Secretly resurrected between the monster success of Spider-Man No Way Home and awards bait like Belfast and Power of the Dog, the latest entry into the billion-dollar franchise, Resident Evil has splattered its way all over our screens in an adaptation more akin to the survival horror roots of the game, rather than the slam, bang action of Paul W.S. Anderson’s film series.
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, shifts the story back to the first two games with more emphasis on plot elements from Resident Evil 2. British Director Johannes Roberts is no stranger to low budget B-movies, his 2017 shark feature, 47 Metres Down was the highest grossing indie feature of that year making $61.7 million against a budget of $5.5 million. Here, he smartly employs the John Carpenter playbook like a growing list of contemporaries, Adam Wingard, James DeMonaco, and David Robert Mitchell.
From the off, Roberts utilises the same font synonymous with Carpenter’s opening credit sequences and the ominous tracking shots that establish the geography of the film. The lo-fi electronic score harks back to the 80s and Maxime Alexandre’s cinematography has the same creeping sense of dread achieved by Carpenter’s director of photography Dean Cundey. Anything could be lurking just off screen and Roberts’ slow build up to the unfolding horror is particularly effective in the first half of the film.
The shadowy Umbrella Corporation is pulling out of their midwestern town, Raccoon City, leaving a skeleton crew of workers and residents too poor to escape the clutches of the impending economic and epidemic catastrophe. Like Flint Michigan, something is in the water causing stigmata in the human souls abandoned to their fate. Some incredible split diopter shots and chilling deep focus sharpen the mind; something is coming and the Hawksian clan of losers and misfits are going to have a tough time holding back the zombie tide of evil.
Classic Resident Evil characters like Claire Redfield and her brother Chris are joined by franchise favourites such as Jill Valentine and the enigmatic Albert Wesker. By turns they inhabit remakes of Prince of Darkness, Assault on Precinct 13 and The Thing as the film gathers pace and mutates alongside the spread of the virus. The claustrophobic fight for survival inside the Spencer Mansion is a particular highlight, a bruising, gruelling ride reminiscent of the now criminally forgotten REC film series. When Chris flicks his lighter in the pitch-black rooms you are struck by the same visceral terror many gamers experienced when scrolling blindly through the original Resident Evil games in the 1990s.
Roberts keeps returning to an establishing shot of the town, self-contained and cut off deliberately from the rest of America. This is a stark reminder that, in the United States, corporations are gradually assuming the rights of individuals but Umbrella, like other corporations, is a superhuman individual that is immortal, outliving its creators if it remains profitable. Is it any wonder that Umbrella’s manufactured contagion is called the Tyrant Virus?
At its gory, shredded, ripped out heart Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, is a no-nonsense, kick-ass, jump scare return to form for the franchise. If low to mid budget movies like this can survive under the planet killer shroud of Marvel and the Covid-19 pandemic, then we should be thankful. Sometimes we want our entertainment to be well made gruesome and schlocky B-movie fare and this latest entry doesn’t disappoint.