Warning: Essay post incoming, but perhaps worth a read for fans of survival horror.
Most of the Resident Evil games aren't scary in the slightest, and after a while, they just stopped trying. The series was already trying to be an action game with the wrong controls by Resident Evil 3. When Code Veronica rolled out, Capcom had gotten it into their heads (as only Japanese developers and Western comic book writers do) that people were actually interested in a huge, convoluted canon that runs head-first into the player's already thinly-stretched suspension of disbelief, and all pretences of horror were abandoned at the door of the University of Metal Gear Solid Plot Writing. Resident Evil 4 abandoned the batshit plot and gave the game the controls it needed to actually be an action game with great results (and even managed a few rather tense moments), but Resident Evil 5 stumbled back into old habits.
There was a brief reprieve, however, in the genuinely tense, frightening, overbearingly atmospheric and utterly unforgiving GameCube remake. It put you in the position of a vulnerable, lost and underpowered person. It starved you of ammo and pitted you against enemies you probably couldn't kill if you fought and probably couldn't escape if you ran. And if you do put down an enemy, out of desperation or necessity, god help you when you walk by its corpse later on, because it may well get back up, faster, stronger, and extremely annoyed.
The game kept its plot mostly out of the way, telling only the bare essentials to justify the events in cutscenes and keeping the rest in collectible files for those who want them. It also does something quite special by using the pacing of its gameplay (in the form of weapons and ammo available) to manipulate players' feelings of unease, rather than depending wholly on exposition. You'll be torturously underpowered, and then you'll find a new, powerful weapon - perhaps a shotgun. You'll feel a brief reprieve, but the game yanks that feeling away as you advance and discover ammo for it is more scarce than you could have imagined. Then you'll begin finding more and more ammo for it, and feel a little safer behind your boomstick. Then the game promptly introduces enemies that will stroll right through your buckshot like it's a cloud of bubbles and rip your head off for having the audacity to not immediately flee. Then you'll find a more powerful weapon still, enough to give you an edge against those creatures. Then new enemies arrive, enemies that scale the walls and dash unseen along the ceiling, lashing out at you from above, too fast to gun down.
This habit of making the player feel just a little bit safer before tearing it all away can wear at you, break you down and make you really fear turning the next corner - not least because dying means going back to your last save. That you saved at one of the very few, far-apart save points. A save point that requires you to use a rare, finite item in order to be allowed to save. The game doesn't need Silent Hill's version of story-based psychological horror (although it certainly has some in the form of the tragic Lisa Trevor) - this Resident Evil's psychological horror is borne largely of its gameplay, and is all the more potent for it.
Combined with beautifully looming, atmospheric scenery (it can still stand with some current generation games thanks to pre-rendered scenery and various graphical trickery) and the appearance of enemies - both gruesome and intimidating - it made for an excellent horror experience.
It was effectively the Demon's/Dark Souls of its day in terms of not giving a shit about whether you succeed, and doing everything in its power to prevent your success. If you're a fan of survival horror - real survival horror - you absolute must play the Resident Evil remake if you haven't already. Boot it up, set the difficulty to Normal (called "Mountain Climbing" at the difficulty selection) and welcome yourself to the world of survival horror.
