It reads like the set-up for your typical Hollywood thriller: "It was just another movie... trying to make an ordinary run in theaters... when suddenly... controversy struck!" To explain, the movie Running Scared had a fairly typical promotional campaign behind it. Trailers were shown in theaters and a website with all the requisite features, including a web game, launched. The web game is fairly advanced as far as web games go, but that isn't what attracted the attention of National Institute on Media and the Family (NIMF).

See, the web game for Running Scared features (or featured) three different types of action. There's driving action, shooting action and, uh, man-on-woman "action." This sort of simulated activity brought the ire of NIMF and other watchdog groups, who called foul on a game with explicit sexual content being free and available on the net—because we all know that there's no such thing as free sexual content readily accessible online.

On February 22, 2006, NIMF sent out a "Parent Alert" via their website mediafamily.org. In it, they warned parents about an online game with sexually explicit content. They mentioned the game's origin as being part of the ad campaign for Running Scared (which had not yet released in theaters) and called for New Line Cinema, the film's distributor, to remove the game from their website.

"It is clear to everyone that this content shouldn't be accessible to children," said Dr. David Walsh President and Founder of the National Institute on Media and the Family. "New Line Cinema should be ashamed that it thought it could get away with this tactic, without being held accountable."

The Running Scared game, called Welcome to Grimley, has two main components: driving levels and shooting levels. The driving levels can probably be best described as a poor man's Crazy Taxi (or poor man's GTA-driving-levels-without-shooting, if you rather); you drive from point A to point B being directed by a red arrow, while sometimes evading crazed Hummer drivers. The shooting section could be described as Time Crisis with mouse controls; you shoot everything that moves, pressing the spacebar occasionally to duck for cover.

The "sex" component of the game had been removed by the time we had a chance to sample the game. Only third-party accounts and screenshots remain to describe what the second level involved. Basically, the main character is attempting to bring his wife to climax orally. That translates to pushing the arrow keys in time with on screen prompts to "Find the G spot."

It's worth noting that the game had and still has an age verification system that requires users to be 17 or older to play the full Welcome to Grimley game. Even with the sex level removed, the game is still not for children, a prime example being a montage of clips taken from various scenes from the movie involving the "F" word at the end. This writer is uncertain what purpose this ending serves, other than to demonstrate the amount of "mature" content in the film.

As mentioned above, New Line has removed the sexually explicit part of the Welcome to Grimley game. "We are very pleased that New Line Cinema has removed the pornography from the video game," said Dr. Walsh in a prepared statement. "However, we are still extremely concerned as to why an X-rated sexually explicit video game was used to promote an R-rated movie in the first place."

While the sexual content in the game was certainly made for mature audiences only, calling it "X-rated" is a bit of a stretch. All parties involved during the sex scene have on clothes and no genitalia are shown, not unlike the "sex" in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas' Hot Coffee modification. Comparisons between the two games can be made rather easily, to the point where we wonder how influential GTA: SA and its most controversial mod were to the game's developer, Heavenspot.

As for the movie Running Scared itself, New Line could only hope that the controversy would scare up some ticket sales. In its opening weekend, the Wayne Kramer film had taken in little over three million in the box office, which was only good enough for ninth place among movies last week. Critics have not been kind to the film either, giving it a cumulative average of 38% on RottenTomatoes.com.