In
Silent Hill: Homecoming, Konami decided to make the nurses way more tough. Seriously!
If you aren't quick with an axe or whatever you are using, you're a dead man walking. However, I just didn't enjoy the game in general. It was too hard. It's okay to have a game that is hard in a reasonable way, but it was too much.
There's actually a ray gun you can acquire if you finish the game once, that kills most enemies with one shot. But I could never finish the darn game to obtain it.
As for what characters are scary: I don't know what to say. Well, a lot of them are strange and scary in equal measures. Look at what Claudia changes into, in
Silent Hill 3, for example.