Mario Kart 8

Over the years, the Mario Kart series has had its fair share of spooky-themed tracks, from haunted bridges to scary forests. But many of them involve driving through haunted houses. The latest, debuting in Mario Kart 8, is called Twisted Mansion. The track’s environment, music, and background characters all fit the spooky aesthetic perfectly. Of course, this is the Mario franchise we’re talking about, so it’s got more of a whimsical, almost carnival-like atmosphere, rather than pure horror.

Haunted houses in the Mario series go back to Super Mario World, released in 1990. Ghost Houses, as they were called, were creepy-looking buildings shrouded in fog that appeared as bonus levels in each world that Mario travelled through. They were also the only places where he encountered the little round ghosts called Boos.

Let’s fast-forward to 2001, when Luigi’s Mansion was released. I think it’s fair to say that Luigi’s Mansion confused many people at the time. This game helped launch the GameCube, upholding the tradition of having a Mario game debut alongside a new console – but it certainly wasn’t a Mario game in the traditional sense. Instead, the red-capped hero was the one being kidnapped this time, and it was up to his cowardly brother to save him. Even more oddly, Luigi didn’t do this by platforming. Instead, he set out to rescue Mario by exploring a gloomy mansion that had been bequeathed to him under mysterious circumstances, sucking up ghosts with a vacuum cleaner.

Luigi’s Mansion went on to gain a cult-like affinity over time. It has since had two sequels, and the eponymous mansion has appeared as a location several times in various Mario spin-off games (including a stage in the Super Smash Bros. series). Technically, this Mario Kart track is not Luigi’s Mansion, but given its theme of a haunted mansion filled with ghosts and moving furniture, it’s an easy mistake to make.

Twisted Mansion certainly lives up to its name. It is architecturally askew, with supernaturally distorted, rippling floors that defy the laws of physics, flowing more like ribbons than brick and mortar. This will challenge both your skill as a driver and your sense of equilibrium, and makes for a truly surreal experience. The mansion itself combines elements from the old-school Ghost Houses in the main Mario games, with the Gothic architecture of Luigi’s Mansion.

Racers will find themselves zooming through a long, grandiose dining room inhabited by cackling Boos, taking a shortcut through a haunted library, driving through a gloomy courtyard, and even plunging into a flooded sewer system. Down here, beneath the mansion itself, Fish Bones – undead, skeletal versions of Cheep-Cheeps that first appeared in Super Mario World – swim in and out of submerged culverts.

As you leave the mansion, you zoom through a gloomy garden back towards the start/finish line to complete a lap. Ghostly lanterns hang by the side of the track, illuminating the road. Beyond the garden walls, dark, leafless trees can be seen, with shadowed hills in the distant background. In this section of the course, you will also see Hammer Knights – large statues possessed by Boos that will continuously swing down their massive hammers onto the path, briefly blocking the way for racers and potentially flattening them.

Just above the entrance to the mansion is a large, round statue that, upon closer inspection, seems to be made of scrap metal. This is a statue of Boohemoth, the largest Boo known, who appeared as a mini-boss in New Super Mario Bros. 2 for the 3DS. This enormous, corpulent ghost has blocky, human teeth that are more unsettling than the fangs of its smaller brethren.

Since Twisted Mansion is the first time we’ve encountered Boos during our trip through the Mario Kart 8 tracks, let’s take a closer look at these charmingly shy ghosts. Although there’s a slightly spooky quality about Boos, these spectral blobs are also loveable, giggly, and quite bashful. They love to play tricks on people and scare them, and they will pursue Mario whenever his back is to them – but should he turn around and face them, Boos will cower and hide their faces. They won’t approach him again until he is facing away once more. This makes a lot of sense when you consider Boo’s Japanese name, Teresa (yes, really), which comes from the Japanese word tereru, meaning ‘to be shy.’ But why do Boos act this way?

According to Shigeru Miyamoto, the co-director of Super Mario Bros. 3 (the game in which Boos made their first appearance), the inspiration for these ghosts came from the wife of the game’s other co-director, Takashi Tezuka. ‘His [Tezuka’s] wife is very quiet normally,’ Miyamoto explains, ‘but one day she exploded, maddened by all the time he spent at work. So, in the game, there is now an enemy character who shrinks when Mario looks at it; but when Mario turns away, it will grow large and menacing.’

In the English instruction manual for Super Mario Bros. 3, these ectoplasmic creatures were given the name Boo Diddley, as a nod to the blues singer Bo Diddley. But, of course, children didn’t get the reference, so ‘Diddley’ was wisely dropped from all subsequent appearances. From then on, they were known only as Boos.

At first glance, Boos have a ‘generic’ ghost design, but their nearly spherical forms, mouthful of fangs, and protruding tongue are uncommon among ghosts and spirits in Western media. They possibly draw influence from hitodama – floating balls of spiritual energy in Japanese folklore. Boos like to haunt old buildings, and a single castle or mansion may be occupied by dozens of them. Although they sometimes work for Bowser (because hey, they’re always up for causing a bit of trouble), they are more closely associated with King Boo (right). He is the ruler of the Paranormal Dimension and the main antagonist of the Luigi’s Mansion series. King Boo’s power is often directly proportional to the number of Boos in his vicinity.

Finally, I should mention the awesome music on this track. The playful but eerie theme seems to take its cues from the Mario Kart: Double Dash!! version of Bowser’s Castle, and the synthesiser melody, according to the liner notes in the Mario Kart 8 soundtrack, ‘is meant to suggest the sound of ghosts singing.’ The composers imagined all the Boos dancing along to this track, which means that ‘even though it might sound like it’s from a horror film, it has a slight comical edge.’

Next time, we zoom through the high-altitude crystal mines of Shy Guy Falls and look at the mysterious, masked workers that dwell there.