Editorials
It’s Time for Spiders to Make a Comeback in the ‘Resident Evil’ Series
It’s that time of year where the sun is out, those who have a garden have a project to plant some flowers, maybe build a Tiki Bar, or just to sit outside and play classic animalistic fighter Bloody Roar on a PS Vita.
But for me, there’s also this other, more unpleasant aspect to garden life. Spiders are around, waiting to surprise me as I may stumble into a web stretching across the washing line. Even indoors is no safe haven, as I could be greeted with one in the shower.
A year ago I had written a piece on my fear of spiders, and since it was published, I’ve had a lot of replies to it.
Resident Evil 3 was one of the games in that article that brought the fear on with its scuttling monster arachnids, and now that the remake has come out without a spider in sight, I wanted to explain why they should now come back to the Resident Evil franchise, after a decade-long absence.
Survival-Horror was defined by Resident Evil in 1996, and it wasn’t just the jump-scares or the fear of running out of ammo that cemented its place in history; it was the monsters. Some were freakish monstrosities created in a lab, and then there were disturbing super-size variations of regular animals, from moths to snakes, and of course… spiders. My fear was, and still is, found in the classic entries, but there’s a whole other generation of Resident Evil games that have avoided eight-legged freaks – and that’s been both a relief and a disappointment to me.
I remember watching a friend play the original Resident Evil back on the Saturn. Even though the graphics were more basic, the movement was still creepy to me. The original Resident Evil had a remake way back in 2002 on the GameCube that made the crawlies even creepier. In fact, when I decided to give it a spin on Steam for this piece, you, dear reader, can enjoy the fact that when they appeared, I couldn’t have felt more uncomfortable. I had my partner try to finish the section for me, even though she had never heard of a Resident Evil game.
But I came to appreciate just how good they did look. They made the spiders from the clock tower-section of Resident Evil 3 look like joke-shop toys. They crawled and attacked in a more unnervingly realistic manner, and the sounds as well made them even more terrifying. In Resident Evil 0, they mercifully only make a small appearance at the basement entrance to the facility, halfway-through the game.
Resident Evil Code: Veronica, a game that’s begging to be remade, even if Resident Evil 4 is next in line, had its own spin on the oversized arachnid gimmick. A large spindly Black Widow spider makes an appearance in the Antarctica section, alongside its smaller brethren in a couple of rooms in both Claire’s and Chris’ scenarios. Still terrifying, but thankfully they were limited to such a small section. Playing these games for the first time and not knowing if I’d face my fear once again was always an unpleasant, yet thrilling sensation.
When I spotted on Twitter and Reddit that last year’s article was being shared, I discovered there are searches from people who simply ask others if there are any spiders in an entry before they start. I find solace in the fact that it’s not just me, and instead of them looking at wiki’s and asking friends, they seek out like-minded tortured souls to find the answers.
Soon after my article being published early last year, Capcom pushed out an update to Resident Evil 2 that saw spider-webs appear in the sewer sections, further raising the dread/anticipation that they were now appearing in the game as some form as a post-launch surprise. Or perhaps they were hints to the yet-to-be-announced Resident Evil 3.
But alas (with some relief), it was a red herring.
Early previews of the Resident Evil 3 reimagining had said that spiders were definitely around, but after my review and subsequent plays of it, I can confidently say there definitely aren’t any. The confusion could be linked to the Demio enemies that do walk on the walls and appear more spider-like, but they seem more like mutant ants (or, as described on Wiki, flea-like parasites), and much further away than their original appearances as pale-green Lickers. All the same, spiders were one of the many things omitted in the reimagined Resi 3.
But now that we are back in the limbo between new releases in the series until at least next year, it makes me wonder whether it’s now time to have spiders come back in some form. Granted, the power of the RE Engine could make them seem even more realistic and even more terrifying, but that’s not the only reason to do it.
What made the remakes so fun to play, specifically RE2, was the paranoia of what could be round the corner; what could be following you, and the foreshadowing of what could be facing you next. With the remake of Resident Evil 4 well-underway, it would be a great twist to see arachnids in the cave sections a third of the way through the game, to raise that paranoia, and bring something unexpected and unsettling to a well-known game.
I’m not saying to change it for the sake of it, but rather to tap into another side of paranoia and fear; the feeling that your worst nightmare could be around that next corner. Mix that in with all that is loved about the original Resident Evil 4, and it could be another fantastic remake that elevates the survival-horror via another fresh angle in this rebooted-series.
Granted, I may be walking into it sweating profusely and with one eye open, especially after my time with the three games I’ve played for this piece, but when it comes down to it; they’ve been away for too long now; maybe it’s time to bring the arachnids back, to have them be the multi-legged nemesis to Leon in Resident Evil 4 Remake, or reimagined in some terrifying new way for Resident Evil 8.
After all, being scared is what makes horror so enticing…isn’t it?
I first heard about The Mandela Catalogue through a couple of nephews who were obsessed with the ARG’s sinister mythology. It was only after watching Wendigoon’s in-depth analysis of the series that I realized just how deep this rabbit hole goes.
In fact, I’d already been exposed to the nightmarish visuals of Alex Kister’s YouTube creation for years at that point without even realizing that it was the origin of several viral “cursed images” and spooky memes that had leaked into the wider internet – with this viral element actually being a part of the Catalogue’s overarching narrative.
Flash-forward to 2026 and the unprecedented success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms has led to Hollywood betting on horrific internet properties with existing fanbases, which means that Kister’s unique hybrid of both religious and analog horror is finally headed to the big screen with a script written by Kister himself alongside Tyler Clifton.
While this news shouldn’t be too surprising if you’ve been keeping up with the ongoing success of The Mandela Catalogue (both myself and Wendigoon having previously predicted that the series would inevitably make the jump to theaters one day), plenty of horror fans are likely confused as to why so many folks are excited for what appears to be a Hollywood adaptation of a series of creepy .jpeg images under a VHS filter.
With that in mind, today I’d like to invite fellow readers to accompany me as I explore the origins of Alex Kister’s viral hit and attempt to explain exactly why we should all be excited about the Mandela Catalogue adaptation!
From High School Writing Project to Internet Horror Phenomenon
The first seeds of The Mandela Catalogue were sown when Kister was still in high school and developed a writing project subverting religious tropes in a world where biblical history had been altered by demonic forces. A little while later, Kister came across an analog horror contest on Reddit and decided to adapt his ideas into a standalone video where he would edit a religious kids’ cartoon –The Beginner’s Bible: The Nativity, to be specific- into something far creepier. This is how the iconic Overthrone video was born, with this viral short film taking on a life of its own as fans demanded more eerie content from Kister.
Though the video was originally meant to be a one-and-done sort of affair, with Kister actually regretting some of its primitive visuals and considering the editing amateurish and “YouTube-Poop-like” when compared to his current standards, fan reaction and free time during the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged the (then) seventeen-year-old filmmaker to continue producing content set in this same world. The Mandela Catalogue name was inspired by the Mandela Effect conspiracy theory, as the series would slowly begin to explore the subtle horror of alternate histories.
Inspired by existential dread brought on by extended periods of quarantine as well as a personal crisis of faith, Kister continued to expand his alternate timeline where the rise of Christianity had been prevented by what was presumably the Devil disguised as the Archangel Gabriel. This alternate course of fictional events led to the existence of certain paranormal anomalies that had come to be accepted as “normal” by the 1990s, which is why most of the series’ supernatural horror is presented in such a matter-of-fact manner.
Most of this background information and religious lore is delivered by increasingly cryptic broadcasts and in-universe PSAs, as well as the occasional found footage video, that often have to be decoded by clever viewers. Of course, it’s the consistently disturbing imagery that made the series so popular – much of which was originally created by Kister on a smartphone!
The Alternates: Horror’s Most Unsettling Modern Monsters
The show’s early episodes mostly take place within the fictional Mandela County in Wisconsin and depict life in a world where demonic entities are capable of using media to enter our reality. This process usually involves scaring victims into killing themselves and then repurposing their bodies as horrific doppelgangers referred to as “Alternates”. This terrifying phenomenon has become so common that local police already have specialized procedures in place to deal with the issue, though this usually consists of simply ignoring calls for help so as to avoid spreading so-called “Metaphysical Awareness Disorder” any further.
Over time, Kister would expand this mythology and incorporate different kinds of Alternates into the mix, though the story never stopped deconstructing religious concepts. The series’ second volume exponentially increased both video quality and the overall narrative scope as we began to follow the lives of characters who had already grown up in this dystopian hellscape where the government is forced to prohibit religion, television, and even mirrors in the hopes of mitigating the damage done by the ongoing invasion of otherworldly entities.
The really interesting part comes into play when you realize exactly how the Alternates make use of scary media in order to spread their demonic influence, with the analog horror of it all being a diegetic part of the story and something of a memetic trap orchestrated by the false Gabriel.
I particularly appreciate how some characters begin to suspect that there’s something wrong with their version of reality and that things weren’t meant to play out this way, especially when Mark utters the haunting line “who have I been praying to all this time?” That’s why I think The Mandela Catalogue is an effective piece of religious horror even if you don’t subscribe to the Christian worldview, as the mere idea of a world where evil has already won is a universally terrifying concept in and of itself. Not only that, but the series’ uncanny analog imagery alone is already worth the price of admission, as you’ve likely already noticed by looking at the pictures accompanying this article.
Why The Feature Adaptation Could Be Horror’s Next Big Success
It’s actually been a whole year since Kister first announced that he had been working on a feature-length screenplay for a Mandela Catalogue movie since 2022, with his proposed story following an ensemble of high-school graduates who uncover a supernatural conspiracy after the mysterious disappearance of a fellow student. This premise sounds similar to narrative elements present in the series’ second volume, but I’m pretty sure that Kister is going to go the Kane Parsons route and make the movie more of a spin-off than a re-imagining of its source material.
While notable Hollywood producers like Aaron B. Koontz, Scott Stuber, and Steven Spielberg himself are backing the upcoming project, I feel like there’s no one better to adapt this deeply personal exploration of faith and the dark side of communication than the person who first came up with it. That’s why I can’t wait to see Kister’s work on the big screen, as I have a feeling that this young filmmaker is the next one on the list about to make cinematic history – especially since this is clearly a passion project that has been in the works for years at this point!
That being said, there’s always a chance that the film could end up unleashing a fresh wave of Alternate incursions, but I guess that’s just a risk we’ll have to take.
You must be logged in to post a comment.