KILLceañera: Music By Slash (HHN 2026)

[Ridesandstuff]

Honestly unless Murdy is willing to truly hand over the design process to people actually in that large Asian population I'm not sure it's a great idea. Maybe things have changed in 7 years, but remembering Spirits and Demons of the East makes me feel like theres a pretty significant lack of understanding there, even outside of putting a white dude in Fu Manchu makeup the title of the zone itself is kinda icky looking back.

As interesting as that zone was aesthetically, I don't think it should be controversial to say it was pretty orientalist and shallow at its bones and any new tackling of any kind of cultural folklore should probably have someone actually knowledgable in charge of designing it.

Not to be a hater but I feel like this maze feels as shallow as that scarezone based off the description. Granted we have no idea who's behind the development of ideas like this. It could very well be someone of Latino descent.

 

[Spookies n' Stuff]

Not to be a hater but I feel like this maze feels as shallow as that scarezone based off the description. Granted we have no idea who's behind the development of ideas like this. It could very well be someone of Latino decent.

I don't disagree, it's honestly what got me thinking about it in the first place lol. I think the only reason we haven't dipped into the Latin American mazes being more insensitive is purely because they've just been surface level collections of existing monsters without much of a story. It feels telling that the first time they try to do something wholly original it feels pretty tacky, even if I have higher hopes.
Murdy has been very open about the fact that he's had Hispanic and Latino team members on his crew consulting for all the previous mazes and this one, but this was also explicitly his idea for the story dating back to 2018 or so, so I imagine it's somewhere in between where he's doing the bulk of the writing and passing off the treatment to other people to make sure things are faithful enough to not actively be offensive.

 

[Ridesandstuff]

I don't disagree, it's honestly what got me thinking about it in the first place lol. I think the only reason we haven't dipped into the Latin American mazes being more insensitive is purely because they've just been surface level collections of existing monsters without much of a story. It feels telling that the first time they try to do something wholly original it feels pretty tacky, even if I have higher hopes.
Murdy has been very open about the fact that he's had Hispanic and Latino team members on his crew consulting for all the previous mazes and this one, but this was also explicitly his idea for the story dating back to 2018 or so, so I imagine it's somewhere in between where he's doing the bulk of the writing and passing off the treatment to other people to make sure things are faithful enough to not actively be offensive.

Yea I don't think the previous mazes are tacky though to be fair. Adapting existing folklore is pretty inspired. This one is lacking a bit of subtly for me and I think it comes from running out of a real launch pad from anything culturally relevant.

I'm kinda surprised none of the scarezones were adapted into mazes. I feel like El Terror de Las Momias or Noche de Brujas could be a bit more nuanced as full mazes. I might just be too artsy fartsy though. I'm open to being proved wrong!

 

[DTH]

I always thought it was funny that the logic behind keeping this area Latin themed was because the Dia De Los Muertos section makes a lot of money with the bar, but you could easily make it Asian inspired instead and still make a killing. Soju, boba, mochi, taiyaki, meat skewers, karrage chicken, eggrolls, ube anything. There's so much from the 616 Night Market or Sawtelle to be inspired from and those places are consistently PACKED.

 

[bdubsCEO]

I don’t know. Murdy has done Latin horror without it feeling disrespectful, corny (up until 15 Candles lol) or contrived for years now, and he’s Irish. I don’t see why he couldn’t tackle Asian folklore effectively if he wanted to. I just wanna see yokai tbh.

 

[rageofthegods]

I think the emphasis on specific folk legends helps keep the Latin houses grounded. That's something they could definitely replicate with Korean, Chinese, Filipino, Thai or Japanese legends.

Alternatively, adapt a foreign language movie! Exhuma, Tale of Two Sisters, The Wailing, or Train to Busan for Korea, the original Ju-On for Japan.

 

[DTH]

I think part of the sentiment is Murdy has done his part with the Latin themed mazes by including Latin voices. Yeah, um, do the same with Asian voices? It's all part of doing your due diligence. The same way he brought in Diego Luna for La Llorona, he could bring in Steven Yeun, Bong Joon Ho, John Cho -- who all have history with horror. Or just, ya know, hire the right people on your team lol

 

[Spookies n' Stuff]

I don’t see why he couldn’t tackle Asian folklore effectively if he wanted to. I just wanna see yokai tbh.

How Spirits and Demons of the East was handled is kinda the main reason I think its dubious, obviously it could be achieved respectfully if they actually tried and put knowledgeable people at the helm.
In the end it just comes down to whether Murdy can balance his ego as "the guy who designs every single maze" with giving people actually in the culture the reins. Like DTH said it's part of due dilligence, if they can do that it'll easily make up for how the zone was handled.