Quote from: Spinachcat;481544I had high expectations for Kult and the world was definitely everything you'd want in a splatterpunk setting, but the system crunch got in the way.

Yeah, Kult is a great Clive Barker-ish horror RPG, but the system is uninspiring at best. It does deserve a better system.

Is this really even a thing? What the fuck is "splatterpunk", and how does it vary from regular "splatter"?

RPGpundit

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splatterpunk
Splatterpunk—a term coined in 1986 by David J. Schow at the Twelfth World Fantasy Convention in Providence, Rhode Island—refers to a movement within horror fiction distinguished by its graphic, often gory, depiction of violence and "hyperintensive horror with no limits."[1][2] It is regarded as a revolt against the "traditional, meekly suggestive horror story".[3]

Though the term gained some prominence in the 1980s and 1990s, and, as a movement, attracted a cult following, the term "splatterpunk" has since been replaced by other synonymous terms for the genre.[4] The last major commercial endeavor aimed at the Splatterpunk audience was 1995's "Splatterpunks II: Over the Edge," an anthology of short stories which also included essays on horror cinema and an interview with Anton LaVey.

Writers known for writing in this genre include Clive Barker,[5][2] Poppy Z. Brite,[2] Jack Ketchum,[2] Joe R. Lansdale,[2] Richard Laymon,[2] Richard Christian Matheson,[2] Robert McCammon,[2] David J. Schow,[2] John Skipp,[2] Craig Spector,[2] Edward Lee and A. M. Homes.

Quote from: RPGPundit;481675Is this really even a thing? What the fuck is "splatterpunk", and how does it vary from regular "splatter"?

RPGpundit

OK, the wikipedia thing is pretty good, time for some historical context. In the 1970s there was a thing called "Grindhouse" - where there were creepy second line movie theaters called "Grindhouses" that showed cheap movies that didn't make it to mainline theaters. But while not making it to the big theaters constrained their budget, it also freed them from oversight by the MPAA. These movies were unrated, so they could offer things like boobs, swearing, and gore that the major picture studios could not.

Well, in the 1980s, video cassettes basically killed the grindhouse theaters. The grindhouse clientele would really rather watch these movies in the comfort of their own home, and the studios got a better deal and a longer tail on their investment in the straight to video market. But placement on video store shelves also put the grindhouse movies on an equal footing with the "real" movies in that arena. So in the mid-80s, these cheap-ass movies with extreme gore and naked boobs gained a form of legitimacy, which caused them to get a name coined for them: Splatterpunk.

For about ten years after that, people tried to make Splatterpunk into a thing and made some books and comics and movies that went to theaters that celebrated in-your-face-gore. But by 1995 Showgirls came out and you could get a big-budget NC-17 movie into major theaters even if it sucked, so no one really cared about Splatterpunk's "line crossing" because there wasn't really a line people cared about crossing any more.

For all their talk about "no limits", there isn't really anything more grotesque in the 80s Splatterpunk material than in last year's "Asylum" video by Disturbed. At the point where your movement of pushing the boundaries of good taste has been exceeded by mainstream metal bands, why do you exist?

-Frank

Fuck, its official: I hate anything that has the word -punk in it excepting punk rock and cyberpunk.

RPGpundit