There Will Be BLOOD

DIRECTOR SIMON MCQUOID AND PRODUCER TODD GARNER EXPLAIN WHY THIS BIG-SCREEN VERSION OF MORTAL KOMBAT IS GOING FOR THE JUGULAR

- STEPHEN KELLY

THE TEAM BEHIND THE Mortal Kombat reboot had only one condition: they must be allowed to show a guy ripping the heart out of another guy’s chest. “We wanted to push the [blood, gore and fatalities] right to the limit,” says director Simon McQuoid. “Obviously, there’s a point where the film becomes unreleasable if you push it too far, and that would be a very unwise return on investment for the studio, but from day one it’s been, ‘Okay, we’re doing this and we’re going to do it properly’.”

“It was the very first thing I asked the studio,” agrees producer Todd Garner. “I said ‘Is this going to be R-rated?’ and they said, ‘There’s no other way’. And that was that. That was the first thing they agreed to when I signed on. Because you know, it’s in the title! It’s not Guy Who Got Kinda Bruised Kombat. This is Mortal Kombat!”

FINISH HIM!

Released first in arcades in 1992 and then on home consoles in 1993, Mortal Kombat was once considered one of the most controversial video games ever made. Like Street Fighter, it was a 2D fighting game set against the backdrop of a fantastical martial arts tournament. Unlike Street Fighter, though, it caused media outrage thanks to its penchant for absurdly ultraviolent finishing moves called fatalities, in which a player could – among many other things – tear another player’s head off, their spinal cord still attached.