When the Mortal Kombat movie received its R-rating, fans of the series were overjoyed because this meant that the film would be portraying the fatalities in their true, brutal form. Director Simon McQuoid has now spoken about the extent of violence the much-awaited reboot of the series has to offer.

In an interview with SFX Magazine, McQuoid revealed that the film intends to push the blood and gore “right to the limit." The games in the Mortal Kombat franchise are known for their brutality, with characters ripping hearts out of their opponent's chest. McQuoid’s vision for the movie wanted to retain this level of gore and the director said they wanted to “do it properly” to truly honor the games, without going overboard.

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When the idea of a Mortal Kombat reboot was conceived, producers James Wan and Todd Garner wanted it to be an R-rated video game movie. From the beginning, getting that rating for the film was a priority. While the previous film adaptations of the games were rated PG-13, the producers believed that another film without extreme violence would be a disservice to hardcore fans of the games. Garner addressed his standing in their first meeting with Warner Bros., who immediately agreed that there would be “no other way” to bring the franchise back to the big screen. 

According to the Motion Picture Association of America, Mortal Kombat has received its R rating due to "strong bloody violence and language throughout, and some crude references." This isn’t surprising, as the first official Mortal Kombat trailer offered glimpses of extremely violent battles, including a scene of Sub-Zero slicing his opponent’s arm with a sword, freezing his blood splatter into a dagger, and then using the same blood dagger to stab his enemy. However, Garner has confirmed that despite not having to hold back on the fight scenes, the movie’s violence still isn’t as over-the-top as the games because they didn’t want to reach a point where “the film becomes unreleasable.”

The characters in the Mortal Kombat games are ruthless. The fights include a lot of blood and the series is famous for its fatalities. Most of the finishing moves involve some kind of dismemberment, with opponents killing each other in extremely gruesome ways. Violence has been a part of the games since the first one in the series arrived in 1992.

Things have become more brutal over the years and a Mortal Kombat 11 developer was diagnosed with PTSD after working on the game. Only time will tell how the movie matches up to the ultra-violent games. 

Mortal Kombat will be released in movie theaters and on HBO Max on April 16.

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Source: SFX Magazine