I literally have not owned a video game console in 20 years (I got bored with my Sega Genesis very quickly), but I was about ready to finally get one after hearing this news: Lars von Trier’s controversial new Cannes-winning sensation Antichrist is being adapted into a first-person video game called Eden. Fortunately, I probably won’t need a Wii or Xbox or whatever the kids are playing with these days, since the game will apparently work on my PC (the only game I’ve ever played on my computer is Solitaire). Not much plot is know about this game except that it will feature the voice of Willem Dafoe, will take place after the events in the film and “invites players to confront their fears.” So, I guess that means there could actually be genital mutilation involved, since ejaculating blood is definitely a fear of mine.

This tie-in makes me hope other Von Trier films will get their own video games. The Element of Crime should be the easiest to adapt, but here’s some other ideas: In Breaking the Waves you have to sleep with sailors and then tell your husband about it. In Epidemic you’re the doctor in the film within the film trying to cure an epidemic that you ironically are also spreading. In The Boss of it All you’re an actor pretending to be a company boss without the staff figuring out they’re being duped. And, of course, Dancer in the Dark would be a hybrid game: part first-person shooter in which you have to kill cops trying to steal your savings; part Dance Dance Revoution-type music video game.

Check out what other film blogs are saying about the video game after the jump:

• Seth Abramovitch at Movieline fears the next possible step for the property:
  

  What’s most amazing about this, beyond that this is probably the first Euro sado-arthouse flick to be adapted into a video game since 1989’s ill-fated The Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover for the Sega Master System?

  The fact that the success of Eden could end in a movie adaptation of that — resulting, in effect, in the highly unusual circumstance of a Uwe Boll-helmed remake of a Lars Von Trier film.

• Adam Rosenberg at MTV Movies Blog thinks the game could be a hard sell:
  

  I’m not sure what to think here. Video games are a big hobby of mine. I haven’t actually seen “Antichrist,” but based on what I’ve read and heard it doesn’t exactly fit into the typical game mold. There’s plenty of gore it seems, but not so much action. The slow pace of adventure games are an increasingly tough sell in a market crowded with first-person shooters, open-world sandboxes and fast-paced sports/racing games.

• Lane Brown at Vulture sounds excited, and he supplies some extra info:
  

  Assuming today’s reports are not the result of a hoax or some mass Internet hallucination (which they have to be, right?), this is easily the most wonderful news of a slow news week…According to one source, the game will include “dead babies, psychological terror, mutilated genitals, and ultra fear.” And if that didn’t all sound ambitious enough, it will apparently “download grotesque news from the Web,” manipulating game play based on real-time, real-world events.

• The Playlist wonders what the game play will be like:
  

  What you get points for smashing in penises with hammers and or inflicting genital self-mutilation?…We never play videos games [ed. or at least not me], but would certainly make an exception for this one. We’re very curious.

• Wookie Johnson at Screen Junkies speculates some more:
  

  So yeah, sounds pretty much like Super Mario Bros. 3. Except in this version instead of growing a raccoon tail, Mario ejaculates blood.

• Craig Kennedy at Living in Cinema eases my worry that my video game inexperience will be a problem:
  

  This is great news. Now if you have trouble mastering the genital mutilation sequence, you can always hit reset.