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!
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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