Explicit Violence and Gore: A Resident Evil Retrospective
or, “Learning Spanish with your Father”
Fear.
Fear is what keeps us humble. Everyone has experienced fear at one point in their lives. Whether it’s fear of the known, unknown, or fear of what’s coming or what isn’t ever going to come back. Fear drives us in our day to day lives. Fear of losing your job, getting evicted, losing a loved one. Fear is almost intangible. There’s few ways we can harness our emotions in a way that’s healthy and safe. Some people skydive. Some engage in dangerous sports. In most cases people sit back, relax, and watch a horror movie. After the credits roll and the screen fades back to whatever screen you were viewing prior you get up, and usually you double check the locks for the night. You hug that blanket a little harder in your bed, and it takes a little longer to go to sleep. You hope that the night’s film doesn’t bleed it’s way into the crevices of your dreams- but nightmares are completely normal. They’re expected. For video game fans you might replace a scary movie with a scary game, and at one time there wasn’t a game series in my life more fear-inducing than Resident Evil. Today I want to share a few stories about my life as a child. A ball of clay ready to be formed into whatever society wanted it to be. Video games allow me to take on new experiences. To become someone else. Resident Evil allowed me to feel a type of fear that I can’t feel in reality.
Enter the World of Survival Horror.
AUTUMN, 1998
“A Dream of Horrors”
I was 5 years old when I saw Resident Evil 2 for the first time. I was at my aunt’s house watching Power Rangers when my cousin and his friends came home from walmart. He was holding an opaque bag with a CD case in it. I didn’t think anything of it. He and his friends quickly marched to his bedroom after telling me that I “shouldn’t go in there” because they were doing “grown up stuff”. Being 5 years old I tried my best to sneak around the hallway and peek at what they were doing. I slowly creaked the door open to find them huddled over his 20 inch television as gunshots and groans escaped from the speakers of his Zenith. I was mesmerized at what I saw.
By the time Leon had made it to the station my cousin had already found me out, and said I could watch him play so long as I didn’t tell anyone. I sat on his bed and stared at the screen for about an hour before my mother and father came to pick me up. For weeks I would have nightmares based on the 32-bit horrors that I saw that day. Yet even still I was mesmerized. I didn’t know that what I was watching would become a part of my special interests for years to come.
AUTUMN, 1999
“It’s in your Blood”
One year later and Resident evil had become a multimedia phenomenon. Comic books, figures, novels, and a commercial directed by none other than critically acclaimed filmmaker George Romero- the pioneer of the modern zombie movie. Resident Evil was Capcom’s golden goose. My sister’s boyfriend at the time was by and large the coolest person I had ever met in my 6 years of existence. He collected action figures, movies and TV shows recorded on tape, and yes…video games. I sat with him and my sister for hours and watched as he finished Leon and Claire’s stories in Resident Evil 2, followed by the entirety of Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. The titular monster terrified and bewildered me. I had never seen something so grotesque yet so….cool. Like the year prior I would continue to have horrid nightmares for weeks following my visits to his house. My mother barred me from watching the game. She said it was too frightening for young children. She was absolutely correct. I didn’t follow her demands however. I found a way to watch anyway.
NEW YEARS EVE, 1999
“Nothing to Fear”
I was terrified of Y2K. I genuinely believed that at 12:00 midnight January 1st, 2000 that power grids world-wide would shut down and bring about a soft apocalypse across the planet. We had food, water, supplies, and books for me to read for when we returned to the days of our colonial and indigenous ancestors. I decided to hide in the bathroom of our home when the ball dropped. My parents watched New Years Rockin’ Eve for what they thought was the last time. My sister however was in her room, Nintendo 64 controller in hand, playing Resident Evil 2. She was confident that the world wouldn’t end. She was right. The following day we lived our lives just as we did the previous. We went to Mcdonalds. I ate a fried apple pie with my happy meal.
WINTER, 2001
“Like Going on a Hike”
I was in the living room reading Gamepro magazine when I saw it. Under the “Upcoming Games” tab was Resident Evil for the Nintendo Gamecube. It was a complete remake of the original game. I had seen screenshots earlier that year where the game was still called “Biohazard” and wasn’t entirely sure if the game was Resident Evil or not. It had zombies, dark corridors, A woman with a blue beret, but since it didn’t share the same name I wasn’t putting two and two together. I would learn later on that Resident Evil in Japan is in fact called Biohazard. Personally I prefer “Resident Evil” but to each their own. I asked my mom if I could rent Resident Evil when it came out the next year. She was watching the news on TV. After September of that year a lot more people tried to stay informed. She looked at me and said
“That game gives you nightmares. Why would you want to play that?”
That old chestnut. I was 8 years old. I was practically pre-teen, which was practically a teen, and you have to be seventeen to purchase Resident Evil. I was ready. Yet again my hopes of playing this game were dashed.
April, 2002
“Like Climbing a Mountain”
It’s a Friday afternoon. My father was off work and I had just gotten out of school for the weekend. It was sort of a tradition for us to all go to the movie rental store as a family and pick something out to watch. My parents would let me pick out a game to play that weekend. I asked my mom if I could rent Resident Evil. It had just came out.
She said no.
“You’ll play it for ten minutes and get scared and you won’t play it again. It’s a waste of money. Why don’t you get this instead? The girl at the counter said it just came out.” She holds up a copy of “Donald Duck: Goin Quackers”. I didn’t want to play the game with the duck on it. I wanted to play Resident Evil.
I played “Donald Duck: Goin Quackers” that weekend. It’s not a bad platformer if I say so myself. But this isn’t about the Duck. I wanted what I wanted. For each subsequent week at the rental store I would ask my mom to rent Resident Evil. Months would pass until she finally sighed, took the game from my hand, and walked it to the counter. I had finally won. It was a 3 day weekend, and I had all the snacks I would need. I was about to play a Resident Evil game for the first time. As soon as I got home I sat at my bed and popped the disc into the little purple cube that sat at the floor of my bedroom. I pressed the switch and the light on top of the little purple cube glowed a bright orange light.
I felt a chill down my spine. I shivered with fear as I walked through the halls of the Spencer Mansion. As I stepped through the corridors of the estate a deep red corpse lay upon my feet. When I had gone through this hallway earlier it was a sick, gray color. Something was different. I took one step, then two, then finally after three steps the corpse woke up like it had forgotten to set it’s alarm. It was late for class. Before I could react it swiped at my face with it’s newly-grown claws. I couldn’t contain my fear. I immediately reached for the power button on the little purple cube and within one second the system was off. My heart beating out like a tight drum I clenched my chest in a silent gasp of terror. I had never felt so alive.
I didn’t play the game again for several years.
DATE UNKNOWN
“The Novel Incident”
My mother isn’t much of a gamer. She doesn’t like how the ghosts chase you in Pacman. As you all know by now she was wholeheartedly against me playing violent, gruesome games. My sister purchased the novelization of Resident Evil Code: Veronica and it’s soundtrack in an effort to let me immerse myself in the lore of the games without seeing the violent imagery. My mother took one look at the cover of the book and was furious.
“He’s still going to get nightmares reading this!”
She wasn’t wrong. I did in fact get thoroughly freaked out by the cover. I was old enough at the time however not to be traumatized. The soundtrack on the other hand was mostly ambient, almost world music. It wasn’t scary. In fact I would listen to Code Veronica’s soundtrack at school, at home, and while my mother and I were at Wednesday night bingo at the dance hall going out of town. It was some good music. Takeshi Miura, Hijiri Anze, and Sanae Kasahara really knocked this soundtrack out of the park.
Going back to the novels my sister would continue to pick them up for me after a short back and forth with my mother. Seeing that Resident Evil 2 was my favorite game in the series I was quite partial to it’s novel “City of the Dead”. Everything about that book was just so good. I loved how S.D. Perry wrote both campaigns into one cohesive plot. It just made too much sense. I don’t really remember exactly when and how this happened, but my own mother- who would possibly spontaneously combust if she so happened to touch a controller- actually started reading the novels. Maybe she was checking to make sure they weren’t too grotesque? Her reasons escape me. All I remember is her taking a huge liking to City of the Dead. It was the coolest thing talking with my mom about Resident Evil. I was old enough to not be too scared so she’d sit with me and watch as I played the game and we’d compare it to the game. I’ll hold those memories close even if I don’t exactly remember when those memories took place. Love you mom.
JANUARY, 2005
“Te Voy a Hacer Picadillo”
“My sister bought me a copy of Resident Evil 4 on the day it came out. I was ecstatic. I was 11 years old at the time and had grown a bit to where I could handle gore and scary movies fairly well. I had winced at Lucy Liu’s exposed brain at the end of “Kill Bill” however I still wouldn’t say I was traumatized. Having said that the villager with the chainsaw to this day fills me with a sense of dread that burrows deep into my gut. The anxiety-inducing shivering sounds of the pale gray regenerators kept me up at night. The first few hours of the game take place in a village whose inhabitants speak entirely in spanish. My father’s fluent knowledge of the language proved to be more than helpful while playing the game. He would sit next to me and translate the dialogue while I trekked through the opening chapters.
“He just said he’s going to make you into food”
“That guy said he’s right behind you.”
“That guy in the tower is alerting you to the others.”
I don’t think my father knew this at the time but I cherished those moments with him, then and now. Like my mother my father isn’t really much of a gamer either. He spent most of his time alongside my mom working to help put food on the table.
I love you dad.
SPRING, 2009
“Complete Global Saturation”
Well into the second semester of my Sophomore year of highschool, I had grown into the mold of the Internet. The world wide web didn’t break me but it did keep me informed on the hottest topics. For 14 year old me, said topic was anime and games. Years prior I was able to watch the entirety of the uncensored intro to Resident Evil on the PS1 in full color- missing hands and all. It took me nearly 4 hours on my dial up internet to load the quick time video, but it was worth it. Now in the hustle and bustle age of console online multiplayer I….didn’t have internet anymore. Our family computer died and my parents didn’t want to pay for a service that we couldn’t use anymore. That didn’t stop me from enjoying Resident Evil 5 with a friend however. My parents bought me an Xbox 360 and a copy of the game as an early birthday gift that year, and as soon as I set up the console I called my friend up to come over and spend the night. We stayed up all weekend and played RE5 together. It might’ve been the last time I really did something like that now that I think about it. After RE5 the franchise took a bit of a turn, and wouldn’t rise up to it’s former glory for another ten years.
FALL, 2012
“Fall from Grace”
Resident Evil 6 came out.
I was already a year out of highschool by then, still kind of a weird kid. Months prior I had purchased Resident Evil Revelations for the Nintendo 3DS and I might say I was surprised at how good it actually was. If only RE6 was nearly as “good” as it’s spin off at the time. I couldn’t say I was very excited for this game. The developers were touting that this game in particular “was inspired by the Call of Duty franchise”. I’ve never been the biggest fan of First Person Shooters so I was already going into this with my worst fears. I will say that the game was reviewed harshly. One major publication gave the game a 5/10. I still think a lot of reviews judged the game on it’s inability to be “Resident Evil 5–2”. Nevertheless I picked the game up after I got off work. Alone in my living room I finished Leon’s campaign after only a few hours. To this day I never had it in my to play Jake or Chris’ campaigns. I didn’t care then, and I still don’t care now. I’m sorry.
JANUARY, 2017
Well we need to go back a little bit. Sorry. I got ahead of myself.
JUNE, 2016
There we go.
It had been two years since Konami put out the Playable Teaser, or “PT” out for Silent Hills- a game that was to be directed by Hideo Kojima, written by Guillermo del Toro, with art by none other than the master of Japanese Horror himself Junji Ito. It was to be a dream team of Survival Horror games in the same vein that Chrono Trigger was a dream team for Japanese Role Playing Games. One year after it’s announcement Konami had a falling out with Kojima, and alongside completely isolating him from the rest of the team while working on his latest game set out to release that year, that of course being “Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain” Konami also went out of their way to completely erase all evidence of Silent Hills. The game was canceled, the demo was delisted from the Playstation Store, and to top it off if you by some chance uninstalled the application you could never redownload the title- despite every other delisted game still giving you the option so long as you downloaded the game at least once. Not yet satisfied, Konami fired Hideo Kojima for being “too expensive”. The multi-billion dollar company couldn’t afford it’s star Director. Capcom must’ve been taking notes on what not to do when making a new game because they knocked it out of the park when they announced “RESIDENT EVIL VII: BIOHAZARD” at that year’s E3 (Kojima was even there with the help of Sony to announce his new game “Death Stranding”).
Having taken heavy inspiration from cult horror hits such as Amnesia Capcom actually had to go out of their way to state that they were in fact not inspired by Silent Hills at all. They had started work on RE7 almost as soon as RE6 hit shelves, stating that the dissatisfaction with the lack of horror in recent titles in the series drove them to go back to their roots and make a more grounded entry in the beloved series. Capcom would spend the following months dropping cryptic videos, forum posts, and a demo that would receive updates up until the release of the full game in…
JANUARY, 2017
“Welcome to the Family”
It had been a long time since I was this excited to play a Resident Evil game. On release day I stayed up and waited for the game to unlock on my PS4, started the game up and dived in for a few hours. I took my time with it. A little over a week later and I was finished. They did a splendid job with this title. I was nothing if not confident in their ability to tell a genuinely good story.
Before we get to what I believe is their truly best work we need to go back once more to the sweet smelling time of…
AUGUST, 2015
“WE DO IT”
Well what do we have here? Before Resident Evil VII was even announced Capcom went and confirmed that a remake of Resident Evil 2 was in development. I was cautiously optimistic to say the least. Their track record at the time was of on uneven footing and I felt myself slipping away at the series more and more with every spin off and supplementary media experiments that they try to pass off as films. We wouldn’t see any other word about this game until…
JUNE, 2018
“THEY DID IT”
The air was electric during that year’s E3. Merchandise was getting leaked left and right, trademarks were being filed mere hours before trailers were set to drop for the latest games. This year would see the announcement of not only RE2 Remake but also the long awaited Devil May Cry 5, which hasn’t seen a true sequel in over ten years. My friends and I were ready for what was to come. We speculated during the next few days, and finally on June 11th, 2018 our thirsts were quenched.
I screamed.
I usually tried to keep my excitement to a minimum at the time but I let out a hoot and a holler. I was READY for this game. I gorged myself with every morsel of information I could get my grubby little fingers on for the next several months until release. The following January I had taken the next few days off, stocked up on food, drinks, snacks and strapped in for a good time.
I will always be serious when I talk about things that I consider “the best” but take my word for it.
Resident Evil 2 Remake is one of the best video games of all time.
Everything about this game felt fresh and you could see, hear, and practically smell how much love and attention they put into this game. It was truly a labor of love. I finished every story in the game in a little under a day. I still go back to this game and can finish it in a few hours if I put my mind to it. I’m so in tune with the inner machinations of the game’s many systems that I am confident that I could play this game while bottle feeding a fussy baby. No nightmares, not trips to the movie store, no hiding in the bathroom. Just me, this baby I just made up, and Resident Evil 2.
….
And then they remade Resident Evil 3 as well and it wasn’t nearly as good as the original.
DECEMBER, 2019
“STARS”
You know I’ll have to give it to them they announced a game that only needed 4 more months before release. At that point why announce the game at all? Just put it out.
“Oh hey everyone Capcom here hey check out this game we just made lmao”
It really is too bad that the game is just….ok. Like don’t get me wrong it is in no way shape or form a “bad game” it’s just not nearly as thought out as RE2’s masterful job- and that’s not just a string of bad luck on the developer’s part. Resident Evil 3 Remake was actually being developed in tandem with RE2 Remake. Capcom couldn’t focus their efforts on both games so they had most of RE3’s development outsourced by a new studio called M-Two, not to be confused with the company M2, who’s work on ports of classic games goes completely unmatched. M-Two did their best job with the time and assets that were given, but a choice must’ve been made early on to make RE3 Remake more of a re-imagining than a nearly shot for shot remake in the vein of RE2. I like to think of RE3 Remake’s story and gameplay progression more like an amusement park ride made to resemble Resident Evil 3. For the most part the action never stops. You have a straight up zombie slaughter fest in the latter half of the game not unlike arcade shoot em up games of the 1990’s. It’s just not the same as it’s source material. Having said all this however the game still stands out as one of the better games of 2020. We were all having a normal time locked in our homes in April when the game released, but I actually didn’t play the game until February of 2021. I had to make a choice between Resident Evil and Final Fantasy that month and having just moved into my apartment I needed something I could just kind of chill with. Final Fantasy it was.
JUNE 2020
“Augmented Reality Survival Horror”
Going into month 3 of our two week lockdown people were excited for video games more than ever. Me? I was still widdling away at the battle system in Final Fantasy VII Remake all while being completely torn apart mentally from the daily deluge of bad news. Since E3 was cancelled on account of the global pandemic companies had to make their own announcement shows. Sony was actually way ahead of people for about two years now- having dropped out of the convention before a deadly respiratory disease dropped everyone out of pretty much anything that wasn’t the grocery store or a clash with the local police. So with everything set Sony went ahead with their big Playstation 5 showcase. You wouldn’t know it by looking at the shelves at your local Best Buy but the Playstation 5 is a console that has actually been available to the public somewhat for almost half a year at the time of writing- so long as you spend literally all of your free time hitting F3 on your keyboard while looking at amazon’s listings. Final Fantasy XVI was announced! Some other games too that I didn’t really care too much about! Capcom also went and announced Resident Evil VIIIage. The eighth (get it) chronological game in the series. There’s werewolves and vampires this time.
There’s also…….
Her.
It’s been a tough year for all of us. I’ve hit the point in my life where i’d gladly accept a big vampire lady stabbing me in the face with her claws. I am ready for this. I was born ready, and I will die ready. I don’t care about this game at all. I will absolute play it however. I’ll do it for her. And yes I’ve been playing these games since I was a small child I know that by the end of this game this tall vampire lady will be a pulsating fleshy blob of skin and bone with a big sunhat on top of where her head used to be. I know what I’m getting into. I’m ok with this. I will always be ready for the best and worst of what this series has to offer.
EPILOGUE
SUMMER, 2000
My sister has and always will be another parent to me. She is one of the most important women in my life. 14 years my senior I looked up to her as a child, and although she may not know it now I still do to this day. I remember one particular afternoon on the eve of my 7th birthday going to the local movie rental store with my sister to pick out a game for me to play. I was still too scared to play Resident Evil 2, but I still begged her to rent it for me since I was much to old to rent it myself- it being a game intended for adults after all. She finally gave in and picked the game up, presented to the cashier, and within the next ten minutes or so we had procured our treasure, alongside some snacks and soda. It was a mile walk back to the house but it felt like hours for a kid my age. It felt like a journey. Like some kind of adventure. Rental shops never gave out the case so all I had to look at on the way home was the Nintendo 64 cartridge with the logo for the game slapped on it. I was so excited to play this game all by myself for the first time. I was ready to conquer those fears. When we finally made it back home my excitement turned sour- into a cold, isolated feeling. The fear pushed itself back into the front of my brain like a box cutter slicing through a cardboard box. I stood frozen as my sister turned on our monolithic Curtis Mathis TV. The television’s size always intimidated me as a child. My parents recieved it as a gift in the early eighties from my aunt. At the current time it had seen better days. duct tape was wrapped around the sides of it’s wooden frame. As a teething toddler I used to bite and chew at it. My sister popped the cartridge into the console. When she flipped the switch on and the game started a rush of chemicals pumped throughout my veins. I went into fight or flight mode.
I flew.
Into the bathroom.
I hid in the bathroom and made my sister play the game as I sat on the toilet. I could hear the gunshots, the moans of the zombies, the crunch as they sunk their teeth into the player character’s flesh. The shrill yells as the player character screams in terror as she gets eaten alive by the hoard of monsters.
My sister was never that good at videogames.
I didn’t play the original Resident Evil 2 in it’s entirety for another 7 or so years.
Fast forward back to 2019 where i’m playing Resident Evil 2’s Remake for the first time and seeing the hulking Tyrant make his grand entrance in the destroyed upstairs hallway of the police station sparked those same feelings that I felt at age 6. I already knew what I had to do.
I ran to the bathroom.
Not out of fear necessarily but out of mere necessity. I have IBS and moments of great anxiety are one of my triggers, like most people with irritable bowels.
Sitting in that bathroom however made me think of all those years ago spending time with my sister. I had eventually made my way out of the bathroom and back into the living room where I would sit and watch her play the game. She got good at it eventually, even beating the game with the help of a few codes (remember cheat codes?)
It’s moments like those where I cherish the times as a child that I spent with my sister. Whether it was watching her play games that I was too afraid of, or when I would stay up during the summer waiting for my sister to get off work at 4AM and watch bad horror movies while eating chips and salsa. When the film adaptation of Resident Evil premiered she and I went the first day it came out, and I was so excited I threw up in the aisle. We didn’t even leave! I sat there with memories of slushy on my black South Park shirt for the next 90 minutes as we sat through what was essentially a bad sci fi movie. She went above and beyond for me. In 1999 she was hospitalized for a brief time and her first thought was to buy me a game to keep me from thinking of her being sick. She always thought of me first. I don’t know if I’ll ever care about someone the way you cared about me. You were my friend when I had none. You’re still there for me, even if we don’t talk as much.
