I love Resident Evil. I have since the first time I saw my uncle play through the cerberus hallway in the original game way back in 1996. And I am excited for Zach Cregger’s take on the franchise launching next week.
Some very vocal gamers on the internet are not as excited, and that’s okay. But I think that, considering the fact that the discussion has gotten loud and annoying enough to the point that Cregger feels the need to apologize, we need to give the guy some grace. He even said he feels “like I’ve been on somewhat of an apology tour” while doing press for the film ahead of its Sept. 18 release, and that just sucks.
“I think I was naive,” Cregger said in an interview with Men’s Journal. “I think I thought that, I love the games and I was making a movie that to me was everything I wanted, that I didn’t feel like I was being offered, that I thought people would recognize that and be excited. And I think most people are, and I think that the fans of the games that are a little more dug in and upset, whatever attitude they want to have is cool.”
As someone who’s embedded in gaming and gamer culture, I saw this kind of reaction coming as people are upset with some of the liberties Cregger is taking with the IP, such as the fact that the movie supposedly is taking place alongside the Raccoon City outbreak in 1998 but the movie’s main character has a smart phone, and that it’s snowing in some scenes. A lot of people are just mad that we’re not getting another Leon S. Kennedy story.
It’s weird on the surface, sure, but I think Cregger has enough pedigree to expect something unique and fun. He’s got the goods. Anyone who’s seen his previous movies like Weapons and Barbarian would likely agree. He’s awesome at a grotesque-yet-funny kind of horror that suits the franchise well.
“I hope that they see the movie and at least give it a chance to win them over, because I think that they will feel seen when they watch the movie,” Cregger continued. “But if they don’t, I apologize. You still have the games, I’m not taking the games away from you.”
I strongly feel that he’s going to cook up an awesome movie faithful to the game’s spirit, especially considering what we have seen so far: segments of first-person aiming, scavenging for ammo and keys, light puzzle-solving, missing gunshots purely out of fear, and running like hell. A good chunk of that is Resident Evil in a nutshell. As much as I love Leon and Chris Redfield, games like Resident Evil 7 and Resident Evil Village proved that putting an everyman into an impossible virus outbreak situation just works. That’s the kind of story he’s trying to tell here, it seems.
“This is not me just telling a story and slapping Resident Evil on it so I can get a budget,” Cregger told IGN in a separate interview. “This is me telling a Resident Evil story. I understand the resistance, I do, because I have it myself. It is coming from a true place of love.”
And if his place of love gives us a new and original story set within the Resident Evil universe as opposed to Milla Jovovich doing slow-motion backflips or whatever the hell Welcome to Raccoon City was, then I’m going to keep an open mind about it.
If the movie sucks? Sure, let’s throw our tomatoes and eggs at the screen. But for now, let’s see what he does with it first. I’m pretty confident that the franchise is lucky to have a director like him who cares this much about what he’s making and is a fan, and I feel like he’s going to make something good out of it.
