Editorials
5 Ways Capcom Can Save ‘Resident Evil 7’
Treat the Series with Respect, but Be Less Self-Serious
There’s only so much End-Times porn the series can endure without falling into parody, which a few-to-plenty in the enthusiast crowd would argue happened ages ago. However, it could both take a step back from its own image and take itself seriously. Resident Evil — the brand — needs a person (or an entire team) to develop a statement of purpose or something for the direction of the series, because it has become a soap opera unto itself.
Curation seems only to occur to the extent that someone at Capcom is (probably) drawing lines between events and situations to maintain a faltering sense of continuity. Someone assigned to series integrity might help, but it’s going to take more than just some thoughtful maintenance to get back on track.
Stamping the name Resident Evil on a game doesn’t ensure success anymore, but take solace in the fact that it took quite a long time for the brand’s erosion to occur. There was a time when anything to do with the franchise was a near-guaranteed hit. Sadly, too many games have been released over the years, and it has diluted the purpose and meaning of Resident Evil. The sobering reality is that Capcom needs to reassess before any sort of true announcement for Resident Evil 7 proper. Is this a horror series? An action series? Something that attempts to be bigger than both?
Even if they decide, ultimately, not to return to “horror roots” or whatever and to continue on an action-oriented path, they still need a mission, vision, and goals. I think plenty of people in the community will be crossing their fingers in the meantime. Until then, let’s hope the remake can recapture some of that old Resident Evil magic.
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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