It’s safe to say Resident Evil hasn’t found a lot of critical success outside of video games. While the series is more popular than ever thanks to the positive reception of RE7, Village, and the remakes of RE2 and 3, the renewed interest hasn’t yet translated into film and TV. A CGI original movie called Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness premiered on Netflix this summer and has already been completely forgotten, and while I’m still a huge fan of the Paul W.S. Anderson films, the Resident Evil community at large hasn’t exactly come around on them (yet).

Next month, Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City will hit theaters. The live-action reboot promises to be a more “faithful adaptation” than the original films, set in and around the Spencer Mansion and Raccoon City Police Department from Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2, respectively. The first trailer premiered last week, communicating the director’s reverence for the games with tons of references to details and plot points that demonstrate an in-depth understanding of and connection with the series. It’s clear the movie will be packed with fanservice as a way of differentiating itself from the Anderson films, but it remains to be seen if those details amount to anything more than pandering. Welcome to Raccoon City needs more than iconography to be a true Resident Evil adaptation, and judging by the trailer, I’m not convinced this movie will recreate Resident Evil in the ways that really matter.

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What makes a good video game adaptation? It’s a difficult question to answer, considering how few (if any) exist. “Bad” adaptations like Anderson’s films are often criticized for straying too far away from the plot of the game’s they're based on. The invention of Alice for Resident Evil, the alternate universe in Monster Hunter, and Dennis Hopper’s bizarre, humanoid Bowser in the Super Mario Bros. movie are all examples that fans point to when criticizing the faithfulness of adaptations.

In practice, however, “faithfulness” doesn’t seem to be a quality that holds very much weight at all. Sonic the Hedgehog is widely regarded as one of the best video game movies despite the fact that it bastardized the lore of the games pretty significantly. At the same time, Warcraft was incredibly faithful to the game, yet it's thought to be one of the worst video game movies ever. When Welcome to Raccoon City is described as a faithful adaptation of Resident Evil, that just means it will follow the plot of the games better than the original movies did - but that doesn’t mean it will be a good adaptation.

To take it a step further, staying faithful to Resident Evil’s plot wouldn’t even necessarily be a good thing. Movies and games are completely different mediums, and what works in one won’t necessarily work in the other. If someone just watched all of the cutscenes from the games, would you say that they experienced Resident Evil? The best way to experience Resident Evil will always be to play the games. There’s very little value in a movie directly adapting the source unless the filmmaker has something new to say. Again, just look at Warcraft for proof.

What Welcome to Raccoon City really needs is to match the tone and atmosphere of the first two RE games. I wouldn’t care if Leon somehow ends up in the mansion or if Chris turns into a zombie at the end as long as the movie is able to capture the feeling of playing Resident Evil. Welcome to Raccoon City ought to be a slow-paced, dread-filled experience that builds up to gruesome action set-pieces towards the end. It should be dark and claustrophobic, the characters should be isolated and lost in labyrinthine spaces. Resident Evil isn’t about Umbrella or the T-Virus. The movie doesn’t need a helicopter crash or even Mr. X to be a good adaptation. All it needs, in the most reductive terms, is the right vibe. It doesn’t matter how faithful the plot is if the movie is just another Hollywoodized action romp filled with quippy dialogue, explosions, and guns with unlimited bullets.

All we really need is the silhouette of a zombie that appears in a flash of lightning outside of a window at the end of a hall, and the trepidation our hero feels as they take each slow, careful step down the hall, knowing exactly what’s waiting for them when they get to the end. That’s what Resident Evil is, and that’s what the movie needs to be.

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