Splatterhouse was a sidescrolling beat 'em up series that first appeared in Japanese arcades in 1988. It and subsequent Splatterhouse games were novel for their gory horror approach to a genre we more readily associate with street fighting or Ninja Turtles. The series is mostly forgotten to all except a small diehard community, but it turns out Namco had bigger and more ambitious plans for it that never officially materialised.
Namco did release one Splatterhouse spin-off in the form of 1989's platformer Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti, a watered down and "cutesy" take on the more mature (but still quite tongue-in-cheek) beat 'em up outings. It can nowadays be played via the Namco Museum Archives.
