Horror Character - Scissorman
- Series: Clock Tower
- Companies: Sunsoft (IP owner), Human Entertainment (original developer; defunct), Capcom (Clock Tower 3), WayForward (2024 Remaster)
- First Appearance: Clock Tower (September 14th, 1995)
- Genres: Point-and-Click Adventure, Survival Horror
- Debut System: Super Famicom/SNES
Who is Scissorman, What is Clock Tower and Why He Deserves to Be In?
Scissorman is a reoccuring antagonist of the survival horror point-and-click adventure game series Clock Tower, in which he is a serial killer armed with a giant pair of scissor blades and often pursues his victims/prey before cutting them off. In the original game released in 1995,
Bobby Barrows is the twin brother of
Dan Barrows, relentlessly stalking a Norwegian teenager
Jennifer Simpson as she wanders around the
Barrows Mansion attempting to find her missing friends and investigate the family's demonic intentions after they were taken in by his mother
Mary, having devoured the right hand of her father
Walter, who assisted in his and Dan's severely deformed birth, kept alive thanks to a curse placed on the family.
Inspired by the Italian horror film director
Dario Argento's works (especially 1985's
Phenomena), Clock Tower has often been declared as a heavy influence of horror games for pioneering the survival horror genre before Resident Evil's release a few months later, also praised for its haunting atmosphere, graphics, story, unique gameplay and multiple endings. A updated version called "
Clock Tower: The First Fear" was released in 1997 for PlayStation, Microsoft Windows and WonderSwan, with full motion video scenes and improved graphics, alongside re-releases for the Wii and Wii U Virtual Console, and PlayStation 3 through the PlayStation Network, all exclusively in Japan.
The game has achieved a few sequels such as 1996's
Clock Tower 2 (or simply Clock Tower in international releases) in which five different playable characters attempt to survive the returning Scissorman and uncover the mystery behind his immortality, 1998's
Clock Tower II: The Struggle Within (or Ghost Head) where
Alyssa Hale tries to find out the secrets of her family's fate while being occasionally possessed by
Bates, and 2002's
Clock Tower 3 which focuses on
Alyssa Hamilton as she travels to the 1940s and 1960s to defeat evil spirits called Entities, being part of a family lineage of female warriors. It has two spiritual successors in the form of Capcom's
Haunting Ground and
NightCry from a IP's creator
Hifumi Kono (with Silent Hill's Masahiro Ito being the designer), and had
a film adaptation announced in 2006, but was soon presumably cancelled.
In July 2023, Limited Run Games announced
an enhanced version of the original SNES game for modern consoles (including Nintendo Switch) developed by WayForward, with new features like an animated opening, motion-comic cutscenes, save states, localized languages, a vocal song by Mary McGlynn (of Silent Hill fame) and many others, scheduled to be released internationally for the first time ever outside Japan this year.
What Would He Bring In and How He Plays?
Around Young Link's size and living up to his infamously feared name, Scissorman wields his signature large scissors as a melee weapon, capable of performing attacks like swinging, stabbing, cutting and snipping, maybe even leaping similarly to a pool scene and falling downwards with closed scissors like when he killed Anne
through the ceiling. Despite usually holding them with both hands, Bobby can perform actions like
climbing ladders while carrying it by only one. He may even have a unique grab animation where an opponent attempts to hold back his scissors by either pushing back with their hands or locking their own weapon, either strangling or impaling them for throws, based on Jennifer
struggling against him before being knocked on the floor.
For his special moves, Scissorman would be able to perform a strong scissor cut that can break shields when fully charged as he opens it wide (otherwise, he'll do quick snips that deal small flinching damage), vanishing before stabbing downwards to spike opponents beneath him (incorporating him appearing anywhere in random instances like a typical slasher), hiding
inside a wooden box before popping out for a counter attack when hit, sending a cursed doll (that resembles
Chinatsu Takano) as she runs forward while stabbing anyone,
a parrot that pesters an opponent which leaves them in a stunned state, dropping down a chandelier from few feet in front of him that'll be useful to get opponents off ledges, grabs onto the pole of a bladed pendulum as it swings in an arc for recoveries (inspired by one scene in Clock Tower 3) and throwing ham to summon
his starving father who gnaws upon pouncing on a sticked opponent.
Scissorman's Final Smash could either be a recreation of
the infamous car ending as an opponent escapes from the mansion in a generic 1980's car (though some has unique models like Blue Falcon and Morgana's bus form) and he leaps out from the backseat (instantly KO'ing at over 100%, with a "DEAD END" screen being shown alongside a Star KO scream when finishing the match), or summoning Dan Barrows from
a curtain as he jumps up to crush opponents and swings his arms around, dealing massive damage before vanishing away (unless he becomes an Assist Trophy).
For his animations, Bobby would showcase his playful behavior like
jumping up in joy (one of the taunts), cutting a mannequin's head off and watching cartoons on a TV set while
rocking in a chair (potential victory pose?).
His home stage would be the eponymous clock tower which is part of Barrows Mansion, complete with constantly moving hands that also function as platforms and a thunder storm as the hazard that also makes platforms wet and slippery, potentially with music even from Haunting Ground as well.
