Premise: A cross between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jason Vorhees runs around his house beating the hell out of anything he can get his hands on, including dishes, chairs, and stuffed animals . . . but that’s ok because his fucking talking hockey mask tells him to. No. we’re not talking about Uncle Jim after too much Wild Turkey 101 at the family christmas party. We’re talking about the Splatterhouse series.
While the premise itself isn’t all that bizarro, there are particular elements in this game that certainly qualify. The backgrounds are generally riddled with squirming corpses, blood, and appendages. But while excessive violence sometimes plays a part in bizarro literature, the excessive violence isn’t what makes Splatterhouse bizarro. Here are some of the things that do:
1. In stage three of the third game, you must beat the shit out of your son’s giant teddy bear, until you piss it off enough so that it sprouts demon arms and tries to take your head off. If you jump to about 7:40 on the video below you can watch the action take place:
2. In level two of the third game in the trilogy you fight against what appears to be a crudely packed sausage, or perhaps a penis with legs and razor sharp teeth, keen on spitting out what appears to be giant, toothed sperm cells. Did I mention this all takes place in a flesh-covered room complete with beating hearts? Witness the strange scenario around 4:45 on the video below:
3. The third boss in Splatterhouse II looks like it could have been the inspiration for the cover art for Cannibal Corpse’s “Butchered at Birth” album. As what appear to be skinned demon babies dangle from the ceiling, your character chainsaw-screws them, the end result of which is a blood-soaked screen inhibiting your view of what’s happening between the protagonist and the remains of these creatures . . . perhaps it’s better we don’t know. You can see it (the chainsaw action, not what’s happening behind the blood) around 2:12 in the video below:
Interesting/strange facts:
I don’t even know what to say about this other than the game, which features a giant “evil” pumpkin, is allegedly part of the Splatterhouse canon, believe it or not:
I don’t know what to say about the video below either, but I’ll try: if you like 128-bit knockers, then the latest Splatterhouse delivers:
I really don’t know what to say about this either:
. . . well, at least Splatterhouse is actually trying to be grotesque and sexy at the same time.
