Zach Cregger Reveals How RESIDENT EVIL 4 and 7 Inspired His New Movie
Zach Cregger is building his Resident Evil movie from some very specific pieces of the games, and his biggest influences are starting to make a lot more sense.
While the filmmaker has previously explained that his story unfolds on the periphery of Resident Evil 2, he also borrowed heavily from Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil 7: Biohazard.
Rather than adapting any one game, Cregger appears to be taking the elements he loves from different corners of the franchise and using them to shape his own nightmare.
During a Resident Evil Reddit AMA on September 1, Cregger explained: "I like the idea of borrowing the rhythm and scale from [Resident Evil] 4 and using some of the character elements from [Resident Evil] 7."
The Resident Evil 7 influence is probably the easiest one to spot. That game left Leon Kennedy and the larger-than-life action hero approach behind and introduced Ethan Winters, an ordinary guy searching for his missing wife who ends up trapped in a horrific situation on an infected plantation.
That ordinary-person perspective is exactly what appealed to Cregger. He said: "[Resident Evil] 7 is when Ethan comes into it, and I like that you're just a normal dude going through this horrible situation."
That sounds a whole lot like Bryan, played by Austin Abrams. Bryan is a medical courier simply trying to get through his regular shift when a delivery sends him toward Raccoon City at possibly the worst time imaginable.
He suddenly finds himself trying to survive an apocalyptic monstrous nightmare, and at some point his journey also takes him to a creepy farm. The Resident Evil 7 DNA isn't exactly hard to spot there.
Resident Evil 4 is influencing the movie in a different way. That game sends Leon to Spain on a mission to rescue the president's daughter, with the adventure constantly pushing him into new locations and increasingly wild encounters.
Cregger loves the way the game keeps moving, saying: "4 has the rhythm that I really like where you're moving from set piece to set piece and location to location.
"4 is such a big game. You go through all these different – it feels like worlds, from the village to the castle, to the island. It's just like, it keeps giving and giving."
If Cregger brings that kind of momentum to his movie, Bryan's trip through the outbreak could keep changing shape as he moves through Raccoon City and whatever horrors are waiting beyond it.
Pairing the escalating journey of Resident Evil 4 with the vulnerable protagonist of Resident Evil 7 sounds like a pretty good combination for a Resident Evil movie.
The film still has strong ties to Resident Evil 2, though. Cregger previously explained that his movie is a standalone story happening alongside the events of that game.
"You know, where Raccoon City is having its big night, but tell just another story that could be happening in parallel to that."
Production designer Tom Hammock also confirmed that Resident Evil 2 played a major role in establishing the movie's version of Raccoon City, saying: "We really designed the city based on Resident Evil 2, trying to get that look."
Even the creatures pull from multiple games. Hammock's creature wall included concepts for zombified rats, dogs, and other infected monsters, with Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil 6 serving as additional sources of inspiration.
I just like that Cregger has been making something new without losing the ingredients that make Resident Evil so much fun. Bryan doesn't need to be Leon, Ethan, Chris, or another established hero. He just needs to survive his own horrible night while Raccoon City goes completely to hell around him.
Cregger's Resident Evil arrives in theaters September 18.
Via: DiscussingFilm