My 10 Favorite Horror Game Music Videos by The Stupendium

The Stupendium is an enby British YouTuber whose main platform is performing songs about video games, in character. I love their clever wordplay and puns, puns, puns. They’re also massively talented at inhabiting different kinds of roles, imitating various accents (their American is nigh-flawless), and being super hot.

“Why Did I Say Okie Doki”

The game: Doki Doki Literature Club is the tale of a quartet of secretly unhinged high school girls who develop a destructive crush on the player.

Highlights: The animation is eerie and pretty sophisticated, capturing perfectly the look of the game.

Nostalgia factor: This is my first Stupendium song. My daughter played it for me way back in 2022 (which is when I started this listicle); we used to listen to her choice of music during what would otherwise be an interminable wait in the school parking lot while picking up my son.

“The Aftermath”

The game: Baldi’s Basics is a purposely crude parody of ’90s educational games; the player is menaced by mean faculty and students at school while trying to solve maths problems and find seven notebooks.

Highlights: This is the least catchy song in the listicle, but the cheesy graphics crack me up.

Cleverest rhyme scheme: “Running for sums takes stamina, actually/Now I see what they mean by a mathlete/Do I not need a pass from my family?/Calculus entered the hazardous category/Practicing math shouldn’t factor fatalities/Even the dastardly Janitor’s after me/[Janitor] SWEEP SWEEP SWEEP!/The massacre’s sanitary”

“The Toybox”

The game: Poppy Playtime concerns a toy factory employee dodging evil sentient playthings while solving the mystery of why all the staff disappeared.

Highlights: The set is impressive, as well as the giant Huggy Wuggy (the blue thing); The Stupendium’s performance as a childlike yet malevolent doll is inspired, especially the scene where there are five of them at once.

Cleverest rhyme scheme: “Cause we’re destined to be best friends/You and I/From the second you stepped in/You give me butterflies in my tummy/As my hugs mulch your intestines”

“Art of Darkness”

The game: Bendy and the Ink Machine involves a studio artist returning to his former place of work and finding that the animated characters (based on old-timey black and white cartoons) have gained sentience and are pretty miffed.

Highlights: The animation is wonderful, at times pleasantly reminiscent of the 1999 remake of House on Haunted Hill, and Stupes really shows off their skill for different voices.

Best pun: “Stationery should be stationary”

“Don’t Let the Bellhops Bite”

The game: In Dark Deception the player navigates through horror mazes, including a level set in a haunted hotel staffed by murder monkeys with knives for hands.

Highlights: The front desk clerk sounds an awful lot like Boris Karloff. Also, there’s a cameo by fellow YouTubers Random Encounters as ghosts:

Cleverest rhyme scheme: “Think twice before you use/That phone by the bed/Room service will cost you/An arm and a leg/And a torso, a stomach/A neck and a head/The menu’s sparse/But the staff’s well-fed/We’ll provide a device/That might help you find the/Shards you’ve been tasked with/And hide from the nightmares/But if you try to check the Tripadvisor/You’ll likely trip and die, sir/[Tripadvisor] Five stars! Never a survivor!”

“Tune Into the Madness” (with Dan Bull)

The game: Little Nightmares II involves two children navigating a supernatural realm of horrors, which includes TV-addicted zombie-ish creatures.

Highlights: This one has some of the most creepy imagery in the listicle. However, the Stupendium and Dan Bull are adorable together. Look at that chemistry!

Cleverest rhyme scheme: “Taking off the mask/My behaviour is erratic/Claiming to be sane/But I’m just asymptomatic”

“A Pizza the Action”

The game: Five Nights at Freddy’s: Security Breach is the eleventh installment of the haunted children’s pizza and terrifying animatronics goodtimery establishment; a young boy is trapped there, and has to avoid being murdered in the night.

Highlights: The game takes place in the ’80s, and the song as well as the video captures the silly hair band vibe perfectly, plus there’s a neat homage to Vincent Price’s monologue in “Thriller”.

Cleverest rhyme scheme: “Perhaps it’s your birthday?/Or your graduation?/We’re always the first place/For a celebration/Now maybe you’ve heard say/Of some violations/But it’s not since Thursday/We’ve had strangulations”

“Ad Infinitum”

The game: Deltarune concerns a trio of heroes out to save the world. Though it’s not technically classified as a horror game, I stand by TV Tropes when they say there is scary stuff. The character depicted in the video, Spamton, is a glitchy marionette/robot-thing with a decidedly loose grip on sanity. In one scene, he begs for help and then starts laughing hysterically.

Highlights: The sheer manic energy required to bring Spamton to life is awe-inspiring. I’m always down for a condemnation of ad-intensified consumerism (even when said condemnation is coming from a them with a limited-edition Stupendicoin).

Cleverest rhyme scheme: “But the fact is everybody’s gotta have it, gotta have it/Those who have it really have it/If you haven’t, well you’ve had it, couldn’t hack it/Now the haven’ts haven’t had it/And the haves are very glad it’s/Just the haven’ts that are lacking what they’re having/Now the ads have got the traffic/And we’ve grabbed your demographic/So you’re packing up your basket/Cos your dad has gotta have it/He’ll be sad if you don’t wrap it with a tag, it’ll be tragic/So you’re manically grabbing at the shelves amid the panic/Seems that everybody has it, man you really gotta have it/So you get it, you’re ecstatic, but a crackle in the static/And the it is out of fashion, just a fad, a piece of plastic/So you trash it then you get back in your car/Cos you don’t have it”

“Christmas in the Backrooms”

The game: In The Backrooms the player is tasked with escaping from a weird vintage office building with seemingly endless rooms and possibly dangerous creatures lurking.

Highlights: The video opens with distorted clips of commercials from the mid-’80s, revealing that the song is part of a Christmas special. The Stupendium’s corny crooning to the tune of “Holly Jolly Christmas” is spot-on.

Cleverest rhyme scheme: “Every level’s looking jolly/Hope you brought a lot of holly/There’s an infinite sprawl/Of different halls to deck–good golly!/Yes, escaping would be folly/Take a tip from me/That Santa Clause can’t fit/An exit door beneath the tree/So, hum to the thrum/Of the halogen lights/But don’t wonder/If you’re gonna see Santa tonight/Cause the chimney’s labyrinthine/And there’s infinite trees a’glistening/And there’s far too many hearths/For gift delivering right”

“Vault Number 76”

The game: Fallout 76 is the tale of the survivors of a nuclear war exiting the safety of their vault in order to reestablish a colony on the scorched earth left behind. This is another one not classified as a horror game per se, but this article says it’s scary!

Highlights: I put this one last because the song is quickly becoming my favorite. The theme of peoples’ inhumanity to people as a means to survive–becoming not only brutal but enjoying the brutality–is displayed to eerie effect.

Creepiest lyrics: “Who’d have thought the horrors of war could be awesome?/When chalking them up against the boredom/Before things were torched and/We’re forced to reform from assortments of morons/A quarter century’s quarrels laid dormant/Pip-Boys and torches/Blood in the porches/Squash clubs and potlucks/And nuclear launches/Setting the Scorched on my mother-in-law is/More fun than anything before the war was!”