Mortal Kombat has always been known for its ability to push the envelope with regards to violence. Its gory finishers shocked players and onlookers alike in the early days, as its evisceration of digitized actors was just real enough for some people. Blowback to the ribcage showers and geysers of blood eventually led to committee hearings at the United States’ Senate, which scared the video game industry into establishing the Entertainment Software Association where games would be given content ratings. A lot of those early Fatalities that led to such a moral panic are quaint by today’s standards, but the series has still tried to shock its players through a variety of different execution methods.
Videos by ComicBook.com
While the most brutal and disgusting ones are mainly locked to the most recent installments (especially Mortal Kombat 11), here’s a look at four Fatalities in the Mortal Kombat franchise that pushed the line in one way or another (and that line isn’t purely based on violence).
4) Mr. Cage’s Neighborhood (Johnny Cage, Mortal Kombat 11)
Johnny Cage’s Fatalities are in their own tier because they’re usually the silliest. For example, his “Here’s Johnny” Fatality in Mortal Kombat X is a goofy riff on the most iconic scene from The Shining, while his “Hollywood Walk of Pain” Fatality from Mortal Kombat 1 is memorable because of the selfie pose he does at the end with his opponent’s bisected head (a trick he more or less borrowed from his daughter’s best MKX Fatality). But both of his Mortal Kombat 11 Fatalities are his strongest ones.
“Mr. Cage’s Neighborhood” is winner here, though, as it is a twisted act only Johnny could pull off. He starts by cleanly separating his opponent’s torso from the rest of their body. A spotlight then highlights the two, and it becomes clear he’s doing some sort of bit. He then tells one of a few different purposely corny jokes using the dead character as a ventriloquist dummy before a disgruntled audience member pelts the freshly slain torso with a tomato.
It’s obviously not the most gruesome Fatality in the series — hence its ranking here — but it’s one of Johnny’s most twisted comedic kills. Using a corpse as a joke and then having it take the heat for a bombed set is right in line with his specific breed of Fatality and is what makes this finisher a bit more eye-opening than most of the other ones.
3) Bottoms Up (Bo’ Rai Cho, Mortal Kombat X)
Bo’ Rai Cho is often seen as a comic relief character. He’s a chubby guy in a game full of fit ninjas and muscular brawlers, and he’s always seen farting, barfing, and downing an amount of alcohol that would embarrass even the most slovenly frat boy. But his Fatalities are no joke.
The “Bottoms Up” Fatality is the most disgusting one and mixes together his nasty qualities. It begins by Bo’ Rai Cho slamming a cartoonish jug of a mysterious elixir in the victim’s face before they start puking up an alarming amount of blood before what looks like some intestines (or their esophagus) shoot out of their mouth. Bo’ Rai Cho then quite literally steps in and stomps on their stomach, forcing even more guts to spill out.
Dabbling in this kind of noxious spew is always hard to watch, especially when done to this extreme. Breaking bones and ripping out organs can be comical, and it’s also easy to be desensitized to this sort of polygonal violence because it’s so ubiquitous across the medium. The same cannot be said for heaving up organs.
2) New Species (D’Vorah, Mortal Kombat 11)
D’Vorah is of the insect-like Kytinn species introduced in Mortal Kombat X. And being essentially a humanoid bug means she can inflict a whole new type of pain on the other members of the cast.
Her “New Species” Fatality in Mortal Kombat 11 is her most gut-wrenching finisher in the series. After a quick ovipositor stab to the shoulders, she barfs a gallon or so of maggot-infested green juice straight into the opponent’s mouth. They immediately fall to the ground and start twitching before four large pointy legs shoot out of their chest. Their head quickly splits open to reveal a new bug growing inside them, which explains the name of this Fatality.
“New Species” is especially nasty because it involves a few things that make it somewhat unique within the context of Mortal Kombat Fatalities: body horror and a ton of bug-filled barf. The abundance of sickly, infested juice pouring into the opponent’s mouth is a foul sight and then lightly nodding to the chestburster scene from Alien and the horror that comes with morphing into another being is the one-two punch that makes this Finisher quite an accomplishment. It’s revolting on two different levels.
1) Thanksgiving Finisher (Any Character, Mortal Kombat 1)
The additional of premium holiday-themed Fatalities in Mortal Kombat 1 was almost universally despised because of their high price tag that reeked of publisher overreach. Developer NetherRealm Studios eventually changed course because of that criticism and gave the other two seasonal Fatalities away to those who had paid for the first one. And while generally a gross ordeal, the Fatalities themselves were gross in their own particular way.
The Thanksgiving one is easily the nastiest of the bunch, though. It sees the winning character throw a big banquet for the loser and slam their head into the dinner table, breaking their jaw. The winner then force-feeds the near-death fighter with a large handful of green bean casserole, a whole pumpkin pie, and then an entire cooked turkey. The turkey, naturally, gets jammed, which causes the other character slam the bird into the gullet of the victim, forcing them to the ground. The victorious character then stomps on the victim’s stomach, causing them to vomit so forcefully that the top of their skull explodes and their eyes pop out of their sockets. The scene wraps up when the camera zooms out to reveal a bloated dead body covered in blood and barf.
This Fatality is interesting because it perhaps goes a little too far in a couple ways. The barf-ridden spectacle goes beyond just mutilating the loser and delights in a more stomach-churning kill that’s harder to watch. Its ability to cross the line also comes from outside the game since it showed how Warner Bros. tried to pull a fast one and squeeze players for a few extra pennies. Selling a Fatality — especially at that ridiculous of a price — marked a new low for a series, one that has been continually been tainted by Warner Bros. Games’ greedy tentacles over the last decade.
What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
Most Viewed
-
image courtesy of 20th Century Studios -
Image courtesy of Prokino Filmverleih
