Editorials
4 ‘Mortal Kombat II’ Easter Eggs You Might Have Missed
It may have taken a while, but it seems like movie studios have finally learned how to respect the source material when it comes to adapting video games to the big screen. While this doesn’t always translate to a better movie, at least gamers get to see their favorite characters brought to life in a way that doesn’t completely disrespect the original experience.
Warner Bros’ long-awaited sequel Mortal Kombat II continues this trend of making up for the adaptational mistakes of yesteryear, with director Simon McQuoid going out of his way to include as much of the original lore and iconography as possible without ever getting in the way of the story. In honor of that noble effort, here are four fun Easter eggs that you may not have noticed while watching Mortal Kombat II!
While there are plenty more callbacks to the games in this 116-minute feature, these are just five of the less obvious references that stood out during our first watch. That being said, don’t forget to comment below if you think a particularly fun easter egg was missed.
Just in case you’ve yet to see the film: beware of spoilers ahead!
With that out of the way, onto the list.
4. Failed Fatality
Executing a Fatality in Mortal Kombat used to be a hell of a lot harder before you could simply pause the fight and check the in-game move list. Hell, back when arcades were still a thing, you’d even see kids running around with hastily-scrawled notes containing the secret to humiliating your friends by turning their character into a charred skeleton.
However, even with the instructions in hand, it’s sometimes hard to get some of these moves right (especially as an aging gamer). That’s why I appreciate the inclusion of a failed Fatality towards the beginning of the flick, where Kitana refuses her father’s command to execute Johnny Cage, and he stumbles around awkwardly before falling to the ground just like in the game.
While Kitana’s hesitation is explained later on, the gag is still a clear nod towards one of the most annoying aspects of the source material.
3. Ed Boon’s Cameo
Ed Boon is one of the most influential creators in the gaming industry (as well as the iconic original voice for Scorpion and several other characters), so it’s kind of frustrating that he only ever had a live-action cameo in the low-budget Mortal Kombat: Legacy web-series.
Thankfully, the new film finally gives Boon the Stan Lee-esque treatment that he deserves by having him portray a friendly bartender who addresses Johnny Cage’s alcohol-fueled depression by commenting that the character used to be “more animated”.
2. Johnny Cage’s Callback to Big Trouble in Little China
It’s no secret that the development team over at Midway used to be huge movie buffs. In fact, the entire concept behind the Mortal Kombat games was basically lifted from Bloodsport, and the character of Johnny Cage was even meant to be a digitized Jean Claude Van Damme before the actor became busy with other projects. However, some of the MK franchise’s influences are much more obvious than others.
That’s why it was fun to see Karl Urban’s Cage finally address the fact that Raiden is an obvious knock-off of Lightning from John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China. Now just wait until he finds out about Shang Tsung!
1. Cheating Shao Kahn
Arcade games are known to be unfair in their attempts at extracting every last quarter from excited gamers, but it was only recently that fans discovered just how mean the original version of Mortal Kombat II could really be. As it turns out, the game that introduced us to the legendary villain Shao Kahn actually reacted directly to player input rather than the onscreen action, often making it literally impossible to land a hit during some of the boss battles. If that wasn’t bad enough, Kahn would later appear in the 2011 Mortal Kombat reboot as an essentially broken character that did way too much damage with nearly unavoidable attacks.
That’s precisely why it feels like such a clever little in-joke when the film presents Shao Kahn as something of a supernatural cheater. After all, in McQuoid’s movie, the monstrous conqueror rigs the tournament in his favor by stealing Raiden’s powers and essentially becoming an immortal god – with devastating consequences for our fair-playing heroes.
I never thought I’d see a videogame adaptation use a literal “god mode” as a plot device, and yet here we are!
From child-eating witches to village-burning dragons, fairy tales have always had a foot in the horror genre. That’s why it makes sense that, for every The Hobbit and The Chronicles of Narnia, there are also darker and more adult-oriented stories about magical worlds inhabited by ravenous monsters and cruel villains.
Funnily enough, these sinister tales were precisely the ones that I gravitated towards back when I was a kid, and I was reminded of this while watching Netflix’s recently released I Am Frankelda, Mexico’s first ever feature-length stop-motion animation and one hell of an entertaining parable about the intersection between fiction and reality.
In honor of this special kind of horror-adjacent fairy tale, today I’d like to share this list recommending six Dark Fantasy films that horror fans might enjoy.
For the purposes of this list, we’ll be defining Dark Fantasy as fantastical stories that don’t shy away from the more macabre elements that fuel classic fairy tales. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own grim favorites if you think we missed a particularly thrilling one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
6. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
I’m fascinated by bizarre attempts at blockbuster filmmaking – especially when the resulting movies are somehow still fun despite their corporate-mandated origins. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is precisely one of these strangely compelling studio projects, as this surprisingly successful action-thriller boasts a lot of heart (and tongue-in-cheek humor) for a CGI-heavy creature feature.
Directed by Dead Snow’s Tommy Wirkola, Witch Hunters re-frames the classic fairy tale as an origin story for a duo of badass monster-slayers. Of course, it’s the flick’s anachronistic aesthetic and overall visual flair that make it stand out from other action-horror endeavors from around the same time.
5. The Wolf House (2018)
Made in the tradition of faux cursed films in the same vein as Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made, the eerie backstory to 2018’s Chilean animated flick The Wolf House (La Casa Lobo in the original Spanish) already makes it a nightmarish experience before the flick even really begins.
After all, the movie is presented to us as a faux propaganda film produced by the leader of a death cult (heavily inspired by the real life Colonia Dignidad), with this hybrid animated feature using complex movie magic to simulate a single uninterrupted shot as it tells the story of a lazy young girl who runs away from an isolated colony and encounters a creepy old house in the woods.
4. The Brothers Grimm (2005)
Out of all the Monty Python alumni, Terry Gilliam has had the most interesting career outside of the original comedy group. From fascinating canceled projects (such as his scrapped adaptation of Watchmen) to dystopian parodies that feel more relevant by the minute (1985’s Brazil), even his “lesser” films are still intriguing in their own way.
2005’s The Brothers Grimm is one such project, with this peculiar movie attempting to combine the comedian-turned-filmmaker’s unique visual style with a more blockbuster-oriented plot reimagining the titular brothers as con-artists rather than mere writers. The end result isn’t exactly a masterpiece, but it’s still a legitimately fun ride with plenty of memorable monsters and wonderful performances by both the late, great Heath Ledger and Matt Damon.
3. Dante’s Inferno: An Animated Epic (2010)
2010’s Dante’s Inferno game may have a reputation as something of an unapologetic God of War clone, but I’d argue that the now-obscure game was aesthetically unique enough to deserve a bigger fanbase. However, while the title remains trapped on the seventh console generation, its highly underrated anime adaptation is a lot easier to get a hold of!
Animated by 6 different studios in order to make the 9 circles of hell feel unique from each other, this may not be a completely faithful adaptation of Dante Alighieri’s poem, but it’s still one heck of a great (not to mention gory) time that I’d highly recommend to fans of Netflix’s take on Castlevania.
2. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009)
My personal favorite entry in the Underworld franchise, Rise of the Lycans, is a highly ambitious prequel that actually works better if you haven’t had the story spoiled to you by the previous Underworld films.
While the rest of the series features plenty of urban fantasy elements as the movies combine machine guns and modern environments with gothic storytelling, Patrick Tatopoulos’ prequel fully embraces its fantastical origins and tells a classic tale about a doomed romance between a werewolf and a vampire amid a medieval uprising.
And the best part is that we get a lot more Michael Sheen as the fan-favorite Lucian.
1. Solomon Kane (2011)
One of my personal favorite movies on this list, MJ Basset’s criminally underseen adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s other iconic warrior is thoroughly steeped in horror ambience and features plenty of memorable monsters. However, it’s also a classic origin story for a swashbuckling hero that wouldn’t feel out of place in a tabletop RPG.
While I’ve already written about how the film deftly combines both horror and fantasy elements without breaking the bank, I’ll never pass up an opportunity to recommend the bizarre movie where James Purefoy expertly plays a puritan John Wick.
It’s just too bad that we never got the other films in this intended trilogy.
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