Summary

• Schools are not always safe havens in horror games, as they can be transformed into dilapidated ruins haunted by ghosts and creatures.
• Yeondu High School features relentless ghosts and a menacing janitor, creating a labyrinth that is easy to get lost in.
• Greenwood High School morphs into a nightmare realm during Taiwan's White Terror period, testing players' nerves with horrifying monsters.

To some people, schools are a horrifying enough concept. The long hours, arduous lessons, harsh teachers, and the pressures for success. But such mundane settings are ripe for horror, as they are normally where people feel safe from monsters and danger.

Houses, medical facilities, and hotels have all been used to great effect in horror, transforming their ordinary corridors and rooms into dilapidated and eerie ruins that may be abandoned by people, but ghosts or other such creatures might still lurk there. The halls of learning have been utilized similarly, where people won't be learning algebra, but instead how to survive.

5 Yeondu High School (White Day: A Labyrinth Named School)

Labyrinthian in Name and Nature

• Platforms: PS4, PC, Android, iOS
• Released: September 5th, 2001
• Developers: Sonnori
• Genres: Survival Horror

Most know that to construct a building in a place known to have seen a lot of death is not the wisest decision, as it is practically inviting ghosts to terrorize those that inhabit the building. A school might be considered a safe building to construct, as people are only there during the day when ghosts are wont to appear only when it's dark. Yet, Yeoundu High School faces its fair share of trouble, specifically a fire in one of the classrooms responsible for the death of one student, adding another ghost to the undead legion.

Exploring any building after hours is frightening enough, but Yeondu High School is on another level. Ghosts and the unfriendly janitor both hunt down the player without mercy, and the many corridors and rooms are like one big labyrinth that is all too easy to get lost in, and back themselves into a corner with no hopes of escaping death. Never has there been a more appropriately named game.

4 St. Sybil High School (Outlast 2)

Flashbacks Take Place in a Dark and Eerie School

In the wilderness of Arizona, a pregnant teen was found dead, prompting investigative journalist Lynn and her assistant cameraman/husband Blake to look into the murder, traveling by helicopter to the approximate location where she was found. In typical horror game fashion, their investigation quickly goes awry. The copter crashes, Lynn is missing and the pilot is dead, leaving Blake to arm himself with his trusty camera and find his wife.

There is another side to the game to exploring the eerie rural villages, as occasionally, players will be dragged into flashbacks taking place in an abandoned school, where players will be relentlessly pursued by a demon. These flashbacks serve to reveal some important backstory elements, but they are also some of the more memorable and frightening segments of the game. The school serves as the perfect setting for this, as a demon patrolling a Catholic school is the perfect juxtaposition.

3 Heavenly Host Elementary School/The Nirvana (Corpse Party)

Though it is Angelic in Name, the School Itself is More Akin to Hell

What better location to gather with school friends and tell ghost stories than the school itself, which is what the students of Heavenly Host decide to do to celebrate their school's upcoming festival. After taking part in a ritual said to solidify the bonds of friendship, they are hit by an earthquake, teleporting them to Nirvana, the 'true' form of the school.

Even with its basic RPG Maker graphics, Heavenly Host manages to be a location full of terror and intrigue, with its dilapidated infrastructure and so many ghosts trapped in the moment of their death, condemned to eternal agony. The player knowing this could be the fate of their characters for one wrong choice, a single misstep, makes the exploration of this frightening school all the more tense. Every corner and door is a test of their bravery.

2 Greenwood High School (Detention)

A Normal Institute Morphs into a Nightmare Realm

Set during the White Terror period in Taiwan, students Wei and Ray find themselves embroiled in supernatural horror after they become trapped in Greenwood High during a typhoon that drove away every tutor and student from the campus. The deserted school is creepy enough to begin with, but in a nature similar to Silent Hill, the school changes into a nightmare scenario.

Playing as Ray, players will traverse through the school witnessing all manners of monsters that they have no defense against other than sneaking past unseen. Horrifying scenery such as the death of Wei is also used to test the players' nerves, as the game and its setting will continue to shock players. It could be a metaphor for the troubles students faced at that time period, but nevertheless, the terrifying Greenwood High will stick with players long after the credits roll.

1 Midwich Elementary School (Silent Hill)

One of The Most Iconic Locations in the Game

Silent Hill, to this day, continues to be lauded as one of the greatest and most influential horror games of all time, inspiring sequels and countless other franchises. The basis of the story seems rather simple, a man in search of his missing daughter, but nothing in the titular city could ever really be that simple.

A nightmarish version of the city often bubbles up to the surface with facets of twisted metal and bubbling flesh, popularizing the locations with monsters. Midwich Elementary is one such location, which is completely transformed during Harry's exploration. It houses memorable enemies such as the Grey Children which can be as equally eerie as they are annoying. The other world transformation the school goes through is bone-chilling and only makes the exploration that much more thrilling.