YMMV / Who's Lila?

• Complete Monster: Lila herself is an Energy Being that feeds on despair and sorrow. Summoned to the world by Father Lawrence, Lila disposed of him, trapping him in another plane of existence, while she causes tragedies and pain to numerous humans, destroying their minds and lives, in big part because she enjoys it. Taking an interest in student William Clarke, she had him murder many animals, destroying his mind step by step, before she horribly killed Tanya Kennedy, the girl he fell in love with. Possessing William, Lila taunts and manipulates everyone she comes across, killing another girl, before, depending on the ending, framing Tanya's former boyfriend for her death or having William to "confess", dooming him to a life in prison. Talking with Detective Yu, Lila mocks and taunts him, tricking him into killing William, before she completely breaks Yu by revealing the "final piece of the puzzle".
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Certain expression you make as Will can be really unsettling to look at, especially when his expressions begin to involuntary move without the player's input. Other NPC characters' own expressions may also be just as unsettling in their own way.
  • Detective Fisher informing Will that they have found the remains of a female torso, who is revealed to be Tanya, in the trash near Will's apartment, which is then accompanied with a large, distorted, rumbling sound.
  • Upon encountering Strupnev, he decides to hunt you down out of jealousy due to his obsession towards Lila. Will is then forced to avoid being caught by him while navigating the factory. To be rid of Strupnev, Will lures him into a trap where The Empress resides inside a boiler, and causes his body to be destroyed as he gazes upon The Empress' true, abominable form.
  • Lila, the mysterious woman, is revealed to be a tulpa, who possesses her hosts and forces them to commit horrible deeds for her own amusement, and has taken poor Will as her most recent host.
• Nightmare Retardant: You can make Will's facial expressions so over the top and uncanny that it looks more hilarious than scary. What makes it even funnier is if you greatly exaggerate the right facial expression in certain scenes, the game will accept it as "sincere" no matter how ridiculous it looks.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: During the game's demo, the first time you hear about Tanya's disappearance has Will's face stretching into a large smile without the player's input, as the introduction to the mechanic where the player will need to hide Will's true emotions and the reveal that Will knows more than he's letting on. However, players had trouble understanding the situation, so a text-box noting that "Without you noticing, your face is stretching into a stupid grin" was added in the full game. While this did help with the tutorial, this drew complaints that the warning weakened the impact of the scene.
• The Woobie: William. He's an orphan who has had a traumatic upbringing with a father who abandoned him, a controlling mother who involved him in a cult, disliked and bullied by his peers, and was taken advantage of by a murderous and jealous entity.