Top 10 Scariest Jump Scares in Resident Evil Games

Welcome to WatchMojo and today we’ll be counting down our picks for the top 10 jump scare moments in the “Resident Evil” series.

For this list, we’re looking at the scariest moments across the “Resident Evil” video games.

Let us know in the comments which one made you jump out of your skin.

The second time you have to face Birkin in the remake is without a doubt one of the most memorable encounters with him. Once you’ve finally put the power back on in the sewers, Birkin will know exactly where you are, and he’ll make his presence apparent by punching his giant claw through the ceiling to grab you. He also manages to set the whole room on fire for good measure and paces around upstairs for quite a while until finding the door. After that, the only way out of the room is to go right past him. A tense and difficult battle is made even more frightening by Birkin assaulting you from above.

Leon is exploring yet another disgusting kitchen when he comes across something ominous: an oven slightly cleaner than everything else in the room. But before you can take in the horror of seeing something that isn’t totally rancid in a “Resident Evil” game, a flaming Ganado bursts out of the oven straight towards Leon. He’s pretty easy to kill, but only if you’re actually able to aim your gun – which you might not be able to during the adrenaline rush this moment will give you. Yeah, Leon; we want to know what the zombie was doing in there, too.

This location was added to the 2002 remake to ensure that the walk through the woods around the Spencer Mansion was just as spine-chilling as the rest of the game. Because it was new, even seasoned veterans of the first few games had no idea what to expect from the creepy cabin. But once inside, after you’ve navigated the entire, maze-like building, you’ll encounter Lisa Trevor when she knocks you unconscious with absolutely no warning. By far, Lisa is one of the freakiest monsters you’ll come across in the first game, and at this early point, you’re left with no option but to run away.

There’s no slow-burn in “Resident Evil 7”; you’re thrown into some of the game’s scariest parts right away as soon as Ethan is let loose in the Baker house. But though you might initially think you’ve given Jack the slip, you’ll be sorely mistaken. While running down a long hallway, Jack will bust through the wall right in front of you, forcing you to turn on your heels and head in the opposite direction. It’s terrifying, especially because you’re led to believe that Jack is behind you all the while – only for him to appear dead ahead wielding an enormous ax. And then he pursues Ethan relentlessly for the entirety of the first act.

It’s the moment we were all waiting for when the “Resident Evil 2” remake hit shelves in 2019: when would Leon and Claire first encounter Mr. X? Just as soon as a chopper crashes down into the wall of the RPD station, it would seem. In the original game, Mr. X is airdropped into the station from a different chopper and simply walks around the corner to greet the player. But in the remake, he lifts up the downed chopper and comes straight for you. It was particularly horrifying for all the new players the blockbuster remake attracted, who were taken even more by surprise. Mr. X provides no shortage of jump scares when he appears, but the first time is the more memorable.

The very first gameplay demo released for “Resident Evil Village” ended with a bang. After around half an hour of wandering through the small sections of Castle Dimitrescu, you’ll finally able to work out an escape plan once you find the courtyard key. The only thing standing between the lone maiden and freedom is, seemingly, one of the vampiric daughters in the main hallway. But once you get past her you’ll finally be greeted with Lady Dimitrescu herself when she pushes the doors open right as you’re unlocking them, grabbing and killing the maiden with her giant claws.

The first encounter with Mr. X comes a few hours into “Resident Evil 2” – but that’s not the case for the next game. The original “Resident Evil 3” was subtitled “Nemesis” because of Nemesis’s constant pursuit of Jill Valentine, and Capcom stuck to that for the remake. Nemesis arrives on the scene as soon as the game begins, destroying Jill’s apartment first and her entire apartment building second. It burns down and totally collapses, finally stopping Nemesis in his tracks – for a while, at least. He’s never too far away, and this explosive jump scare and chase sequence primes you to expect him around every corner.

If you thought Jack Baker was bad, wait until you meet his wife. Marguerite is a creepy character from the beginning, perhaps the creepiest of all the Bakers – which is saying something. But when you finally encounter her as an antagonist, things take a turn for the worse, somehow. Ethan thinks he’s defeated her pretty early on, only for her to mutate into a spider-like creature surrounded by swarms of insects. You finally see her in all her glory when she crashes through a boarded-up window at the top of the stairs, grabbing Ethan with her freaky new arms and forcing him to fight his way free.

You can totally miss this jump scare if you don’t shoot the water, which is exactly what the game tells you to do numerous times. But if you’re not put off by that, or if you’re achievement hunting, then you probably emptied Leon’s clip into the lake. When you do this, you come face to face with Del Lago, the giant, mutated salamander that lives in the lake and devours anybody who tries to cross it. Though you do see Del Lago kill someone before this happens, nothing prepares you for the speed and ferocity of the creature when it launches itself at Leon and eats him in one bite.

You don’t know true fear until you’ve walked through a hallway in the Spencer Mansion and had two dogs leap through the windows at you. The game’s prologue already showed the S.T.A.R.S. team getting harassed by dogs in the woods, but if you thought you were safe when you got inside, you were sorely mistaken. A dog shatters the window and starts pursuing you, only to be joined by a second dog as soon as you turn the corner. You’ve either got to fight the dogs or escape into the next room – and given how scared you’ll be and how annoying “Resident Evil” dogs are in general, you’ll definitely want to cut and run.