If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably watched the red band trailer for Mortal Kombat at least a dozen times by this point and have been revelling in the brutality it prominently features. Now, the lovely people at Bloody Disgusting have provided a gallery of all of the promo’s multiple gory moments to take in at your leisure.
Some scenes that the trailer features include Scorpion impaling a Lin-Kuei assassin on a makeshift version of his signature kunai (in the process acknowledging that such implements were designed as gardening tools and are only perceived as weapons due to their depiction in fiction), an unmasked Mileena licking blood off her sai, Sub-Zero freezing and shattering Jax’s arms, and then later in one of its most memorable images, freezing a spray of Scorpion’s blood into a makeshift dagger. It also sees Kano ripping out the heart of some Outworld beast, a reference to his iconic Fatality from the games and one of the multiple death moves that we’ve been promised will feature throughout the film.
Of course, intense and bloody violence has been one of the hallmarks of the Mortal Kombat franchise right from its inception almost 30 years ago – I can practically feel myself crumbling to dust just typing that – and the trailer teases that the new installment will live up to such a legacy in a way that the disappointing PG-13 movies of the ‘90s miserably failed to.
It’s been stated that the Fatalities in Mortal Kombat aren’t just there as fan service, and each is included to serve a specific purpose. We can likewise expect the same of the level of violence, which won’t be gore just for the sake of it, but will presumably augment the intensity of the action scenes. Until the movie is released in April, though, we’ll have these moments to enjoy and keep us excited for what the rest of it has in store.