Other details in Splatterhouse were evidently borrowed from such classics as Poltergeist, The Evil Dead, Night of the Living Dead, David Cronenberg’s The Fly, and lots more besides. Anyone with a passing interest in pop culture would have recognized that Rick’s mask was “inspired” by the hockey mask worn by Jason Voorhees in the latter Friday the 13th movies. Like EC’s comics, Splatterhouse showed a voluminous – and perhaps opportunistic – knowledge of contemporary horror.

Read more: Rolling Thunder – Namco’s Hidden Arcade Gem In terms of its scenario, it wasn’t unlike Capcom’s Ghosts ‘N Goblins from 1986, but in execution, Splatterhouse was completely different: punching zombies in the face reduced them to a groaning heap of bones and green goo picking up a weapon like a meat cleaver or a slab of wood allowed you to smash enemies into a bloody mess or chop them into chunks of meat.Īdmittedly, the style was still cartoony, much like Ghosts ‘N Goblinswas, but the larger-than-life violence and sprays of claret made it feel more like something out of EC Comics, the infamous publisher whose output was considered so corrupting that it hastened the birth of the Comics Code. Cast in the role of the hockey mask-wearing anti-hero, Rick, the player stalked the halls of the titular mansion, a haunted pile stuffed to the rafters with grotesque monsters and ghouls.Īrmed at first with nothing more than his fists and feet, Rick embarked on a revenge mission against the undead who’d both murdered him at the start of the game and then kidnapped his girlfriend, Jennifer. While games had been growing in graphical richness and violence for a while – Operation Wolfwas a gun-crazed money-spinner for Taito in 1986 – none were quite as gratuitous as Splatterhouse. If you’d stumbled on Splatterhouse in an arcade in the late ’80s, you would’ve immediately noted how different it looked from other video games of the era. Read more: The Evolution of ’80s Video Game Gore

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