Resident Evil is a franchise full of massive hits and some major misses-looking at you 5 and 6. The franchise has honestly never been super consistent with its quality over its long run of video games and especially movies-mostly from the long list of different creators and genres that have come and gone over the years. But what makes the great ones so fantastic, is also the reason why there are some big disappointments.
The franchise isn't afraid to go off the deep end and get a little weird from time to time, to say the least. It's what gives it that B-movie aesthetic that works so well for the franchise that many fans have come to adore about each installment. It keeps to a set of rules or characteristics that allows the audience to recognize it as a Resident Evil product and after that, it just lets loose in some chaotic nonsense territory that just makes the franchise as fun as it is-or in certain cases, muddled and just downright awful.
When a new Resident Evil product is released, fans go into it expecting a few things that make it identifiable as Resident Evil. The first identifier of a Resident Evil story is the survival aspect of the games. Alone, in the dark, eerie soft music, a quarter of an attaché case worth of ammunition, and no idea what lurks around the corner is Resident Evil at its best. That's what brings the tension and anxiety that has been synonymous with the franchise for so long because it has done it so well in the past. The franchise does it better than anybody else that it really is the difference between it and every other survival horror franchise that is trying to play catch-up, and it's the pedestal that holds up the franchise to where it is.
But how realistic is it to expect a movie to replicate those same moments? Looking at popular horror movies today, many have gone to the psychological side of the spectrum whereas survival horror video games still maintain the 70s to late 80s slasher form. Jump scares, over-the-top villains that are somehow un-killable. But that works for games as there's a different level of immersion for video games, so it's easier to keep a player on edge until a jump scare. It just doesn't work the same for movies anymore. There are new rules and expectations for horror movies, and they have for the most part gone away from the cheap scare, while survival games still revel in it with the story coming second.
The stories found in Resident Evil games can vary from small to big, wacky and confusing, and sometimes even a bit messy which makes them some of the most chaotic stories put in video games, and it definitely doesn't always work, but when it does work there is nothing else like it. It's like playing a straight-to-VHS horror movie with a slightly bigger budget. They aren't masterfully done stories that would win any awards, but its use of overly dramatic locations like castles and witty one-liners just adds so much flavor to an already flavorful blast of ridiculous fun to the franchise. The games are just so out there when it comes to the intense, horrifying, gory, funny, adrenaline-pumping, and absolute masterwork in creature creation that it just works on so many levels that it just seems nearly impossible to replicate in any other form or medium from video games where it got its claim to fame.
This brings the franchise back yet again to live-action adaptations-if that's what they should be called. So far live-action forms of Resident Evil have been horrid, and not in the same way the games are. They are boring, dull, and for the most part, have no idea what makes the games so great. Looking at the Paul W. S. Anderson movies, it does share the game's love for the bombastic-quite literally with these movies. But it doesn't do it in the same way the games do. It isn't fun in the movies. Instead, the eccentricities are just big explosions and way too many cuts to understand what is happening. When it comes to characters, Welcome to Racoon City did its best, but it still somehow completely lacked any of the charisma and intrigue that the characters and monsters carried in the games. Every attempt so far has at least tried, but it lacks everything that makes the franchise a success.
This raises the question: could the franchise ever work on screen? Sadly the answer is most likely no. It possibly could have been thirty years ago when straight-to-VHS B-horror movies were a thing. Anymore though, there isn't much room for movies that aren't massive action movies or straight-shooting horror dramas. But maybe there is still a sliver of hope for the movie flavor that is required for a Resident Evil movie. With certain horror movies slowly going back to the wacky with many horror filmmakers now that were being raised in the age of the B-horror movie, possibly that same taste for pulp horror will come back to independent cinemas. Because for a Resident Evil movie to work, that's what may need to happen.
