Figured why the hell not, and get a thread going for this because it's coming out soon and there's a lot of positive/mixed buzz going around for it!
Though the main consistent gripe i'm seeing be tossed around is the third act is a very mileage may vary part of the film, including the ending. Which is par for the course with any RE story in the games so i'm not too surprised on that front.
I'm even seeing some people saying Zach and Austin are the Sam Raimi/Bruce Campbell horror creative duo of this generation which is quite a insane comparison to hear being tossed around, but seeing some the interviews with these two interacting, and some of the BTS stories they've told, i can't help but see it a bit, these two really gel well with each other!
So if anyone here gets to see it, here's a thread for ya!
Being a Resident Evil fan, I’m quite skeptical, but will watch when it hits digital. I’m checking out Zach’s previous films Barbarian and Weapons right now. I haven’t watched a good horror film since The Substance. So we’ll see.
Being a Resident Evil fan, I’m quite skeptical, but will watch when it hits digital. I’m checking out Zach’s previous films Barbarian and Weapons right now. I haven’t watched a good horror film since The Substance. So we’ll see.
Got to watch the film and this is all i have to say, can we please get Zach Cregger and Austin Abrams for a Evil Dead film? These two are a perfect match for it! If not, i'll happily take what i got with this, this was a blast of a film, third act's a bit of a mileage may vary affair but that's par for the course with any RE story in the games, i think the comedy could've been pulled back a hair bit to let the emotional beats/stakes breathe but despite that main gripe, this felt like on par tone wise with classic Evil Dead 100%.
Getting past the evil dead comparisons, i thought Zach and his crew really nailed the feel of the game mechanics/structure, it really felt like i was watching someone play a Resident Evil game all the way through, everything was there from the resource management, the progression with the weapons, how the main lead acted and how they started to step up towards the end of the story, the camera angles and how they followed the character and where you can tell where it transitions from cut scene to gameplay mode. it all felt perfectly on par with the games in a way that i've never seen done with any other video game adaptation that's gonna lend to some really fun re-watches.
But yeah, it was a blast and i highly recommend it if you love the games and how they play out, you will not be disappointed on that front!
There are some obvious comparisons to be made to Evil Dead, specifically to Evil Dead II, but both movies are still different enough to make it interesting, mostly when it comes to the mix of horror and comedy. Evil Dead's horror comes from the fact that the Evil Forces themselves have a sense of humor. That they want to mess with you and drive you mad before you die. In Resident Evil, the biohazard itself doesn't have a sense of humor or even personality, but it can mutate into such grotesque forms that at one point you just have to laugh at it. The various mutations of the virus are very true to the games, but while the games treat that completely straight (which also works), in the movie it usually devolves into "I don't know how to react to this, so I'm just gonna laugh". Which is also very Evil Dead, but again, different enough to make it interesting.
There are also some visual nods to other great horror movies like The Thing, Frank Darabont's the Mist, or From Dusk Till Dawn. By the end of the movie I was also getting some Alex Winter's Freaked vibes.
It's interesting that while Evil Dead Rise had themes of fearing motherhood, Resident Evil has themes of fearing fatherhood. Though ultimately I think the movie is about avoiding responsibility, which I found quite interesting. The protagonist avoids responsibility of dealing with the fact that his girlfriend might be pregnant by taking one last package to Racoon City. Then he meets the Umbrella agent who avoids responsibility by sending him for the car keys. Then when shit hits the fan in the lab, the guy from Severance starts sending all of his colleagues to their deaths to get the cure. It's not only about avoiding personal responsibility, but also corporate responsibility that leads to destroying of the planet, which is why I think the nihilistic ending of the movie is so fitting. Even though the protagonist wants to do the right thing by the end, he becomes the product of everybody around him avoiding responsibility and destroying the world. It also kind of reminded me the ending of Return of the Living Dead. Where no matter what you do, the situation will just keep getting worse.
One thing bothered me, though. The movie was shot in Prague. There are tons of Czech names in the credits and the farmer at the start of the film was even played by a pretty well known Czech actor (Karen Dobrý, who was also in the first Mission: Impossible movie). And when I first heard that the movie is being shot in Prague, it made sense to me because the Resident Evil series is full of gothic mansions and even the RCPD looks like something from Gotham City. So I though they're gonna use some locations from pre-war parts of Prague to get this late 19th to early 20th century look. But instead the movie takes place in like Soviet era city blocks that were built in the 1970s that do not exist anywhere in the US and it doesn't really make sense for any American city to have them.
Though I'd love to hear an American's perspective on this, whether it felt to them as jarring as it did to me.
Honestly the architecture to me at least added to the grimy nature of this Raccoon City that Zach wanted to portray with the story he wanted to tell, i didn't mind it at all nor did it take me out of the experience as it was in line with the films overall bleak aesthetic and tone.
Re: the architecture, it felt VERY accurate to RE2 and 3s version if Raccoon City. Way too cramped, alleys that lead nowhere, dumpsters everywhere. Raccoon City's design has never made sense as a North American city.
Re: the architecture, it felt VERY accurate to RE2 and 3s version if Raccoon City. Way too cramped, alleys that lead nowhere, dumpsters everywhere. Raccoon City's design has never made sense as a North American city.
