Mrs. McDonnell receives dire news; her young daughter Janie has fallen ill. She travels to the Catholic boarding school she's enrolled in to see her personally. But the school is mysteriously empty, inhabited only by a monstrous, bloodthirsty nun.
The more notes the player reads, the more it becomes clear that Janie was subjected to utterly inhumane conditions by the school's staff, reframing the simple slasher premise as a psychological journey through Mrs. McDonnell's guilt-ridden psyche.
Although first released in 2018, it received a huge content update in 2022, renewing interest in it. It also received a novelization in 2021. Has a character page here.
Nun Massacre shows examples of:
- The '50s: The novel confirms that Janie was enrolled in the school in early 1950s. This is likely a reference to how The Nun was set in 1952.
- Air-Vent Passageway: Like most survival horror games, the player navigates the map by crawling through air-vents. Unlike most horror games, however, the monster can follow you in.
- Ax-Crazy: The Nun runs around shrieking at the top of her lungs, stabbing everyone she sees.
- Boarding School of Horrors: St. Cecilia's Preparatory School is this in two ways. Mundanely speaking, its staff are emotionally, verbally, physically, and sexually abusive to its students. Supernaturally speaking, it's haunted by a murderous nun.
- Buried Alive: In one of the endings, Mrs. McDonnell buries herself alive in a crazed, guilt-ridden suicide attempt.
- Circus of Fear: The extra "Circus" level.
- Driven to Suicide: It's heavily implied Janie killed herself, unable to stomach the boarding school's abuse.
- And in one of the endings, her mother kills herself as well, unable to bear the guilt.
- Enemy-Detecting Radar
- Eye Scream: The Nun's eyes are gouged out.
- Giant Woman: As if a shrieking, eyeless, knife-wielding nun wasn't scary enough, this one looks about 7-8 feet tall!
- Hell Is That Noise: The Nun's harrowing screams and the accompanying alarm. To make matters worse, the Nun's scream is a recreation of one from a call allegedly used to train 911 dispatchers.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: There are two evil nuns: a supernatural serial killer and a completely mundane abuser. Can you guess which one is more detestable?
- Immune to Bullets: Shooting the Nun with a revolver simply scares her off for a while. She'll always come back.
- It Was a Dark and Stormy Night: The setting beyond the school.
- Kill It with Fire: The Nun is Immune to Bullets, so the only way to permanently kill her is with fire.
- Monster Clown: A notable aversion. Bongo the Clown isn't a creepy, malicious clown doll; it's all Mrs. McDonnell has left from her dead child. When Bongo forgives her, she's absolved of her guilt.
- Multiple Endings: There's four bad endings and precisely one good ending.
- Mrs. McDonnell succumbs to her insanity-inducing guilt and buries herself alive.
- Mrs. McDonnell overcomes her guilt by killing the Nun and being forgiven by Bongo the Clown.
- The player is trapped in a vent and attacked by a strange spiritual figure, possibly Janie's vengeful ghost.
- The Nun kills the player by vomiting acid onto them.
- The Nun kills the player by trapping them in a pit of barb wire.
- Novelization: Much like another Puppet Combo game, Babysitter Bloodbath, Nun Massacre received a book version.
- Nun Too Holy: Every nun depicted in the game is either a psychotic slasher villain or a cold-blooded child abuser.
- Ominous Visual Glitch: The monster in the Backrooms map is an ominous visual glitch.
- Or Was It a Dream?: The game is up for interpretation and full of symbolism, clearly inspired by the psychological horror of Silent Hill. The game's events could either be literal, or representation of Mrs. McDonnell's guilt for leaving her child in the hands of a sadistic abuser.
- Pedophile Priest: A rare female example. Mother Apollonia's abuse of Janie is sickly sexual in nature, forcing her to urinate her pants, walk around in public naked, smear feces all over herself, etc.
- Rule of Symbolism: The Nun is the embodiment of Mrs. McDonnell's guilt for enrolling her child in an abusive school (where she, perhaps, killed herself). Bongo the Clown, as Janie's favorite toy, represents her child. By killing the Nun and being forgiven by Bongo, Mrs. McDonnell has forgiven herself for her mistakes.
- Sensor Suspense: In the same way Silent Hill monsters are heralded by audio static, the Nun's presence is warned by visual static. You'd think this would make the game less scary by giving the monster's location away, but it makes it even scarier, knowing the Nun is close to you but not knowing exactly where.
- Sensory Abuse: Puppet Combo is already infamous for this, but Nun Massacre is the most egregious example by far. The Nun's jumpscare sound is utterly ear-splitting and unrelentingly blaring.
- Serial Killer: The Nun in the novel has a body-count of 60+, having butchered the entire school one-by-one.
- The Sociopath: Mother Apollonia's abuse far transcends typical Catholic strictness. She is downright demonic to poor Janie.
