Postal

In 1997, game studio Running with Scissors released its debut title, Postal, an isometric shooter aimed at shocking an imagined pearl-clutching public. The game focused on a disgruntled "Postal Dude" whose goal is to murder as many people as possible. It was crass, gory, and dumb--all of which might have been forgivable if the game had been any fun to play. Postal gained enough notoriety from riding the wave of public outrage to warrant a sequel. And DLC. And a remake. And, perhaps most surprising of all, a Golden-Raspberry-winning feature film adaptation directed by the infamous Uwe Boll. In this thoughtful and hilarious tag-team performance, media critics Brock Wilbur & Nathan Rabin mine the fascinatingly troubled game and film for what each can tell us about shock culture & mass shootings, interviewing the Scissors team and even Boll himself for answers. Like it or not, Postal is the franchise that won't die--no matter how many molotov cocktails you throw at it.