I've never been caught by any of the dangerous wisps, but the amount of times I've had the physics screw me over and murder me? I'd need at least ten more fingers and toes to count those occurrences out. There is no feeling of helplessness against the aliens because they're lacking in any danger, except maybe the golden wisp event, but that can be counteracted by Kerfur and keeping doors closed. They become an annoyance after an hour of dealing with them.
The game has worse problems than "guns would ruin the horror", and I kind of wish Nose would go back to understanding why people liked Signal Simulator in the first place.