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A Halloween use for Microsoft's Kinect? Murder

Microsoft posts its annual Halloween video, an homage to slasher films featuring a killer who watches his victims die via his Kinect.

Jay Greene Former Staff Writer
Jay Greene, a CNET senior writer, works from Seattle and focuses on investigations and analysis. He's a former Seattle bureau chief for BusinessWeek and author of the book "Design Is How It Works: How the Smartest Companies Turn Products into Icons" (Penguin/Portfolio).
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Jay Greene
The murderer in Microsoft's short horror flick, Kinect to Kill. Microsoft; screenshot by Jay Greene/CNET

Microsoft's been busy today promoting non-gaming uses for its Kinect motion-sensing controller. The folks at the software giant's developer division have come up with one that isn't sanctioned by the company: murder.

Channel 9, the Microsoft group that evangelizes its products to developers, posted its annual Halloween video over the weekend, one of the most anticipated offerings from a unit that mostly produces technical how-to programs. This year's effort is a blood-spattering short titled, Kinect to Kill.

An homage to slasher films, Kinect to Kill shows workers at an unnamed company that looks a lot like Microsoft dying gruesome deaths while a creepy, masked murderer watches using a Kinect. The 8 minute, 11 second whodunit offers particularly clever low-budget effects, including a victim's heart being removed from his body and another's head exploding.

The film stars the various Channel 9 personalities who host programs on the site. It's the brainchild of Laura Foy, who joined Channel 9 from G4, the cable network dedicated to tech and gaming content, and hosts the sites Hot Apps program.

Last year's Halloween special from the group, The Killer App, has been viewed more than 86,000 times.

Here is Kinect to Kill: