Movies
‘Mortal Kombat’ Creator Open to Doing a Horror Movie Fighting Game
Our chances of getting a AAA horror-themed fighting game with a roster populated exclusively by the masked maniacs and monsters we’ve watched murder and maim in a myriad movies are gradually starting to resemble an inevitability. Better yet, perhaps, is where this macabre machination — think TerrorDrome, only much bigger — will likely come from the makers of the Mortal Kombat franchise.
Netherrealm has been steadily building toward this very possibility for about five years now, starting with the inclusion of Freddy Krueger — Haley’s Freddy, not Englund’s — in the DLC for the 2011 reboot. The studio doubled its efforts following the release of Mortal Kombat X, which now features Jason Voorhees, Alien, Leatherface and the Predator among its expanded roster.
There may be more to this than one talented developer’s way of showing their appreciation for the horror film genre, as Game Informer recently discovered when they asked as much at the Mortal Kombat X Pro League Finals in Los Angeles.
“Yes, yes! You know, as we’ve been accumulating them, that idea has been coming up more and more frequently,” said Boon when he was asked if he’d be open to a horror-themed fighting game. “You brought it up and a few other people have brought it up like ‘why don’t you do a horror movie fighting game?’ Maybe one day we’ll do it.”
That’s a good start, but we can do better. Netherrealm pays close attention to the needs of their community, so with some time and tenacity we could make this a reality. But only if we keep hammering away. Here, take this inspirational GIF.
It sounds as if this is an option that Boon and Co. are actively considering. We could probably make this happen if we just gently nudged them toward our side. If you want this to happen, tell them so on Twitter, Facebook, etc.
We have some related reading material to keep you occupied while we wait for this dream to come true, including Daniel Kurland’s fascinating explorative piece on why horror films pair so darn well with fighting games. You can also check out my much less fascinating wish list of horror movie villains I’d like to see star in such a game.
There’s been a lot of talk about how Christopher Nolan snuck in some horror elements into his epic adaptation of The Odyssey. However, even before the Cyclops began to eat Ithican soldiers and Circe subjected them to magical body-horror, cinemagoers were already witnessing supernatural terror through a certain trailer that was attached to most IMAX screenings of Nolan’s film.
It turns out that this trailer was for Rob Savage’s Other Mommy, an adaptation of Bird Box author Josh Malerman’s horror novel, Incidents Around the House. With the teaser now available online and revealing that the award-winning Jessica Chastain is playing the titular antagonist (as well as her ill-fated human counterpart), not to mention the fact that the picture is being helmed by the director of hits like Host and The Boogeyman, genre fans are understandably hyped for this upcoming thriller.
That’s why I’ve decided to take a closer look at the trailer and share four things we learned from this sneak peek at Other Mommy!
4. Rob Savage is Going Back to His Supernatural Horror Roots
I know I’m in the minority when I admit that Dashcam is my favorite Rob Savage movie, but even I understand why the filmmakers’ fans have been waiting a while for the director to get back to telling more grounded paranormal stories as he did with 2020’s Host.
Other Mommy obviously isn’t a found footage movie, but moments like the poltergeist activity on the kitchen table combined with the nature of the source material, which actually features a full-on exorcism, indicate that this adaptation is more than a simple creature feature. That’s why I think Savage is once again going to borrow from the same ghostly narratives that made his debut film such a viral hit.
3. Other Mommy is a More Convincing Doppelganger in the Adaptation
Part of the horror from Malerman’s original novel came from the fact that the entity taking on the form of Bela’s (Arabella Olivia Clark) mother wasn’t very good at passing itself off as human. This resulted in several uncanny moments where other characters began to notice that there was something visibly wrong with the family and decided to keep their distance.
Savage’s film appears to be taking a different route, with the trailer showing a version of the entity that can, at least physically, imitate Chastain’s character perfectly. This change is likely the result of the filmmakers wanting to incorporate more paranoid scenes where Bela and her father, played by Jay Duplass, are confused about which Mommy is safe to interact with.
2. The Family is Also Better Off This Time Around
Incidents Around the House featured some interesting subtext about how poverty can negatively affect American family dynamics. After all, the main characters were already feeling scared and isolated before the entity emerged from Bela’s closet and began scratching at their emotional wounds. The trailer for the movie, however, depicts the family as being relatively well off before these incidents begin to occur.
I can only imagine that this part of the story was changed so that the family’s fall from grace can be even more dramatic as the mom and dad’s pasts are revealed and Bela falls further into the clutches of the demonic antagonist.
1. Jessica Chastain is Embodying Evil Dead Rise’s Alyssa Sutherland
Mothers turning against their children is one of the most disturbing horror tropes out there (just check out classics like Hereditary and Carrie if you need proof), but it takes a remarkably skilled actress to pull off such a monstrous transformation. This is especially true when both a regular, loving mother and the Other share the screen in the same film.
That’s why I appreciate how Chastain appears to be channeling another evil redhead mother that recently traumatized audiences with her performance. It’s too early to be sure, but I’m fairly confident that Chastain’s character has at least some amount of Ellie in her cinematic DNA – Ellie being the iconic deadite brought to life by Australian actress Alyssa Sutherland in 2023’s Evil Dead Rise.
Let us know in the comments if you think we missed any important details from the trailer, and don’t forget to check out Other Mommy when it hits theaters on October 9!
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