The Resident Evil Movie Doesn't "Look Like RE," But Neither Do Some Of The Games

If you take away the title card from the teaser trailer of Zach Cregger's Resident Evil movie, it's easy to mistake it as an original horror property. There's no RPD Station, Nemesis, or Wesker to be found, with only a single green herb spotted in the background.

Already, some fans are complaining (as they do) about the movie's apparent lack of connection to the games, lamenting that it isn't a more overt adaptation of the adventures of Chris Redfield, Leon Kennedy, et al. What those folks seem to forget is that some popular games in the franchise have occupied that territory before.

In fact, Resident Evil can be at its best when it strays from its own familiar trappings.

Resident Evil 4 might be the most celebrated game in the series, even though it takes creative liberties with established gameplay norms and shifts focus away from the story told in the first three numbered entries, as well as Code Veronica. It's a game that has zero zombies, despite being a mainline entry of what's ostensibly a "zombie series." It completely did away with fixed camera angles, switching to the now-ubiquitous over-the-shoulder perspective. Paramount to all of these changes was the focus on horror creeping closer to action.

Sure, it stars Leon and Ada Wong, with a Wesker cameo and some name-drops of Umbrella. But Resident Evil 4 might as well have been a spin-off or a completely new property. Yet, with the possible exception of some old-school purists, fans largely accept RE4 as one of the definitive games in the series.

The action-oriented Resident Evil 4 was already a large departure from the series.

I think a closer point of comparison to Cregger's film is Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, which was essentially a creative reboot of the entire property. I had played the remakes of RE2 and RE3 before starting up RE7, and I'm a little embarrassed now to admit that I initially felt disappointed--and almost betrayed--by how different 7 was.

There wasn't a single zombie found in the Baker house, and the lack of plot elements involving government conspiracies, corporate maleficence, and bioterrorism was jarring. I felt I was playing a Texas Chainsaw Massacre game with Blair Witch camcorder sequences sprinkled in.

It took an hour or two for me to recognize the Resident Evil DNA within 7--item-crafting, puzzle-solving, locks and keys, the pervading sense of dread, and a gauntlet of absolutely messed-up creatures and monsters. RE7 quickly won me over, and it's as much a true Resident Evil game as any of the ones I've played, even if it hadn't thrown in Chris Redfield at the end.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard is a fan favorite, despite being largely disconnected from the franchise.

It's that DNA and those core traits that Cregger speaks about when outlining his vision for the film. He already set up fans for his take long before the trailer debut, disclosing that his film has no characters from the games, while describing it as a love letter to the series that "follows the rules" of its world. Listening him talk to IGN to break down the trailer, it's clear that Cregger is a huge RE fan.

Describing the film's protagonist Bryan (Austin Abrams) as an "avatar" for himself as a player of the games, Cregger said that his goal was to make a movie that felt like "his experience of playing the games." He cites the escalating set pieces, weapon progression, and resource management (appropriately, there's a shot in the trailer where Bryan rummages through drawers for supplies) as elements from the games he aimed to reflect in his film.

Filmmaker Alex Garland famously made the film Annihilation based on his "memory" of the book source material. The result was a fairly different, but still memorable film. Cregger has a similar modus operandi with Resident Evil--while talking to IGN, he even admits he's "fuzzy on the timeline" on when Raccoon City gets nuked, and he struggled to remember which of the games inspired one of the film's monsters.

To me, that isn't an indication that he isn't a "real fan," but more a reminder that Resident Evil is as much about the gameplay and atmosphere as it is the lore--perhaps even more so. When you hear him talk about the series, it isn't about the Redfields or Umbrella or Wesker. Instead, he's talking about the pacing of RE4, the freaky creatures of RE Village, etc.

Yes, Cregger's Resident Evil looks vastly different, but it has the potential to be a solid and memorable entry in the broader RE franchise. Whether or not it sticks the landing, it should be a reminder that Resident Evil devotees really don't need to be precious about a property that regularly reinvents itself.