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In recent years the term “Easter Egg” in games has been used fast and loose- like your mom- but in the recently released remake of Splatterhouse there are some true Easter Eggs to be found. There are also a load of homages to horror movies and the writings of HP Lovecraft.
Horror Movie References
A Nightmare on Elm Street
In Chapter 6, Beast With a Human Heart, you will go into two separate rooms to flip a lever and activate a door. In one of the rooms there will be a furnace against the wall with a cart in front of it.Sure enough inside the cart is a knife fingered glove a well as the trusty fedora on the ground in front of it of Freddy, the man The Fresh Prince would say “wore the same hat and sweater every single day, no matter if it’s hot outside, he’d wear it anyway.” Sure enough, hanging on the shutter behind the cart you can find said trademarked red and green striped sweater. Not so Christmassy but a definite nod to the infamous prowler of dreams and teenage murder aficionado.
Child’s Play
During the second chapter, you will come to a nursery that has two doors on the right hand side. The second door once opened will reveal a room with numerous beds and some stuffed animals sitting on top of them. Nothing too noteworthy here until you look down at the ground and notice two little teeny legs sticking out from under one of the beds. Also to go along with the red and white shoes and blue Good Guy overalls, there is a large knife that Chucky yoinked from Karen’s kitchen, laying on the ground smeared with blood.
Evil Dead 2
If there’s one iconic hero from horror movies, it’s Ashley Williams- or Ash as he is better known- from the Evil Dead series. In Chapter 4, The Meat Factory, you will enter a room of cells and will find a corpse lying on the ground in the center of it.The corpse is wearing a blue denim shirt, beige khakis- oh and only has one hand. He is also lying next to a Boomsti…I mean a shotgun. If there’s two things Ash is well known for, it’s his shotgun and the loss of his hand in the second movie which he then attached a chainsaw to. Seems fitting that Mr. Biggy, the chainsaw wielding monster from the classic Splatterhouse game is in the next room.
The Shining
During the first chapter, you will enter some small research rooms that have X-Rays on the walls, stretchers with covered bodies on them and large chalkboards that have images and doodles across them, including the scribbled words REDRUM.REDRUM was the phrase that little Danny Torrance would repeat over and over in The Shining, which is of course,” Murder” in reverse. I guess we can be thankful that it was something as innocent as writing on a blackboard and not a rotting naked corpse in a bathtub laughing hysterically. That would be a little creepy.
H.P. Lovecraft References
Dr. West
Dr. Herbert West is the doctor from H.P. Lovecraft’s short story “Herbert West- Reanimator” which was also made into a movie called “Re-animator” in 1985 from director Stuart Gordon.In Splatterhouse, the doctor who teaches in the medical facility at Miskatonic University and kidnaps Jennifer while unleashing his hoard of creatures is named Dr. Henry West. Not sure why they even bothered to change the name since just about everything else is still named the same.
Arkham and Miskatonic University
Miskatonic University is located in Arkham, the fictional town that is featured in numerous Lovecraft stories. The school is also featured in many Cthulhu stories and is the home of many occult tomes as well as the Book of the Dead, The Necronomicon. In the description of some of Jen’s photos that you collect during the game, there are many references to Arkham and Miskatonic University, the school that Jen and Rick attend.
Cthulhu
The giant evil space squid face is referenced to many times throughout the game, both visually and verbally. During the third chapter in the sewers, there is plenty of graffiti murals on the walls of the creature’s face as well as its name scribbled here and there. There is also a billboard for a play called “Hollywood Cthulhu”.In the later chapters, there are stone carvings and statues of Cthulhu that add to HP Lovecraft influence of the game.
