Resident Evil 1. I saw bits and pieces of my older brother playing it on the PS1, but was too scared to watch very long. I remember the iconic opening up to the zombie looking over its shoulder and then standing up right in front of you.

I rented it years later for the Gamecube and tried to play it while my little brother watched. I was playing super slowly and wasting all my ammo on every zombie because I was so scared. I remember one part vividly, I was in the long hallway where you pick up the arrowhead and theres a zombie just around the corner. I could hear the zombie so I baited him down the hallway so I could shoot him from a distance. I started shooting when he was off-camera and coming towards me, and when he appeared at the bottom of the screen and his head rotting head being very large in the perpective, I said "woah look at his head" at the exact moment before I got a headshot and the zombies head exploded. Me and my brother were really shocked, so I just paused and quit out. That was enough resident evil for me.

More years later I got resident evil for the DS for cheap at EB games and it became the first game I ever beat repeatedly for different endings and faster times, eventually leading me to now say that horror is my favorite genre.

Also, I never got into Silent Hill as a kid but since playing them in recent years I think they perfectly encapsulate my love for that age of gaming and survival horror in general.

And The Evil Within 1 is the best survival-horror action game ever made. In all its extreme jankiness and difficulty. I did a challenge run of no keys, no upgrades, no cheese in the cheese spots, single segment, no dlcs items, AKUMU difficulty and got 5 deaths. Shit is hard.