Resident Evil Movie Franchise Planning Horror Reboot
Escape The Survivor Horror
Little is known about the reboot to the Resident Evil movie franchise after the last movie offered a return it Raccoon City and a chance for Alice and the survivors to take on the Hive once more.
While the first movie had invented new characters rather than following much from the video games and set new survivors into the Hive to find the source of the infection rather the games which first focused on the Raccoon City Police Department S.T.A.R.S. unit stepping in after the Bravo Team had mysteriously been killed after the helicopter crash in the woods near the Spencer Mansion.
Finding out that house was the Umbrella Corporation's cover up for a housing one of their many labs that were inventing bio weaponry, the film depiction kept several things from the games correct and later brought back some of the main characters to star along side of their invented protagonist, Project Alice.
While it isn't too far fetched what Alice had become using components of the T Virus that affected her in a strange way that rather than transforming her she developed superior strength, something we see in the Wesker children; but Alice takes the series so far from what is seen in the games. Even the animated movies more closely follow the events of missions between the games when Leon was off in Europe.
The novelizations of the games by S.D. Perry, also closely mirror shot for shot many of the most notable moments of the video games.
Why Constantin Films version of events are so far from the what we expected for Resident Evil part of it seems to lie on the writer also being involved with the movie depictions of game franchise Mortal Kombat.
With whispers online saying the new plans for Resident Evil are to bring it alive as a creepy horror movie with true terror rather than jump scares and nostalgia, fans are eager to see what that could mean.
While the six films of Resident Evil aren't exactly bad, the films departure from focus on the Raccoon City Police Department and the events of spin off titles like Code Veronica, makes them more than a little cheesy. Where some special effects are nice, it really lacks of plot. All we know is eventually Alice wants to get back at Umbrella and the mishmash of video game characters come along for the ride; unlike the animated movies that closely follow key points in the game.
Back To Basics
If Resident Evil hopes to be truly terrifying, it needs to either reinvent the story from the focus point of a new viral outbreak a la the totally new story of Resident Evil 7 which only had subtle tie ins to previous games in its notes mentioning Umbrella Corporation and its last minute arrival and DLC game play as Chris Redfield.
Having a completely new location not related to any of the previous events of the the games and taking the game mechanics away from the point and shoot and back to a survival horror game where supplies are limited and an emphasis on stealth and resource management in a creepy location with few times to the previous story, the only complaint about 7 is it felt too short although the run time was pretty close to the original game.
7 also rather than focusing on the aftermath of mutilated monsters that had been previously turned, Evaline's monsters she raised are truly terrifying with glimpses of humanity.
Something hosting a brand new story and new virus like in 7 could be exactly what the movie installments need after all this time.
If the focus is more on being a horror movie, in the way that the games were a horror game- the new vision could be beautiful.
The chapter of Resident Evil that was Alice's story has come to a close and there is no need to recycle anything about the character if Resident Evil is going to move back into horror territory. Too much time onscreen was spent with Alice having her powers manipulated by Umbrella Corporation that it took away from the destruction of the world around the characters of the game.
Don't Ask Alice
For what they were, Resident Evil wasn't too bad on the silver screen, but six movies later with little plot elopement and way too much of Wesker and those sunglasses made the movie cheapened to the equivalent of that horrible Super Mario Bros movie.
A return to Raccoon City should either be the full mansion experience and not a tawdry tease when Alice first woke up in a dress that was a part Ada Wong and a part Jill Valentine with the boots and maybe work in a fill or two through the events of the first three games.
There are plenty of things important to the series that was developed in those first titles.
Maybe they could even work towards 4 and 5 when the games became too Call Of Duty to grow with game developers.
Anything from Code Veronica and Claire's events on the island would make for a great movie as well.
What made for the best of Resident Evil was keeping in the creep factor and everything we saw with Alice was too not what the franchise was about and was a very loose usage of the name.
Lisa Trevors, The Movie
With the remake of Resident Evil 2 just around the corner in January, picking up somewhere around the devastation of Raccoon City in games two and three which ran about the same timeline, would be a great jumping off point to start a new story if it followed the fate of that event and the global spread and evolution of new types of viruses.
The only problem with something like that is like the previous movies, then the world gets too big and loses all meaning unlike the first three games staying close to Raccoon City.
I think a movie series that follows the events of the first, and second and third game which runs in the same time span would be a truly scary horror movie as the last of the S.T.A.R.S members tried to find survivors in the locations true to the game such as Kendo's Gun shop, the train and sewage plant where we last saw Rebecca in Resident Evil 0 before running into Chris at the mansion.
From either perspective of survivor or the police, this is a movie worth watching.
But because the feel of the first game is so legendary, I would like to see either Chris or Jill have to work out all the puzzles and mysteries of mansion, the guard shacks,and the labs.
Totally new suggestion, how about a story on the Trevors family fate only played upon in notes found around the first game and the invention of Lisa Trevor in the Resident Evil HD Remake?
For those that the name of George Trevor is nothing but a mention in notes in Resident Evil or Resident Evil 7 on a bill of construction found in the attic- George Trevor was a very special architect and maybe contractor that was brought on board by Umbrella Corporation to make all of the labs, and mansions in the various games.
Filled to the brim with terrifying traps, puzzles, and mazes, after the construction in the 60's on the Spencer mansion, Trevor found out that he was a prisoner to the corporation and that the traps that he had invented for the company, were now to test his limits as the first rat through the maze like something of Saw.
With the blue prints in mind for the mansion, George could never be allowed to leave and he was trapped inside a shaft in the mansion where he eventually starved to death unbeknownst to him, his wife Jessica and young daughter, Lisa were captive in the labs.
Experimented on for years, Jessica eventually perished from her injuries, while Lisa had gone mad and lost all motor function as a human girl as her body was manipulated by the virus.
Freeing herself somehow after ripping off the faces of many a lab attendant, explained in a note from Lisa that she was only looking for the one face she remembered, her mothers.
Lisa lived in the tunnels under her father's shack on the grounds of the Spencer Mansion until the events of the first game when either Jill encounters her in the mansion and mines and either pushes Lisa off the platform with the help of Barry or allows her to get back her mother's skull and Lisa jumps back into the pit.
The story of what happened to the Trevor family sneaking around the remains of the mansion in the sixties could be a fantastic horror movie, especially with all the later mentions of Saint Lisa in the remake.
Whatever they do, I hope to finally see a movie that does justice to this amazing series.
