Whalefall, the movie that sees Austin Abrams attempt to fight his way out of the belly of a sperm whale, has a fan in Hideo Kojima. The Metal Gear Solid creator and serious movie buff shared his thoughts on the film over the weekend, revealing a love for whales that has been with him since school — but says Whalefall has, as a result, put him off snacking on squid.
“It was a literary film that explored, in a somewhat metafictional way, the Steinbeck-like relationship between whales and humans as part of an ecosystem, alongside the familial bond between father and son. The visual effects were also outstanding. However, I don’t think I’ll be eating squid for a while,” he wrote on Twitter/X.
I watched “Whalefall.” I had received a copy of Daniel Kraus’s novel, on which the film is based, quite some time ago, but hadn’t had the chance to read it yet. Kraus was also involved in writing the screenplay. It was a literary film that explored, in a somewhat metafictional way, the Steinbeck-like relationship between whales and humans as part of an ecosystem, alongside the familial bond between father and son. The visual effects were also outstanding. However, I don’t think I’ll be eating squid for a while 🦑. I love whales. They appear frequently in my games. When I was in the early years of elementary school, I researched whale ecology for a school project. Ever since then, I’ve been fascinated by their enormous size as mammals and their symbolic presence in the marine ecosystem. In MGS2, Raiden is swallowed, digested, and excreted by the enormous Arsenal Gear, a whale that swallows digital information. Whales also feature in MGSV and DEATH STRANDING. There are references to Herman Melville’s “Moby-Dick” as well. It’s a shame they didn’t make a program for the film 🐳.
— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) October 18, 2026
Director and writer Brian Duffield spoke to IGN for Fall Fan Fest 2026 about the making of the movie and revealed the unusual research he had to undertake when it came to whale guts.
“We would watch autopsies of beached sperm whales, and there’s a bunch of endoscopies of beluga whales and dolphins that we would watch and then talk to the experts and see how much of that we could use and how much would be different with a sperm whale,” he said.
“But yeah, it was a real weird time in my life where most everything I was watching was very graphic endoscopies and autopsies. My wife would walk into the room and I’d close my laptop lid, and she was just like – she knew I wasn’t watching porn – she was just like, ‘Just another autopsy?’ I was like, ‘Yes, it’s my job.'”
Whalefall is in movie theaters now, and our review said it “pulls the viewer into an unthinkably frightening, incredibly gross, and panic-inducing environment that plays on primal human fears about being predator or prey.” You can read more of that review here.
Rachel Weber is the Head of Editorial Development at IGN and an elder millennial. She’s been a professional nerd since 2006 when she got her start on Official PlayStation Magazine in the UK, and has since worked for GamesIndustry.Biz, Rolling Stone and GamesRadar. She loves horror, horror movies, horror games, Red Dead Redemption 2, and her Love and Deepspace boyfriends.
