Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare is legendary in the pantheon of video game DLC, not just because of what it adds, but because of how it upends a tried, tested, and winning formula – and then tosses it into zombie terror. And as it turns out, having gruff John Marston deal with an onslaught of the undead is just as fun as having him get his revenge on his former gang.
But the so-called nightmare doesn't begin there. In fact, I'd even argue Undead Nightmare isn't even the best horror content to be found in Red Dead Redemption, despite its zombie hordes and apocalyptic horsemen. No, the best horror to be found in Rockstar's slant on the Old West takes place in a side mission cheekily named 'American Appetites.'
Bon Appetit
Red Dead Redemption on Switch transported me back in time to one of my favorite GTA moments
In this quest, Marston learns of some tragic disappearances that have occurred in the town of Armadillo, including a young boy and an unassuming wife, both of whom leave behind grieving families. Investigations in and around the area, eventually a landmark called Hanging Rock, lead to the discovery of body parts, scattered personal items and blood spatter. That is, until you meet a strange man named Randall Forrester, who claims that he's had his leg broken by a rough assailant. Tracking down the attacker and returning him, hogtied, to Randall will reveal that Randall was a cannibal all along and that the disappearances were the result of his hunger.
This can all be accomplished fairly early in the game, meaning that its macabre details serve to build atmosphere for what is to come. Whether or not this was planned at the time is up for debate, but it's also a perfect set-up for Red Dead Redemption 2, a game that doubled down on the horror elements of the first. In this moment, however, in its bare-bones depiction of loss and warped brutality, American Appetites might be the scariest thing that Red Dead Redemption has to offer, especially when you consider the historical relevance of it.
Coinciding with the folklore that would come from this era of history is a nasty through-line – stories of people getting lost in the frontier and beyond, forced into the unthinkable out of desperation, mental degradation or simple bad luck. One of the most famous of these tales is that of the Donner Party, in which a wagon train made up of multiple families and groups found themselves trapped in the Sierra Nevada mountains in 1846. There, snowbound and trapped by the treacherous conditions, some of the party wound up devouring the deceased to survive.
"But when compared to Randall Forrester, Marston looks like an angel."
Less famous, but perhaps even more gruesome is the evidence left behind by the "bloody" Bender family, who murdered unwitting travelers in early 1870s Kansas. Lurid whispers that mixed fact and rumor would become American West mythology – families desperately searching for their lost loved ones, a trap door underneath bludgeoned victims that deposited them in the cellar, and bodies buried in the orchard are among some of the more sinister accounts. These, along with many other real-life examples of inhumanity during this era show that American Appetites isn't just a dip into the horror genre amid rootin' tootin' cowboy antics and gunslinger drama, it's pretty much foundational.
Red Dead Redemption, along with its sequel (and even Undead Nightmare to an extent) center around the same theme: "What makes a good man?" You spend much of your time in these games trying to prove that you have some moral worth, or you at least lean into the idea that it's okay to be as awful as you want to be assuming the circumstances call for it. Many other characters around you make the same choices. Bravery or cowardice? Goodwill or bloodlust? Marston in particular, strong-armed by government agents to confront elements of his fugitive past, has to face this head-on.
But when compared to Randall Forrester, Marston looks like an angel. Though Forrester frames his crimes as fulfilling a simple need – "Man's gotta eat!" – his treachery makes it clear that he enjoys his brand of cruelty. More than any zombies to come or outsized displays of gruesome violence in this game and its sequel, this small tale of people getting swallowed up in the hills and then, quite literally, swallowed up by a psychopath is Red Dead's most effective display of horror. Monsters don't have to be final bosses or supernatural threats. Sometimes they're just a man of odd tastes, literally, leaving little piles of bones in the desert.
Here's a collection of games like Red Dead Redemption 2 to storm the old west with
