ONM Remembered – #50
“It’ll scare you to death!”
from Official Nintendo Magazine issue 88 (January 2000)
I’ve always been fascinated with this image. There’s barely anything to it – it’s just a discoloured CGI dude in a body bag, but it’s captured so well and is so darned spooky that I gotta respect it. I won’t deny that as a young’un this gave me the willies. The grisly head wound with exposing the brain and flesh tissue is obviously gross, but even the piercing eyes and vein-y discolouring from the nose upwards plays up the chill factor. It’s a beautifully grim concoction.
I don’t know if it was intentional or not, but I always interpreted the brain as a bizarre and monstrous set of teeth; like a circular mouth with fangs on all sides that just close in around the centre. Given the freaky freaks the Resident Evil series made itself famous for after zombies got passé, it gives the image a great twist.
Mind you, it doesn’t look half as threatening viewing the image right-side up. It looks more like a really dweeby kid poking his head in through your window and asking if you want to come over and play Bayou Billy. He better have saved the receipt!
