* BreatherLevel: Midway through the asylum you come upon [[spoiler: Dr. Franklin's]] quarters which, turns out to be completely free until you find Alfred, who happened to mistook you for a zombie.
** There is another one in doctors' living quarters completely devoid of any threat but there are some unfortunate dead doctors which makes it [[NothingIsScarier rather eerie]].
* DemonicSpiders: Zombie cops. Due to them being enemy Barnies, they are freakishly accurate with their shots (also made worse by the fact that the player has no armor) and also wear armor and helmets, making them quite bullet-spongy. And they're also some of the most frequently encountered enemies in the trilogy.
** Soldiers as well, thanks to the aforementioned lack of armor, and confined spaces you tend to fight them in.
* {{Narm}}: It's no VideoGame/ResidentEvil level of Narm, but there's still enough to generally detract from the horror element. This is particularly prominent in the later episodes, where it ditches the SurvivalHorror of the first episode and go for B-Movie parody.
** When cyborg Franklin spots you on the other side of glass, his following line sounds more like he's throwing a temper tantrum than being genuinely distressed.
* NarmCharm: That being said the above mentioned {{Narm}} contributes to the game being wonderfully campy to many people; and really gives it the "70's B-Movie" charm that has made the mod so timeless.
* NightmareFuel: The original ''Half-Life'' already had a lot of scary moments, but ''They Hunger'' is straight up SurvivalHorror, with hordes of zombies and barely enough health and ammo to deal with even half the horde, often forcing you to rely on the [[EmergencyWeapon Umbrella]], of all things.
** Anytime you find yourself in a murky place where the regular zombies are idling around and you listen to the barrages of their continuous moans. It becomes really unsettling after a while. A special mention goes to the burnt asylum.
** It gets '''much worse''' in Episode 3, as you enter the empty farm fields and begin to hear those [[spoiler: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqkNcZn_ptg#t=35s hellish undead bull noises]], but none of them immediately appear and only serve as [[NothingIsScarier mental nightmare fodder]]... until you finally encounter them a bit later, and they are [[DemonicSpiders VERY TOUGH to take down]], not to mention they are [[LightningBruiser VERY FAST]], given their nature as bulls of course.]]
* NightmareRetardant:
** The standard zombies - they're meant to look malformed and drained of blood, but their pale faces and obvious lips instead make it look like they're wearing clown makeup.
** The Headcrabs as well, who are meant to be decapitated zombie heads but instead look like slightly recolored standard Headcrabs. Later revisions of the game managed to fix this by making them far creepier zombie heads on spider legs.
** A lot of the zombies' chants can come across as this, such as a high-pitched "Wow!" or the female zombies' "[[AccidentalInnuendo Mommy's hungry...]]"
* {{Squick}}: One of the few uninfected you come about is hiding in an outhouse. Inside the actual toilet part.
* SpecialEffectFailure:
** When [[spoiler: the Sheriff gives his speech to the zombies while the player watches, he is interrupted by the army, and vanishes quickly. ''Very quickly'' in fact; if you squint and watch the sheriff, he literally disappears out of nowhere on a millisecond when the first explosions hit the ground between the both of you. The flames of the explosions didn´t cover him up good enough]].
** The replacement for Headcrabs in the game are the decapitated heads of zombies, but basically boil down to a Headcrab with a face on top of it. Later revisions of the game, whether by the creators or fans often change them to something different, with ''VideoGame/SvenCoop'' (which the creators of the game helped with porting over) presenting them as heads on spider-like legs, complete with their own distinct model, the result of which is ''much'' more creepy.
* ThatOneBoss: The final boss. In the unpatched version of the mod, he simply has too much health. Literally, some people had to use cheats to get enough ammo to at least have a chance of taking him down.