenever they wish.

4. Redead (Throughout the Series)

Appearing most notably in place of the Hylian townsfolk after Gandondorf’s takeover of the sacred realm in Ocarina of Time, these lifeless husks watch with eyeless sockets, paralyzing our hero with fear until they jump onto his back to strange out his life with cold, dead hands, refusing to flinch for even a moment until they are slaughtered or victorious.

Even when they are defeated, their corpses do not evaporate like most enemies. They remain where they fall, waiting to be revitalized by some damnable power.

3. Calamity Ganon (Breath of the Wild)

Enshrouded in shadow and flame, this Lovecraftian spider creature uses a variety of melee weapons, including its own claws. The creature’s face is skeletal and demonic, being only the first form the King of Evil takes.

Calamity Ganon is similar to other characters throughout the series, such as Queen Gohma, but there is no doubt that Calamity Ganon’s personification is much more sinister as opposed to simply animalistic.

2. Mask of Majora (Majora’s mask)

Bright orange eyes mark the front of the mask. We are told throughout the game that it was used in blood sacrifices and horrific rituals.

For the majority of the game, it appears on the skull kid, causing him to jerk and twitch under its influence. It is obvious that the mask has great power that stems from the blackest of pits of hell. The extent of the mask’s sentience is unknown until it removes its wearer, removing the tentacles from the skull kid’s face before shaking him off and discarding it like garbage.

The side opposite the glowing eyes is nothing more than a fleshy wall dropping with tentacles that penetrate the face of the wearer, overtaking all of his senses and faculties to make them its own.

It is the embodiment of the devil itself, with the sole intention of destroying the land of the living.

Before I name the spookiest demon, I figured an ‘honorable mentions’ category would be fitting. There are just SO many amazing character concepts that it would be impossible to simply name five.

1. THE DEAD HAND (The Ocarina of Time)

There is NO REASON for any rated E game to have such a terrifying entity.

Appearing in only two locations, below the town well and within the shadow temple behind the Kakariko graveyard, this blob of bloody gray flesh waits in the shadows, surrounded by disembodied hands with blood-red claws. It refuses to show its face until our hero is restrained by one of its many detached appendages.

When it does arrive, it keeps its head out of sight until it is ready to bite, and when it does, it lowers its black, beady eyes and opens its cavernous mouth to form a bloody smile.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that this character gave me many nightmares as a child.

I have always loved the Zelda franchise, and it will always hold a special place in my heart. I am an author of creature horror, and I cannot deny the impact that the brand has had on me. That, in essence, is one of my favorite things about the genre of horror; it can be found anywhere.

Let me know your favorite Zelda creatures/characters in the comments below!