Netflix Restores Life to “Resident Evil” (Review)

I’ve stated numerous times before that I don’t usually play video games. That’s why I’m definitely not qualified to comment on the accuracy when translating video games to films or television mediums, but I think that’s also a positive — it eliminates any frustration I might have with the lack of faithfulness in the source material, because I’m not anywhere close to familiar with said source material.

The same is true for Resident Evil, which Netflix has adapted for long-form television. This is the story about a pandemic that ravages the world and drastically reduces the sane and living population — and that makes it feel a little too real. The dystopian setting naturally lends itself to the horror genre, but it’s less traditional jump scare-focused horror and more along the lines of something you could genuinely see happening; perhaps not to this extreme, but it’s all become much more tangible after the events of the last two years. It’s more relatable, and therefore scarier.

“Resident Evil” Review: Stay a While in Raccoon City

I’m told that Welcome to Raccoon City, a total franchise reboot, is much more faithful to the Resident Evil games than the previous six films. I have neither seen the other films nor played the games, so I was going into this completely blind.

I think that might’ve been the best way to do it. Welcome to Raccoon City spells out everything it needs to (sometimes annoyingly so) and the story is simple to understand for us non-gamers. Claire Redfield, played by Kaya Scodelario, returns to the city she grew up in, just as shady corporation Umbrella is moving out of Raccoon City in favor of a new location. However, they’re leaving behind a (literally) toxic mess that quickly spirals out of control, transforming the town’s residents into zombies.

A well-used $25 million budget does the film a service, allowing it to really live up to its premise. There’s no shying away from violence, oftentimes cartoonish and absurdly fun: zombies munching on eyeballs, hell-hounds leaping through car windows and flaming truck drivers are some of the film’s many offerings. Not all of it has to make sense, but it brings with it a certain sense of self-awareness that we’ve been seeing a lot of in the horror genre recently. I don’t mind it — I actually think it improves Raccoon City — but I think this element of modern horror film should start to take a backseat in favor of more original ideas. And from what I hear, Raccoon City doesn’t have too many of those.