RESIDENT EVIL: WELCOME TO RACCOON CITY (2021)
For every move there is a counter. Each attack has a defense. Within the confines of this digital dojo we defend underloved works of art. It has been said that all art will eventually find its audience. We are that audience. Bow to your media. Bow to your device. Choose your fighter.
A bizarre incident occurred near the end of the 20th century. It all began as an ordinary day in September... an ordinary day in Chicago, a city controlled by neon green relish and rivers. My cousin, little brother, and I were up way too late for a trio of tweens tempting terror by playing Resident Evil (1996) on the PlayStation. It was a slumber party for my cousin's birthday so the Colletti's pizza and Royal Crown cola circulated capaciously. Just when we were lulled into a false sense of security, scratching and surviving through our first foray into spine-chilling survival horror of the Spencer Mansion, a low growl emanated from a once cleared hallway of the labyrinthine living dead laden villa. Large lizard-like Hunters repopulated the revenant rich corridors of this reprehensible residence. Suddenly our computerized creeps became corporeal when we heard a second snarl spring so much closer. Two glowing red eyes illuminated my cousin’s darkened bedroom from a neglected pile of laundry and toys accumulated in a corner. As the oldest, I took immediate action and dug through the clutter to reveal the cause of our consternation to be our cousin’s preferred birthday present from two years prior: GORZAK.
GORZAK was Tyco’s battery-powered, voice-operated, axe-swinging, 15-inch tall, walking and talking demon doll. I chuckled fondly, relieved to find the glowing eyes attached to a treasured toy and reminded of the good times we had pitting GORZAK against other action figures. My relaxed reverie was derailed upon noticing GORZAK’s battery hatch was hanging open and empty. I turned the toy over to see his eyes light up once again. GORZAK and I locked gaze amidst another bout of grunting and wild ax gesticulating. My brother attempted to make a case for GORZAK, argued our heart racing hijinx in survival horror has led to a hasty death sentence, but we’ve all seen enough horror movies to know this is clearly a demonically possessed doll that must be dealt with quickly and with extreme prejudice. We hauled GORZAK down to the basement, cued up "Stuck In The Middle With You" by Stealers Wheel, and went to work on homes with a pair of pliers and a blow torch. After getting medieval on GORZAK’s ass we distributed the broken and burned shards amongst numerous dumpsters to discourage regeneration. Protocol informed by the recent Hunter encounter. I hope we made you proud, Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine. A sentiment undoubtedly shared by writer/director Johannes Roberts during his crafting of what I feel is the best adaptation of the ghoulish gaming series to date: RESIDENT EVIL: WELCOME TO RACCOON CITY (2021).
IMDb: 5.2 out of 10
Rotten Tomatoes: 30% Tomatometer / 65% Popcornmeter
Metacritic: 44 /100 Metascore, 3.6 /10 User Score
Letterboxd: 2.0 out of 5
Perhaps you’d like to check my bonafides before I go on. At time of writing I have beaten ten of the thirteen canonical games with the exceptions being Resident Evil 5 (2009), Resident Evil 6 (2012), and Resident Evil: Revelations 2 (2015). I've seen all six films in the Paul W.S. Anderson “Alice” saga, the four CGI animated films, as well as both the CGI and live-action miniseries for Netflix so after thirty years in the blood-stained bosom of this fandom I’d like to think I’ve earned a seat at the table for discourse. Do I also write erotic zombie friend fiction like Tina Belcher from Bob’s Burgers? A gentleman does ask and a lady never tells. While I mostly enjoy each of these cinematic offerings, I found the most satisfying viewing experience thus far to be Johannes Roberts’ RESIDENT EVIL: WELCOME TO RACCOON CITY.
While there are some cheesy cannibalistic cinematic cheers with Anderson’s RESIDENT EVIL (2002) and his subsequent sequels, they’ve never quite lived up to their namesake for me and there’s a reason for that. During development for the adaptation a 1998 script for a Resident Evil feature film by the granddaddy of modern zombie movies, George A. Romero of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968) fame, was floating around only to be rejected by production company Constantin Film due to being too dark, violent, bloody, and provocative. The steak, too juicy. The lobster, too buttery. If you want to peek at the anthropophaginian potential of that possible motion picture peruse the documentary GEORGE A. ROMERO'S RESIDENT EVIL (2025) and you too can lament what they took from us. Instead Constantin went with Anderson’s script which wasn’t written as a Resident Evil adaptation but admittedly a “rip-off” of the games entitled THE UNDEAD. Those in the know realize it probably wasn’t the script that dazzled as much as Anderson being a proven commodity in cinematic video game adaptations with his directorial efforts in MORTAL KOMBAT (1995).
A RESIDENT EVIL cinematic reboot was originally greenlit in 2018 to be produced by James Wan and written by Greg Russo, allegedly it would be more inspired by the game Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (2017) which was more horror-based. When both Wan and Russo left the project to work on the MORTAL KOMBAT (2021) reboot [How’s that for symmetry?], Roberts was tapped to write and direct. Quite the coup coming off of smaller productions like 47 METERS DOWN (2017), its sequel 47 METERS DOWN: UNCAGED (2019), and the slasher sequel THE STRANGERS: PREY AT NIGHT (2018). What Roberts endeavored to do was make a film that finally showed fidelity to the name Resident Evil.
That’s where this project sings. Roberts reached out to game publishers Capcom for blueprints for the Spenser Mansion and Raccoon City Police Department to make sure his sets captured the look of the games. Roberts also littered scenes with a dizzying amount of Easter eggs like typewriters, Tall Oaks T-shirts, dragonfly necklaces, talk of giant snakes, and impromptu piano playing of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” all harkening back to the haunted halls of the gaming experience. Roberts meticulously recreated props down to the shotgun shells and the first game’s title screen to propel audiences into Raccoon City. The pinnacle for me is the pitch perfect recreation of the first game’s infamous “Turning Around Zombie” sequence in which our heroes witness a zombie devouring a fallen teammate only for the ghoul to terrifyingly turn around. See, it’s not just a clever name.
What also endears this film to me is the amount of inspiration Roberts drew from the filmography of John Carpenter. During the writing process Roberts hoped to imbue elements of ATTACK ON PRECINCT 13 (1976) and THE FOG (1980) demonstrating a disparate group of characters coming together under siege from seemingly supernatural assailants. Even Roberts’ conception of hero Leon S. Kennedy is very much informed by the somewhat bumbling Jack Burton from Carpenter’s BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA (1986). Roberts also paid tribute to the Master Of Horror during the editing process, emulating PRINCE OF DARKNESS (1987) and THE THING (1982) fonts for his own opening and closing credit sequences respectively. Carpenter’s fingerprints are also all over Mark Korven’s minimalist atmospheric synth scoring.
However, WELCOME TO RACCOON CITY is not without its flaws mostly due to budget constraints and COVID lockdown complications. Narratively the film is a proverbial overambitious “Jill Sandwich” of the separate storylines for the first two games in addition to a few odd fitting bits and bobs. The reason for this is that the film was initially budgeted for $40 million (a smaller budget than almost all of the previous Anderson adaptations) only to have the budget reduced to $25 million just prior to filming causing a rushed re-edit of the script and severe reshuffling of the storyboarding and shooting schedule. This also caused certain CGI special effects pieces for zombie hordes, zombie dogs, and the Birkin monster to be severely shortened or scrapped. Lockdown protocol also limited the amount of performers allowed on set, so zombie numbers drastically dwindled there too.
Even with those shortcomings, I still quite enjoy the picture (although I surely wouldn’t kick a director’s cut out of bed for eating a sloppy truckstop burger). On that $25 million budget, the film grossed roughly $42 million worldwide at the box office which wasn't too shabby when you consider it was during the tail end of a global pandemic. It’s fun, fast-paced, featuring deep cut references from the game series and horror genre as well as it being the truest representation of the source material, at least until we get eyes on Zach Creggers’s RESIDENT EVIL (2026). With what Creggers offered with BARBARIAN (2022) and WEAPONS (2025), I am very much looking forward to see his take on the property, especially after his sentiments expressed in a recent interview with IGN:
@ign Resident Evil director Zach Cregger passionately explains about why he doesn't want to do a direct adaptation of the games. #residentevil #zachcregger #movie #gaming #sdcc ♬ original sound - IGN Entertainment
I am not trying to adapt a video game. I’m not going to be able to do it better than the games. The games are so well-executed, and to me it’s kind of like when you have your favorite book and then you find out someone is turning your favorite book into a movie and then you hear who they cast and you’re always like ‘No!’ I’m not trying to do that. What I’m trying to do is make a RESIDENT EVIL movie that really is a love letter to the experience of playing a Resident Evil game.
So did the petrifying powers of Capcom’s Resident Evil act as a lightning rod for malevolent spirits to inhabit our plaything or did the immaculately crafted creepy atmosphere foster the perception that terror was lurking in every corner? While experience has taught me to lean towards the latter, another profound life experience complicates my relationship with the Resident Evil franchise. After spending my sophomore year of high school pitching woo to a girl who seemed less than receptive it wasn’t until I had rented a copy of Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (1999) that she finally called me back. In the immortal words of 4 Non Blondes, “What’s Up?” Do I abandon the game that was due back the very next day to cavort with this kitten? The red light of the answering machine flashed ominously. I guess games and girls come and go, but a guy never forgets slaying his first GORZAK.
