The Mortal Kombat film had 'drums of blood' on set

(Image credit: Warner Bros Pictures)

Mortal Kombat is infamously violent. In 1993 it sparked congressional hearings that led to the creation of the ESRB; in 2019 it introduced fatalities that were so completely bonkers it required multiple paragraphs to describe them. My guess is that you won't see anything quite as over-the-top as Kabal's finisher in the upcoming Mortal Kombat film, but the good news for fans is that it isn't shying away from the splatter.

"I don’t know the gallon number, but I’ve seen drums of blood sitting around," director Simon McQuoid told PC Gamer sister site Cinemablend.

Lewis Tan, who plays MMA fighter and presumptive hero Cole Young, added, "It respects the game, let me tell you that."

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You know it's a good sign when the bloodshed is measured in units normally reserved for things like filling up semi trucks, but the site went further and did the math: An adult human body typically has up to 1.5 gallons of blood flowing through it, so if you assume the drums in question contain around 52 gallons of blood (most have a 55 US gallon capacity, but you want to leave a little space at the top so you're not sloshing it all over the floor every time you have to move one), that means each barrel is good for just under 35 total human exsanguinations.

There are a little more than a dozen Mortal Kombat characters in the film that we know of: Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Cole Young, Sonya Blade, Kung Lao, Liu Kang, Mileena, Jax Briggs, Kano, Raiden, Shang Tsung, Kabal, Nitara, and—maybe—Noob Saibot.

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That means that a single barrel would be sufficient to render them all very wetly dead nearly three times each. Multiple barrels? That might seem like overkill, but really, that's Mortal Kombat in a nutshell.

Mortal Kombat is set to arrive in theaters worldwide, and on HBO Max in the US, on April 16. If you haven't seen the trailer yet, here it is.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.