Horror is one of the most subjective genres in existence, but a skilled game designer like Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama can craft an experience that can get under the skin of just about anyone. His new title, the bizarre and unsettling Slitterhead, appears to be taking what he learned from working on his previous titles and running with it. However, Slitterhead seems to have inspiration from more than just previous Keiichiro Toyama games like Silent Hill and Siren. The game also seems to be modeled loosely off a Japanese urban legend that has been around for decades if not centuries.
At the beginning of the Slitterhead reveal trailer shared at The Game Awards 2021, there is a scene where a man walking alone at night is approached by a young woman in a pink dress. She emerges from a side alley and puts on a sultry look, but when the camera focuses on her face, things go horribly wrong. There are several shots dedicated to her neck elongating, her body warping, and - most importantly - her mouth swelling to cover most of her head. Most of her transformation into a bizarre, spider-like monster is conveyed through silhouette and shadow, but the video pays specific attention to her mouth slitting open. There could be a good reason for that.
The Legend of the Slit-Mouthed Woman
The kuchisake-onna, often translated into English as "Slit-Mouthed Woman," is a Japanese urban legend that has been around for quite a while. Although her origins seem to be obscure, with some researchers citing her existence as going back to at least the 1800s, she exploded to popularity in the 1970s. Supposedly, she's the ghost of a woman whose face was disfigured by an angry man -or, in some more recent variants of the tale, plastic surgery gone wrong. Slitterhead also seems to focus on the faces of women being distorted, and it wouldn't be the first time a video game has taken inspiration from a yokai.
The modern incarnation of the Slit-Mouthed Woman is a seemingly lovely woman wearing a face mask who approaches people walking alone and asks if she's beautiful. She murders people who say no, but when people say yes, she takes off her face mask to reveal that her mouth has been slashed open from ear to ear and asks if she's still beautiful like this. Afterward, she gives the unfortunate onlooker a Glasglow grin to match her own. The sequence in the Slitterhead trailer where the woman in pink approaches the man alone and attacks him is almost a beat-for-beat recreation of a classic encounter with the Slit-Mouthed Woman, and Japanese horror games often take inspiration from urban legends.
Tell Her She's Pretty
While relatively little about Slitterhead is known so far, the imagery of mouths splitting open impossibly wide and a beautiful woman approaching a man walking alone are reminiscent of the legend. The main difference seems to be that in Slitterhead, the player will be able to fight back against the monster. The Slitterhead trailer takes some nods from action games like Devil May Cry while still establishing an eerie and uncomfortable tone. The Slit-Mouthed Woman story bears a resemblance to western urban legends like Bloody Mary, with one major exception: people don't summon her, she just shows up without prompting, which seems to fit the mood Slitterhead is going for.
In 1979, the Slit-Mouthed Woman legend terrified schoolchildren and adults alike, leading many to invent rituals to drive the spirit away. Some versions of the story claim she can be repelled by yelling the word "pomade" three times or that she'll let victims go if bribed with hard candy. One might wonder how she manages to eat hard candy with her mouth slit open, but it's ambiguous whether her mouth is still bleeding or if it has healed in a completely inhuman shape. Other versions of the story suggest telling her that she's so-so or refusing to answer her question at all. Regardless, the Slit-Mouthed Woman legend seems like a great source of inspiration for a disturbing game similar to Silent Hill.
Slitterhead is currently in development.