Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City Director Wants to Take the Franchise Back to Its Horror Roots

The Resident Evil movie franchise has seemed more like a gory sci-fi extravaganza than series of chilling horror-thrillers like the games it was based on. Not that sci-fi and horror can’t overlap, because they do more often than many would care to admit, but the majority of the Resident Evil movies have opted to move away from the scares and focus more on the action. The upcoming Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, which hits theaters this week, is hoping to buck that trend. Director Johannes Roberts wants to get back to the horrific roots of the video games.

While speaking with Entertainment Weekly ahead of Welcome to Raccoon City‘s release, Roberts opened up about his desire to capture the chills and thrills of the iconic games.

“I’m a horror guy. I’m a Stephen King guy. I’m a John Carpenter guy. All those things are sort of built into the fabric of this movie,” Roberts explained. “I was just like, ‘Let’s make a scary movie again.’”

There are different types of horror throughout the video games, of course, with the latest couple of entries feeling very different from the early games. For Roberts, Resident Evil 2 was the one that helped him lock in the tone, showing him exactly what kind of movie he wanted to make with Welcome to Raccoon City.

“I remember playing that second game and going, ‘This is the movie. This is it,’” the filmmaker added. “It just blew me away completely. The aesthetics of it, the tone, the mood. I was like, ‘This is the cornerstone of what we’re going to do.’”

There are loads of Resident Evil games out there, many of which keep up with Raccoon City storyline. Nothing has been ordered yet, but Roberts is certainly interested in bringing more movies to life in the future.

“I think [Welcome to Raccoon City] sets everything up really well, an origin story for each of our characters,” he said. “I think it would be really important to me that we don’t just use this as a springboard to then just go off into our own crazy world. I think there’s so much in the games that is so fascinating and exciting that I would really love to continue to explore that.”

Are you looking forward to what Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City has in store? Let us know in the comments!

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City hits theaters on November 24th.