Thanks to III being the darkest entry in the franchise by a long shot, as well as the goriest, there's quite a bit of scary stuff to go around. The horror is especially amplified whenever FU shows up, to say nothing of some of the other villains.
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- FU's casual brutality is frightening to behold, as demonstrated when he orders Velvet Chair Girl to raze a city, and later killing off Damon's board of directors on a whim.
- Sylvia screaming in terror and curling up in the latter incident feels... wrong. Very wrong. She's usually unflappable in the face of other assassins' brutality, but FU's sheer callousness is too much, even for her.
- The murder of the President of the United States is quite horrific, as well. FU tells him to make an emergency press conference to let him introduce himself, and when the President (understandably) refuses, FU and Black Night Direction teleport inside his office and the prince rips his head off with a single hand.
- FU quickly makes a show of power when the US tries to nuke Utopiland in retribution for his magnicide, but FU grabs all three nukes with a single hand and throws them towards Moscow, completely destroying the Russian capital and decapitating another major country.
- He finishes his announcement by smashing the President's severed head against the camera, which is just all kinds of fucked up.
- Unlike previous Big Bads who only confront Travis at the end of the game, FU goes for Travis immediately after Mr. Blackhole's death. What ensues is a Curb-Stomp Battle that sees Travis defeated, Shinobu maimed, Badman DEAD, and Bad Girl crossing the Despair Event Horizon. Just how QUICKLY all this happens makes it clear that FU is the most dangerous, unhinged and downright ruthless enemy Travis has ever faced.
- Shinobu's scream when FU rips her arms off. Not even Travis cutting off her hand in the first game caused her to scream so hard.
- The move that defeated Travis was horrifying for its sheer simplicity: FU just kicked Travis in the torso, and he punched a hole through it without destroying his clothes. In a series filled with vivid and Bloody Hilarious deaths and injuries, something this comparatively subdued is EXTREMELY jarring.
- After Velvet Chair Girl commits suicide with poisoned wine from losing the musical chair game, Ohma goes insane with grief and rapidly grows in size. This would be bad enough, if it weren't for her visibly falling apart the weaker she gets in the ensuing boss fight. Not to mention that her beams are able to instantly kill Travis if he's hit.
- The ending is probably the worst of it, as well as utterly heartbreaking, due to Ohma being eyeless, melting and clearly traumatized at both the loss of her owner and her defeat at Travis' hand. The latter's cold expression as he Mercy Kills her is the cherry on top.
- Midori Midorikawa's stage borrows heavily from first-person horror games as you explore a deserted school filled only with mooks, most of whom are already dead, headless, and posed like mannequins in the classrooms. It's telling when the fights with the mooks that aren't dead is the least scary part of the stage.
- The surprising lack of Jump Scares almost makes the stage WORSE, especially if you were expecting them. The fact that the first-person perspective partially evokes Killer7 will definitely make anyone who'd played that game more than a little unnerved as they traverse through the school.
- The worst thing about this part of the game is easily the utterly hellish noise the last enemy of every Mook group makes. If that doesn't keep you up at night, nothing will.
- Henry officially returns near the end of the game... and with his re-introduction comes a veritable truckload of pure horror. To start with, he's now a vengeful, Ax-Crazy madman who may or may not be a demon instead of the aloof Foil to Travis he was portrayed as for the first two games. The fact that this might or might not be the REAL Henry just makes it even worse.
- To add fuel to the fire, he suddenly no longer has an Irish accent, and is voiced by someone completely different, which is WAY more unsettling than it has any right to be. Anyone used to Quinton Flynn's lovably roguish performance will definitely find this change quite off-putting, to say the least.
- While his boss fight is relatively straightforward, he ends up returning from getting cleaved in twain and bashed to death to kill Travis, his own brother. Oh, and when you try saving after the fight, he appears with multiple clones to murder Travis in a gruesomely disturbing way. The sight of Travis' bloody, decapitated head near the toilet right afterwards is arguably the most terrifying image in the series, and that's saying a LOT. It's only thanks to a little help from Deathman that Travis returns from the dead and Takashi Miike for getting him out of the grave.
- The theme for the fight
is fittingly ominous; it's composed of a subdued Drone of Dread, with synth instruments playing in the background and a faint orchestra over top of it all. It sets the mood INCREDIBLY well, due to Henry's mania and all the shocking reveals you've just seen. - The upper half of Henry CRAWLING OVER TO TRAVIS while screaming at him in a bloodthirsty rage just before the latter beats him into bloody paste is legitimately like something out of a horror movie. Travis screaming in terror/rage as he does the deed just seals the deal.
- The fact that Henry himself (or a clone of him) appears in the window not long before ambushing Travis is quite disturbing, as well.
- The theme for the fight
- After Damon successfully requests Henry to kill Travis, how does their encounter end? Henry walks out into heavy traffic and gets hit by a truck, and then gets mangled by all the other cars on the highway. The first hint that something is seriously wrong with him.
- Just before the final battles with FU and Damon, a horribly mutilated version of Henry, all bloody with the top of his head missing and a creepy grin on his face, meets with Damon one more time. It's unclear if that was the same Henry that ran into traffic, or the one that Travis brutally hacked to pieces earlier. Regardless, there's no way an ordinary human should be walking around and conducting business transactions in such a state.
- Then there's the fact that Henry claims that their father was a Serial Killer and that he tried to murder his children, including Travis's half-sister, the original Jeane, a memory he tried to repress by apparently fabricating a false memory that he was raised in Ireland by the Cooldown family. Just as unnervingly vague is how this memory resurfaced. Between Desperate Struggle and this game, he met with a being implied to be of extraterrestrial origin, that he ended up worshipping as a god. Evidently, his worship has become so strong that the future Jeane and Hunter reveal in the ending that he's allied himself with aliens in an intergalactic war. You'll probably be wondering just what the hell happened between Desperate Struggle and now to make him this way... and predictably enough, we never find out.
- The last stretch of the game with the fights against FU and Damon is, appropriately enough, scary as all hell.
- While it's undoubtedly thrilling, and one of the most satisfying moments in the game, if not the series, FU completely losing his shit and yelling death threats at Travis in a guttural, shrill voice is still very disturbing to watch, ESPECIALLY as his power builds and eyes form around his body. His body continues to warp as the battle goes on, and his sanity erodes further.
- FU's increasingly bizarre forms, in of themselves, make it clear that he is more of an Eldritch Abomination than his humanoid form suggests. He generates a sickly multicolored dark aura when angered, and can shrug off getting his head split in two. His first enraged transformation makes it clear that his crown is, in fact, a part of his body as it elongates, while also growing eyes all over his body. Finally, the ends of his limbs turn metallic and clawed, along with a bestial Primal Stance posture, making him look like some kind of an avian creature.
- The theme that plays during the first phase is VERY tense and fast-paced, coupled with an Ominous Pipe Organ for good measure. This accurately reflects both FU's shattered mental state and the generally climatic feel of the battle.
- His final form is a different level of freaky; FU turns from a vaguely humanoid alien into a flat dome covered in eyes and surfaces that can sprout gigantic limbs and an utterly terrifying deranged version of FU's head... and said head is prone to quickly popping out of the walls, while looking right at the player. You'll understandably be most likely rushing to finish things off, just so you don't have to look at this freak ever again.
- The theme that plays during the first phase
- Damon Riccitiello revealing his Game Face after killing FU, and promptly showing that he is every bit as crazy as his former best friend, if not worse; he started the events of the entire game over Travis beating him up, and nothing more. That's not just petty; it's NIGHTMARISHLY unhinged on a level few of the series' assassins even come close to reaching. It says something that Travis doesn't even bother to really point out, much less argue against Damon's utterly ridiculous motives; he basically just wants the fucker dead for all the shit he's caused.
- Said Game Face is among the game's, if not the SERIES', most terrifying looking faces. It looks like a shriveled up grape with bulging, They Live!-style eyes and wild green hair. It's such a nightmare-inducing face that you'll almost be glad when Damon starts ranting like a lunatic about why he caused everything.
- His death is, perhaps appropriately, quite startling: as he's dissolving into nothingness, a giant version of his head appears out of nowhere, screaming in a demonic sounding voice about how he doesn’t want to die. It's quite an effective last minute scare before the game wraps up.
