Editorials
Horror Icons in Fighting Games – Why It’s a KO Move!
As more and more horror icons are getting crammed into fighting titles, we explore the relationship between the two
The villains and anti-heroes of our favorite horror franchises have effectively been terrorizing and entertaining audiences (“terrortaining”, to coin a bad phrase) for decades now across numerous franchises. We love these monsters. We need these monsters. But in spite of the constant franchise-ization of horror and the many costumes of these boogeymen that are trotted out every Halloween allowing us to become them, there is still a degree of disconnect going on here. Even though audiences have made it clear that they want to be these monsters, video games have been incredibly slow on the uptake to cater to this wicked whim.
With the recent announcement that the Xenomorph and Leatherface are both soon to join the bloody fray of Mortal Kombat X, some interesting questions have been brought up as a result. With this news causing an avalanche of excitement between Mortal Kombat and horror fans alike, why has this trend been so slow moving? Why haven’t horror icons seen a full invasion into the violent fighting genre of gaming at this point? We’ll examine the progress made in this area through the recent years, as well as how horror could firmly transplant itself in the medium and create a whole new messy playground to invade.
Admittedly, video games haven’t been completely devoid of featuring some of our favorite horror heavyweights through the years. Franchises like Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and even The Texas Chain Saw Massacre have all seen video game adaptations, but these have been few and far between, not to mention resulting in shoddy titles that are largely superfluous. Only recently, with the release of Alien: Isolation have we seen horror franchises beginning to get respect in the medium with this hopefully becoming a trend of what’s to come. There have been wheels in motion recently to get Jason Voorhes back in the gaming world with a new Friday the 13th title, and the timing couldn’t be better.
With it appearing like (at least for now) that action-adventure and even survival horror angles for horror franchise adaptations aren’t the right direction, what seems like the next logical choice is to turn to the realm of fighting games. This genre distills this mindless carnage of horror films into a medium that revolves around excessive gore. Putting people in control of these psychopaths (as opposed to surviving them), is additionally a fresh twist that gamers are eager for. Adversely, having a bunch of free-range horror icons in one title together becomes a fun mash-up of sorts that allows you to create your own Monster Vs. Monster scenarios, truly indulging and flexing your horror muscle.
Horror franchises allow such an easy transition into fighting games, and it’s likely why there’s already been a good deal of cross-pollination in the field. While not taking iconic horror villains per se, the Killer Instinct and Clay Fighters series were still indulging in these sort of archetypes, featuring fighters that would span everything from werewolves, to headless horsemen, to skeletons, to killer snowmen. In a lot of ways the waters were being tested here to see how palatable characters like this could be in a fighting title.
Flash forward into the more recent generations of gaming and the genesis of the popular trend of “guest characters” in fighting games. I suppose it only makes sense that in a growing time of “system exclusives” and pre-order bonuses that differ depending on your retailer, finding a way to incentivize purchases is the natural progression of things. One of the more famous examples of this has been with Namco’s popular Soul Calibur series. The multi-platform fighting title would feature different guest characters depending on which system you were purchasing for. While they might not be horror franchise icons necessarily, XBOX’s version of Soul Calibur II contains Todd McFarlane’s Spawn, and Soul Calibur IV for the PS3 features Darth Vader, opening the doors for such villainous cameos. If these sort of sweeping experiments could work, then clearly pushing things a little further wouldn’t be that difficult.
Such a push finally happened in the ninth Mortal Kombat title (aptly titled simply, Mortal Kombat), which saw the release of several DLC characters (including Kratos from the God of War video game franchise), which most notably saw the inclusion of Freddy Kreuger. With fans accepting this character with open claws and Freddy quickly becoming one of the most popular characters within the game, clearly this crossover could work. Mortal Kombat might have merely grazed this premise, but the latest game in the series, Mortal Kombat X, has made it their mantra. So Freddy might be absent from the party this time, but Mortal Kombat X does have Jason Voorhes, the Predator, with Leatherface and the Xenomorph from the Alien series on the way. That’s kind of unbelievable. People are going to be reenacting their own personal Alien Vs. Predator fight scenes now, and it’s within a title that exists beyond both of them.
Elsewhere in gaming the boundaries have become increasingly fluid, with multi-property titles like Lego Dimensions bringing stuff on the fringe of horror like Doctor Who, Jurassic World, and even 2001 into play. Valve’s Poker Night surprisingly has Ash Williams from Raimi’s Evil Dead as a character, which is a step in the right direction, even if his inclusion here is mostly useless. Even an iOS game like Car Town Streets has the Ecto-1 from Ghostbusters in it! Our perception of what is acceptable and how sacred these worlds are is broadening every year.
There have been several fighting games at this point that have featured a mélange of all the monsters and kaiju out of the Godzilla franchise, with that seeming to have a somewhat smaller fan base (at least in America) than all of the most popular horror series. If these Godzilla fighters can stand, then why not a horror royal rumble? Sure, licensing could be a pain (the only real obstacle I see), but if Mortal Kombat can already assemble this sort of “talent” while seemingly not even trying, then it must be doable. Mortal Kombat saw itself branching out and crossing over with the DC Universe in their Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe game, and with so much of a horror slant already being present in their following titles, why not just go all-in and make your next crossover title be Mortal Kombat Vs. All-Star Slashers? When Shrek can appear in Tony Hawk’s Underground 2 (and Iron Man in its predecessor), pretty much anything is possible.
A fully realized horror franchise fighting game seems like where we should be heading, so naturally it makes sense to touch upon when this very thing did end up happening…kind of. Terrordrome is a fan-made, free-to-download PC/MAC/Linux title that’s a nightmare come true for horror fans. It’s essentially everything we’ve been talking about here, as it provides a fighting game featuring fourteen of horror’s most famous antagonists. Terrordrome is far from perfect, but there’s a ton of attention to detail and love for horror that’s clearly present in the project (plus online play). It’s a far cry from a commercial release in this vein, but any fraction of enjoyment that you experience here is a glimpse of how incredible a major release like this would be.
A very nice blueprint has been set up so far by the likes of Mortal Kombat but just picture the madness that could be had by really scraping the bottom of the murderers’ row of horror villains. Legends like Ash, Hellraiser, Michael Myers, Damien Thorne (in both child and adult-form, like Human and Robot Smoke), or any Murder Santa would be too much. There could even be DLC focusing on certain sizes of characters, with a Tiny Horror Pack containing the likes of Chucky, Leprechaun, and Critters, and a Beasts of Burden Pack featuring more unruly types like The Thing or Pumpkinhead. The sort of variety of fighters present in a title like this, rather than everyone being lumbering men with sharp knives, adds even more value to the concept.
With the release and fallout of Leatherface and the Predator in Mortal Kombat X still having yet to take place, it’s impossible to predict just how much of an influence they’ll end up having. It seems safe to say though that we’ll surely be seeing more of this, and I would honestly be surprised if Mortal Kombat didn’t end up eventually fully giving into this rather than just dishing out more and more guest DLC characters. Whether it’s through Mortal Kombat or some new franchise all onto its own, it likely won’t be long until we’re creating our own horror franchise deleted scenes and acting like a murder pig in murder slop. And don’t we deserve that?
Now, quickly, tell me what Chucky’s fatality would be! Go!
Of the three films that make up the Diabolical Trinity of classic religious horror films—Rosemary’s Baby (1968), The Exorcist (1973), and The Omen (1976)—The Omen is the most purely entertaining.
While Rosemary’s Baby digs into the societal shifts of the 60s and The Exorcist explores spiritual tensions between faith and doubt in an ever-shifting world, The Omen seems most interested in just telling a thrilling story. It achieves this by blending two major trends of the 1970s, the devil movie and the paranoid thriller, into one crackling adventure yarn. In the process, The Omen has sparked fear and curiosity about what could happen in the “end times” if such events are to occur.
After seeing The Exorcist, producer Harvey Bernhard contacted writer David Seltzer and said something along the lines of, “Hey, write me one of those.” Seltzer, having never read the Bible, thought it would be an interesting challenge, so, according to various interviews, he read the Bible and several commentaries in search of a story. Then he stumbled upon a passage in the book of Revelation, the image of a great Beast rising out of the sea, that sparked his imagination. In the commentaries, he found that the sea represented politics in some interpretations of the text, and he began building his story on that foundation.
Seltzer has told this story often, and I am inclined to believe him. However, from there, much of the theological-sounding lore of The Omen was created purely by Seltzer. Many of the ideas surrounding The Antichrist in the film appear to be drawn much more from the pop-eschatology sensation of the 1970s, The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsay, than any Biblical source.
Lindsay’s book was the bestselling nonfiction book of the 1970s and re-popularized views of the “last days” that had been dying along with fundamentalism for decades, namely Dispensationalism, Millennialism, and the Pre-Tribulation Rapture. In dispensationalism, history is broken into several epochs of time (or dispensations) that culminate in the return of Christ and his thousand-year (millennial) reign.
Before this return, a seven-year Tribulation will occur in which the Antichrist comes to power and persecutes all who oppose him, culminating in a battle between the forces of good and evil at the valley of Megiddo, usually called Armageddon. Of course, in this worldview, the true believers in Jesus will be lifted out, or raptured, before all this takes place. Since the publication and popularity of The Late Great Planet Earth, this has been the prominent belief in Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christian circles, though Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and mainline Protestant denominations largely reject it.
Lindsay also did something unique that had not been the case even in dispensationalist circles before him—he posited that the creation of the modern state of Israel in 1948 started the countdown to Armageddon. Fans of the film will immediately realize where Seltzer ran with this idea in the first line of the poem created for the movie: “When the Jews return to Zion…”
Damien Thorn and the Creation of Horror’s “Innocent Villain”
Seltzer’s next inspiration focused on the idea of the Antichrist as a child, what he would call the film’s “innocent villain.” In watching The Omen, it is readily apparent that Damien Thorn (Harvey Stephens) does not really do anything evil beyond a bit of normal kid mischief. Even the moment in which Damien knocks Kathy Thorn (Lee Remick) over a second-floor railing can be read as an accident orchestrated by Damien’s diabolically connected nanny, Mrs. Baylock (Billie Whitelaw). The film takes this idea of the innocent villain a step further by casting Gregory Peck, best known for playing arguably the greatest father in film history, Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), as Damien’s earthly father, an element that greatly satisfied Seltzer.
The New Testament itself says very little about the Antichrist and certainly nothing about his childhood. In fact, the word antichrist is used twice (1 John 2:18 and 2 John 7 for the curious) and refers to groups of people, not a particular person. There is also a passage in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12 in which the writer (usually attributed to Paul) discusses “The Man of Lawlessness” who will “exalt himself over everything that is called God” and “proclaim himself to be God.”
Then there is the Beast of Revelation chapter 13 with “seven heads and ten horns” that Seltzer latched onto, which has been interpreted in a multitude of ways over the centuries. Powerful people throughout history, from Charlemagne, various Popes during the Protestant Reformation era, Napoleon and Hitler, to modern politicians, including Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Vladimir Putin, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump, have all had the label placed on them by various circles. Even religious leaders like Billy Graham have not escaped being called the Antichrist.
Lindsay and modern dispensationalists are certain the Antichrist will be a 21st-century individual as they are equally certain that the Rapture, Tribulation, and return of Christ are imminent, likely within their lifetime. Many scholars and theologians, however, interpret these passages as symbolic representations of the Roman Empire and the first-century Caesars who persecuted, tortured, and murdered Christians and Jews who refused to submit to Imperial rule and worship them as gods. For example, that the Beast from the sea in Revelation has seven heads is symbolic of the famous seven mountains of Rome, with the 10 horns referring to rulers and magistrates of the Empire.
But this is all really of no matter to Seltzer and the story of The Omen. Instead of being concerned with any historical or theological accuracy, he instead built his own lore, which sends Robert Thorn and photographer Keith Jennings (David Warner) on a globetrotting investigation into the nature of the Antichrist and how to stop him. Some of this lore includes the child being born of a jackal, the reaction of animals, the protective cult that arises around Damien, the daggers of Megiddo, and maybe most interesting of all, the peculiar flaws in Jennings’s photographs that presage the ways certain individuals will die.
All these aspects are where the paranoid thrillers come in, as films like Blow Up (1966), Z (1969), The Conversation (1974), The Parallax View (1974), 3 Days of the Condor (1975), and All the President’s Men (1976) were all the rage at the time. Especially in the wake of the Watergate scandal, the idea of journalists (like Jennings) as ordinary heroes who could bring down the powerful, nefarious forces in the world was exactly what audiences craved. And what greater hidden evil force was there than the Devil? This is also why the device of the daggers of Megiddo is so important to a movie like this. If Damien is indeed the Antichrist, there must be a way to stop him, though in the Biblical text, the only power capable of destroying the Devil is God Himself.
The Mark of the Beast, 666, and the Film’s Most Famous Religious Symbolism
The piece of lore created for the movie with the most solid Biblical grounding is the Mark of the Beast. Revelation describes a mark on the forehead or hand of those who worship the Beast and his image. Again, this is symbolic language differentiating those who belong to the power of the Roman Empire and those who belong to Christ, who have the Mark of the Lamb. In Seltzer’s hands, the mark is very literal, a birthmark that is borne by not only the Antichrist but all his followers, meaning they are marked from before birth as belonging to Satan, and there is no escaping it. This is all rather distressing to the priest Father Brennan (Patrick Troughton), who betrays his mark by warning Thorn about Damien and pays the price by memorably being impaled by a spire that falls from a church steeple after being struck by lightning.
Why is the mark three sixes? Again, this is drawn from a passage in Revelation that states that the Beast can be identified by calculating his number. In Biblical scholarship, this is believed to be the sum of the name of a man transferred into Hebrew numerology, a practice in which each Hebrew letter also represents a number. Using this method, the number of the name Caesar Nero, which many believe to be the most logical choice, is six hundred sixty-six. In the film and elsewhere, this number is changed to three individual sixes. According to the film, this represents the Diabolical Trinity (a designation also unique to the film) made up of Satan, the Antichrist, and the False Prophet. That Damien carries this unique birthmark under his hair convinces Robert that the child is the Antichrist, and it’s up to him to destroy him.
Part of what makes The Omen great is its ambiguity. Damien could be the Antichrist, or he could be at the center of a series of coincidences. Director Richard Donner stated in interviews that he believed Robert Thorn had gone insane by the end of the film, which, to Donner, is the only explanation for why Thorn would attempt to kill an innocent child. However, that enigmatic smile in the final shot suggests that Damien does embody a spirit of great evil. The sequels, however, all but erase this ambiguity.
In audiences, The Omen sparked a renewed interest in the concept of the Antichrist and the dispensationalist interpretation of the end times that continues to echo throughout the last five decades. Around the time of the film’s release, even Elvis Presley was photographed brandishing a paperback copy of Seltzer’s novelization. Dispensationalist authors like Hal Lindsay, Tim LaHaye, and John Hagee have made millions publishing books and giving lectures about the Antichrist and the end of the world.
The Legacy of The Omen, 50 Years Later
Though A Thief in the Night (1972) preceded The Omen in initial release, it gained quite a resurgence (along with the ability to create three sequels) in the wake of the popularity of The Omen and went on to scar the psyches of Evangelical children for decades. Hal Lindsay was also able to release a film version of The Late Great Planet Earth in 1978, complete with narration and a brief onscreen appearance from Orson Welles.
In the 1990s, the Left Behind series became a cultural phenomenon, spawning twelve books in the core series, a YA spinoff series, video games, and a movie series (2000-2005) starring Kirk Cameron. A bigger studio adaptation of the first book was released in 2014, starring Nicolas Cage. 20th Century Fox and The Omen got in on the renewed “end-of-the-world” vigor by releasing a remake of the original film on June 6, 2006. The franchise was revived once again in 2024 with The First Omen, which explores ideas of the Antichrist and the motivations of those in power in our current religious, social, and political context.
But despite all the sequels, spinoffs, rip-offs, remakes, and “end times” money grabs of the last 50 years, the original version of The Omen remains untouchable. Its greatest strength is that it seeks, first and foremost, to entertain. And it does so admirably.
After half a century, its influence can be felt in horror, the culture at large, and even in various faith circles. It is a testament to the power of story and film that, consciously or unconsciously, fans of The Omen and those who have never seen it alike are, to this very day, marked by the Beast.
You must be logged in to post a comment.