The horror game genre has countless iconic antagonists that have scarred generations. Mr. X fromResident Evil 2marching through the corridors of Racoon City Police Department,Pyramid Headhaunting the streets ofSilent Hillwith his gigantic, rusty sword, and Necromorphs overrunning the Ishimura inDead Space.
All of these things have left indelible marks on countless gamers but one nightmare continues to go uncredited. Predating all of the above, one murderous monster ruled the jumpscare world, materializing out of nowhere to menace you just when you thought you were safe. This monster was known as Scissorman.
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Back in 1995, Hifumi Kono created the first entry in a point-and-click horror game series that would go on to have four entries. That series wasClock Tower. The first game made its debut on theSuper Famicomin Japan, swiftly followed by the 1996 edition of the game plus its sequel Clock Tower 2: The Struggle Within in 1998 forPlayStationinternationally.
The first game, released in Japan, is set in Norway and follows orphan Jennifer shortly after the Barrows family adopts her along with some other young girls from the same orphanage. The girls are brought to reclusive matriarch Susan Barrows’ mansion, colloquially nicknamed the Clock Tower, by Mary. Shortly after arriving, Mary leaves the girls alone to go find Simon Barrows but doesn’t return, prompting Jennifer to investigate. This sets off a chain of events that leaves at least one of the young girls dead and Jennifer fleeing through the mansion from Scissorman.
Scissorman is the demonic son of the Barrows, Bobby. One brother in a set of twins, Bobby is a deformed manifestation of pure evil who relentlessly chases Jennifer whilstwielding an unbelievably huge pair of scissors. Impressively he manages all this while basically dressed as Angus Young from AC/DC in a school uniform. Bobby’s twin brother Dan can also be found in the mansion, equally demonic but in a different, ‘gigantic purple nightmare flesh lump’ kind of way.
As Jennifer, you have to navigate the mansion, finding clues to the truth about the Barrows family and trying to discover a way to escape. It’s apoint-and-clickgame, you have to hunt around and interact with anything you find, which provides Scissorman with many opportunities to seemingly appear out of thin air and begin chasing you until you may evade him or get brutally murdered. You could enter a room and examine multiple different clues before clicking on a specific item could make Bobby Barrows jump out of a hiding place or crash through a door, razor-sharp scissors pointed right at your head.
There’s no sense of safety in Clock Tower. Unlike many point-and-click adventures of the era, you are actively being chased by a very real threat. As well as collecting clues to solve the mystery you have to find hiding places to evade the threat, even then you might not be safe.
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I was around 10 years old when Scissorman and the Clock Tower series first made it to UK shores. We didn’t get the original game for the Super Famicom, instead, the first Clock Tower game to reach us was what was billed as the sequel in Japan but was still titled Clock Tower. I vividly remember my dad playing it, with me watching and screaming my head off every five minutes. Scissorman’s appearances seemed impossible to predict, especially as a 10-year-old watching someone else play. Of course, once I was playing the game myself multiple playthroughs allowed me to figure out when and where Scissorman would appear, but knowing didn’t lessen the terror. I would just be casually guiding Jennifer down a beige corridor when suddenly out pops little Bobby Barrows intent on skewering me like a kebab. Even the cover art for the case freaked me out.
The first Clock Tower game that was released outside of Japan is also confusingly titled Clock Tower. While technically the sequel, it was the international audience’s introduction to the series. A year has passed and criminal psychology professor Helen has adopted Jennifer, and she is also undergoing treatment at the University of Oslo for her trauma at the hands of Scissorman. Horrific murders have begun happening again, and it seems that Jennifer’s worst fear has come true: Scissorman has returned.
The gameplay is the same as the original Clock Tower, with point-and-click elements and clue discoveries shaping the story. There are five playable characters you can control at different points, although your choices may impact which character you end up controlling. Most of the gameplay involves controlling Jennifer or Helen, although some short scenarios could see you in control of a local reporter or cop depending on choices made previously. Most importantly, Scissorman retains his nightmarish, supernatural stalker abilities and will simply pop up accompanied by screeching music and the steady, rhythmic sound of metal on metal as he brandishes his scissors in front of him.
It frequently feels like there is no escape from Bobby Barrows. If you hide in a toilet cubicle and wait, a top-down view shows Jennifer with her ear pressed to the door as she listens for the sound of his scissors to disappear. Assuming he is gone could lead you to throw open the door only to find him right outside waiting. Other times you could be fine. Sometimes you will have to figure out what you can use in the environment to slow the Scissorman down. One of my favorite examples of this is Jennifer picking up a fire extinguisher, blasting him in the face with it to buy some time, and then calmly placing it back in its stand before running off. Another is when Jennifer picks up something from a shelf and throws it at Scissorman, causing him to immediately turn tail and run away. It turns out she just lobbed a bottle of ammonia directly at his head.
There is a third game in the series which doesn’t involve Jennifer but does look into the origins of Scissorman by way of an ancient family of wardens tasked with time-traveling to prevent evil entities from entering our world. There are technically characters called Scissorman Ralph and his sister Scissorman Jemima, but they bear little resemblance to the Scissorman of the original, although they are linked to the same entity. Ralph and Jemima are dressed almost like harlequins and are a little more like anime villains than their silent predecessor. While they do still chase you around the environment, they lack the toe-curling terror that the original could provide, and Jemima’s frequent recitation of “Snippety snap!” is a real atmosphere killer.
The original Scissorman and Clock Tower games were deeply disturbing. The Giallo film genre influences are apparent. Giallo is a genre of Italian cinema that can encapsulate mystery or thriller elements with a heavy emphasis on psychological horror and often features supernatural elements. Kono explained that the atmosphere of Clock Tower was heavily inspired by the films of Dario Argento. This becomes even more apparent when you note that Jennifer is modeled after Jennifer Connelly as she was in Argento’s Phenomena.
The score that rises to a feverish crescendo whenever danger approaches, the unpredictability of the antagonist, and the supernatural elements of the story make Scissorman a truly harrowing video game enemy who deserves to be cutting up consoles today. In a landscape now dominated by survival horror games, a return to the point-and-click roots of the series would be a welcome change from the combat-heavy sea of supernatural horror that we have now. The idea of only being able to hide or run from a constant threat is much scarier to me than knowing I could take it out with a few bullets.
