Editorials
The ‘Resident Evil 2’ 1-Shot Demo is a Taster Full of Bloody Flavor
I must admit, I wasn’t sure I’d be into the concept behind Capcom’s ‘1-Shot’ demo for the upcoming Resident Evil 2 remake. A one-off 30-minute taster of the game where once your time was up, that’s it. No replaying, just a thank you for playing and a new trailer for the game (which is a great one for fans of the original game).
Yet it’s actually the perfect sell. It’s just 30 minutes and you may not see the endpoint (I just about did) in that time, but Capcom really has packed a fair bit into that short time period, and it has the desired effect of leaving you hungry for more.
The demo begins with Leon freshly arrived in the Raccoon City Police Department station after surviving the opening onslaught of the city streets. The lobby of the station is staggeringly familiar to a long-term fan of the original game. Technology may have moved on rapidly in the 21 years since the original came out, but it’s the most immediate sign that Capcom has managed to retain the very spirit of a beloved classic and make it fresh.
Even though the layout of the few rooms you come across in the demo has changed a bit since 1998, each recreation is almost instantly recognizable whilst being peppered with new little touches. The station really does look like its been under siege, with shutters and barricades blocking the way to certain areas, stretchers and ammo cases lined up in the lobby, and signs of struggle splashed all over the walls of every dark and desolate corridor. You’ve clearly missed the party, but there’s still plenty of gruesome guests hanging about. With how tight and close everything feels now, you’re sure to meet them sooner rather than later.
In an age of sprawling open worlds, the confines of the RPD feel more claustrophobic than they ever did. The undead are greater in number than before and there’s an air of panic whenever you hear the crash of glass as you trundle down a long, dark hall. They’re fairly easy to dispatch, and it’s almost satisfying to see them fall apart as you target limbs (a shotgun to the face ends in dazzlingly grisly fashion), but you get the sense that you could easily be cornered if you let your guard down, and that perfectly epitomizes what makes the classic zombie experience tick. You certainly have better control of Leon these days, but the reworking of the controls falls in line with a reworking of the dangers you face, and it recreates the intensity of combat that made the series great, but in a totally different way. Again, the game manages to get that balancing act of nostalgia and modernization just about right.
It also helps that blood and guts is very much on the menu in this taster, as it shows off the game’s brutal and gory mean streak. A cop gets pulled apart, revealing his blood-slicked innards, the jaw of another almost slops off its face, and damaged zombie limbs dangle from threads of muscle. Resident Evil 2 is not fucking about when it comes to gore and it puts Resident Evil 7‘s admittedly great efforts to shame.
Resident Evil 7 has had a big hand in making the remake go smoothly though. Interaction, menus, and certain prompts all carry over from that game, which is itself, a fine update of Resident Evil’s survival horror roots. There’s no doubt Resident Evil 2 plays a lot closer to the original 90’s selection of Resi games, but it’s by integrating aspects of the 2017 title that it feels like a perfectly-revised throwback.
Now, there could well be issues in the full game. As far as obvious problems go, I’d like to see the interaction simplified a bit as currently, the inventory menu comes up for literally every instance, whether it’s needed or not. A relatively small grievance thankfully. Otherwise, my expectations for the full game are higher than they’ve ever been.
This 30-minute demo gets across exactly kind of remake we’re in for, and by denying you repeat bites of this tasty morsel, Capcom has done just the right thing to ensure people are hankering to grab the full feast at the end of the month.
Have you played the demo? What did you think of it? Let us know.
The Resident Evil 2 ‘1-Shot’ demo is out now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
Resident Evil 2 is out on the same formats from January 25.
From child-eating witches to village-burning dragons, fairy tales have always had a foot in the horror genre. That’s why it makes sense that, for every The Hobbit and The Chronicles of Narnia, there are also darker and more adult-oriented stories about magical worlds inhabited by ravenous monsters and cruel villains.
Funnily enough, these sinister tales were precisely the ones that I gravitated towards back when I was a kid, and I was reminded of this while watching Netflix’s recently released I Am Frankelda, Mexico’s first ever feature-length stop-motion animation and one hell of an entertaining parable about the intersection between fiction and reality.
In honor of this special kind of horror-adjacent fairy tale, today I’d like to share this list recommending six Dark Fantasy films that horror fans might enjoy.
For the purposes of this list, we’ll be defining Dark Fantasy as fantastical stories that don’t shy away from the more macabre elements that fuel classic fairy tales. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own grim favorites if you think we missed a particularly thrilling one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
6. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
I’m fascinated by bizarre attempts at blockbuster filmmaking – especially when the resulting movies are somehow still fun despite their corporate-mandated origins. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is precisely one of these strangely compelling studio projects, as this surprisingly successful action-thriller boasts a lot of heart (and tongue-in-cheek humor) for a CGI-heavy creature feature.
Directed by Dead Snow’s Tommy Wirkola, Witch Hunters re-frames the classic fairy tale as an origin story for a duo of badass monster-slayers. Of course, it’s the flick’s anachronistic aesthetic and overall visual flair that make it stand out from other action-horror endeavors from around the same time.
5. The Wolf House (2018)
Made in the tradition of faux cursed films in the same vein as Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made, the eerie backstory to 2018’s Chilean animated flick The Wolf House (La Casa Lobo in the original Spanish) already makes it a nightmarish experience before the flick even really begins.
After all, the movie is presented to us as a faux propaganda film produced by the leader of a death cult (heavily inspired by the real life Colonia Dignidad), with this hybrid animated feature using complex movie magic to simulate a single uninterrupted shot as it tells the story of a lazy young girl who runs away from an isolated colony and encounters a creepy old house in the woods.
4. The Brothers Grimm (2005)
Out of all the Monty Python alumni, Terry Gilliam has had the most interesting career outside of the original comedy group. From fascinating canceled projects (such as his scrapped adaptation of Watchmen) to dystopian parodies that feel more relevant by the minute (1985’s Brazil), even his “lesser” films are still intriguing in their own way.
2005’s The Brothers Grimm is one such project, with this peculiar movie attempting to combine the comedian-turned-filmmaker’s unique visual style with a more blockbuster-oriented plot reimagining the titular brothers as con-artists rather than mere writers. The end result isn’t exactly a masterpiece, but it’s still a legitimately fun ride with plenty of memorable monsters and wonderful performances by both the late, great Heath Ledger and Matt Damon.
3. Dante’s Inferno: An Animated Epic (2010)
2010’s Dante’s Inferno game may have a reputation as something of an unapologetic God of War clone, but I’d argue that the now-obscure game was aesthetically unique enough to deserve a bigger fanbase. However, while the title remains trapped on the seventh console generation, its highly underrated anime adaptation is a lot easier to get a hold of!
Animated by 6 different studios in order to make the 9 circles of hell feel unique from each other, this may not be a completely faithful adaptation of Dante Alighieri’s poem, but it’s still one heck of a great (not to mention gory) time that I’d highly recommend to fans of Netflix’s take on Castlevania.
2. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009)
My personal favorite entry in the Underworld franchise, Rise of the Lycans, is a highly ambitious prequel that actually works better if you haven’t had the story spoiled to you by the previous Underworld films.
While the rest of the series features plenty of urban fantasy elements as the movies combine machine guns and modern environments with gothic storytelling, Patrick Tatopoulos’ prequel fully embraces its fantastical origins and tells a classic tale about a doomed romance between a werewolf and a vampire amid a medieval uprising.
And the best part is that we get a lot more Michael Sheen as the fan-favorite Lucian.
1. Solomon Kane (2011)
One of my personal favorite movies on this list, MJ Basset’s criminally underseen adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s other iconic warrior is thoroughly steeped in horror ambience and features plenty of memorable monsters. However, it’s also a classic origin story for a swashbuckling hero that wouldn’t feel out of place in a tabletop RPG.
While I’ve already written about how the film deftly combines both horror and fantasy elements without breaking the bank, I’ll never pass up an opportunity to recommend the bizarre movie where James Purefoy expertly plays a puritan John Wick.
It’s just too bad that we never got the other films in this intended trilogy.
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