How Stephen King watching a train hit a kid led to Kiefer Sutherland making his videogame horse crap on command: A PC Gamer Causality Chain™

Causality Chain is a series at PC Gamer exploring the unlikely links between history, culture, and videogames.

Humanity has witnessed countless tragedies—but occasionally, through the alchemy of passing time, moments of singular woe can serve as a foundation for future wonders. Depending, in this case, on how broad your definition of wonder is.

Today, we once again chart the curious contours of cause and effect, tracing how a haunting moment in an American horrormeister’s early years can ultimately lead to an internationally renowned actor participating in an unconventional form of simulated equine combat.

Join us, as we tip the dominoes once again:

Stephen King witnessing a childhood tragedy 🔗 Kiefer Sutherland’s combat horseshit command

A tragic early chapter

(Image credit: Stephen King)

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1951: At “barely four” years old, Stephen King experiences a harrowing episode he’d later share in his 1981 non-fiction book on the horror genre, Danse Macabre1—an episode he himself doesn’t remember, but which was later related to him by his mother. One day, he suddenly returned home from playing with a neighbor who lived near the railroad line. He was “white as a ghost,” his mother said, and refused to speak until the next day.

“It turned out that the kid I had been playing with had been run over by a freight train while playing on or crossing the tracks,” King writes.

He goes on to insist in the book that, however horrifying it might have been, the incident had no bearing on his interests or habits as an author, as becoming a writer is “a direct result of conscious will” and not something “born or created out of dreams of childhood trauma.”

However…

Phantom pains

(Image credit: Viking Press)

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1982: Viking Press publishes Different Seasons2, a Stephen King collection consisting of four novellas. In the third story, The Body, narrator Gordon Lachance—a fiction author—recalls the conflict he and his childhood friends once entered with a gang of greasers over the discovery of the dead body of a neighborhood boy who’d been hit by a train.

Any resemblance to real events is purely coincidental, I’m sure.

Adaptation

(Image credit: Columbia Pictures)

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August 22, 1986: Stand by Me3, a coming-of-age drama based on The Body, releases in American theaters. A critical and commercial success, the film cast Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, and Jerry O’Connell as its four lead boys.

It will also contribute to the rising fame of a young Kiefer Sutherland, who plays antagonist gang leader Ace Merrill.

Proliferation

Boxart for the CINEX release of Stand by Me, intended to assist viewers in learning English. (Image credit: Sony Pictures Entertainment)

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April 18, 1987: Stand by Me is released in theaters in Japan, where it goes on to become a beloved classic. It’s referenced in Mother (renamed Earthbound Beginnings in the US) and the Gen 1 Pokémon games4. Stand By Me receives VHS editions intended to help viewers learn English5. It will still be rebroadcast on Japanese TV to sate viewer demand6 almost 40 years after release.

Every year it draws Japanese tourists7 on a pilgrimage to the Oregon town where it was filmed.

Tactical espionage action, of a sort

(Image credit: Fox)

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November 6, 2001: 25 years after the release of Stand by Me, the first episode of Fox’s action thriller 24 airs on American television, starring Kiefer Sutherland in the lead role as counter-terrorism agent Jack Bauer. The show is a massive success—and, as the quintessential post-9/11 program, often a controversial one—drawing more than 17 million viewers8 for the premiere of its fifth season.

During its nine-season run, 24 also achieves international popularity, thanks in part to the successful distribution of its seasonal DVD box sets.

Militaires sans frontières

A screenshot of the archived webpage for the 24-themed Calorie Mate promotional campaign. (Image credit: Otsuka Pharmaceutical)

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2005: Kiefer Sutherland appears as Jack Bauer in a series of 24-themed Japanese commercials for CalorieMate energy products9. Aided by a massive marketing campaign for the 2003 Japanese release VHS and DVD releases of the show’s first season, 24 quickly became a huge phenomenon in Japan10—particularly among binge-watching rental store patrons, who contribute to an initial word-of-mouth reputation for being in such high demand it’s impossible to find.

24 even sees a Japanese remake in 202011, though it only achieves a middling reception. Sutherland, meanwhile, gains lasting recognition in Japan: At a 2012 press conference12 in Tokyo, Sutherland says “I am where I am today thanks to everyone in Japan.”

Snake eater

(Image credit: Konami)

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June 2013: Infamous action thriller enthusiast Hideo Kojima announces that, in place of the expected performance from David Hayter, Kiefer Sutherland has been cast13 to provide facial capture and English voice acting for Snake in Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain. Kojima says he was seeking a “more subdued performance” to match the “much darker tone” of MGS5, and his Hollywood producer friend Avi Arad suggested Sutherland. “I was like, ‘Why didn’t I think of that?'” Kojima recalls saying.

While Kojima hasn’t mentioned 24 as an inspiration in interviews, a surviving fan transcription14 of a director commentary track included in the Japan-exclusive Metal Gear Solid 3: Extreme DVD Box Set has Kojima directly citing 24 as the model for some of the game’s presentational flourishes. The game was released in 24’s prime.

Do it

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September 1, 2015: Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain releases worldwide on PC and both PlayStation and Xbox. MGS5 features systems allowing the player to research and unlock combat equipment and additional skills for Snake and his companion characters.

One skill, unlocked by reaching a 50% bond rating with D-Horse, lets Snake—as performed by the peerless vocal talent of Kiefer Sutherland—order his combat steed to “do it,” causing D-Horse to defecate at the player’s current location15.

If an enemy light vehicle drives over the horseshit, it loses control and incapacitates its driver and passengers.

Videogames.