Fan Makes Playable NES Games for Horror Movies That Never Got Them

By John Squires on June 23, 2016

A small handful of horror films made the leap to the Nintendo Entertainment System back in the 1980s, most notably Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Jaws. Bizarre relics of an era long gone by, those 8-bit classics are more popular than ever in the present, thanks in no small part to a line of game-inspired toys recently put out by NECA, and one fan is capitalizing on that nostalgia by literally making NES games for horror movies that were never fortunate enough to officially get them. And the world, thanks to his hard work, is now a better place.

The clever hacker, known as Pacnsacdave, turns existing NES titles into entirely new games, and he’s perhaps most known for bringing Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees into the world of Donkey Kong. The game, one of the most popular in Nintendo history, was used as the basis for two different Freddy vs. Jason NES games: in Jason vs. Freddy, you play as Jason, while Freddy vs. Jason puts Freddy in Mario’s shoes. Most recently, he whipped up a brand new version of the Freddy vs. Jason game, which puts you on a quest to collect Freddy’s gloves and kill Jason.

Earlier this year, Pacnsacdave added to his collection of custom horror games with a playable version of Joe Dante’s Gremlins. As you may recall, Gremlins 2: The New Batch spawned its own NES game back in 1990, but the original classic only became the basis for an Atari 2600 game. In this brand spankin’ new Gremlins 8-bit adventure game, you play as Gizmo and travel through various film-inspired levels that are loaded with the lovable fur ball’s evil adversaries. Believe it or not, the Hudson Hawk NES game was used as the model for this one!

Yes, there was a Hudson Hawk video game. The early ’90s were super weird.

As requested by Corey Feldman himself (seriously!), Pacnsacdave also turned The Lost Boys into a NES game, and it may very well be his masterpiece. Using 1990 video game Shadow of the Ninja as his launching point, Dave created a game that allows you to either play as Edgar or Alan Frog, and in it you travel through Santa Clara doing what the Frog Bros. do best: killing vampires.

Head over to Pacnsacdave’s website to purchase these and other custom-made NES cartridges. And check out some photos and game-play videos below!