Editorials
Break Out The ‘Resident Evil: Outbreak’ Remake
With the HD update of 2002’s Resident Evil REmake just over the horizon, I can’t help but feel the need to have a few of the more underappreciated RE titles from that era make a similar triumphant return.
An Editorial By Clark and Zac Thompson
Back in 2003, before the core Resident Evil games were forever changed from the classic format, series fanatics were treated to a truly unique and exhilarating experience that was Resident Evil Outbreak.
The game was truly a dream come true for this RE fan in a few pretty big ways. In the early core games of the series, where you routinely bump into, and occasionally fight alongside different support characters, the idea of these characters being controlled by a friend was something I’d routinely daydream about. That was now a reality.
In addition, Outbreak‘s setting, which was Raccoon City during the viral outbreak, gave players the opportunity to experience the area along with the early to late stages of the chaos culminating the the cities ultimate destruction, like never before.
However, the gameplay was a little stilted and disjointed. The core experience had the heart of Resident Evil but something felt off. Now that the online gaming community is exploding, there is no time like the present to make Outbreak a defining multiplayer experience through a crisp remake that would help pull the series back to it’s roots while taking the pulse of more modern gaming experiences.
The besieged Racoon City is the perfect setting to bring the heart of Resident Evil back to the series and the multiplayer experience of terror has yet to be perfected, but with Capcom in the drivers seat, I believe a RE Outbreak Remake could do the trick. There are the minor experiments in Resident Evil 5 and 6, but those feel like cheap examples compared to Outbreak.
To put it bluntly, Outbreak — along with its sequel — deliver on almost every level.
First of all, instead of just you and one other friend, game sessions were comprised of of four characters selected from a group of eight, each possessing their own strengths, weaknesses and special abilities. There was even melee combat and some mild weapon crafting, not to mention the ability to move with your weapon drawn.
The ten scenarios, five for each game, sprawled a great deal of interesting areas over the course the the mayhem. And best of all, it was all presented with the same dynamic camera angles that made the series famous, but in a fully 3D world. The end product feeling very similar to Resident Evil: Code Veronica in it’s visual aesthetic, with an added polish reminiscent of the Resident Evil REmake. It was a beautifully rich and atmospheric experience.
With all that in mind you’ve got the recipe for the perfect rebirth of the franchise. There is a certain magic to these scenarios that begs to be in a faster paced multiplayer world. With the introduction of full voice communication and tossing the predetermined vocal cues you can help create a more modern experience, but use it is a location based way that only allows those close to you to actually hear the things you’re saying.
That’s true horror, especially if you can’t tell someone’s dead, only to enter a room and hear screams of agony before their mic goes dead.
The game also had you exploring the underground facility from Resident Evil 2, the hospital from Nemesis, the underground tunnels, a burning hotel teeming with Lickers, Raccoon City University, a forest outside the city and my personal favorite, The Raccoon City Zoo.
If we want a rebirth of the magic of the first few installments are retooled Outbreak experience is the only answer. The games have always been about bands of survivors, and elevating the terror through friends will both increase the fear and fun. It allows Resident Evil to evolve in a new way, still keep a more action oriented pace that made it successful as of late, but still keep the roots of what made it great in the first place. Plus, you’ll still have zombies.
At the end of the day, both of these games were classic Resident Evil experiences that were largely swept under the rug. The gameplay, atmosphere, visuals, enemies and music were all fantastic. These titles truly deserved a wider audience, and with a few tweaks, mainly the addition of voice chat, and perhaps some new content, now would be the perfect time for an HD overhaul. Especially with the current popularity of co-op play, combined with faster connection speeds and the current love of gaming nostalgia.
Clark Thompson is a 31-year-old horror fanatic currently residing in Kelowna B.C. His main goals in life are to one day experience a zombie apocalypse, and/or undergo surgery to have his heart mounted on the exterior of his chest. You can reach him at clarkthomspon@yahoo.ca or on facebook Clorkwork Torange.
Some movies are just so beloved that you can experience them through cultural osmosis without ever sitting down to actually watch them. From loving parodies to meticulous recreations of iconic scenes, memorable filmmaking lives on even after the curtains close on the silver screen. And when it comes to horror, few films can compete with the massive impact that Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining had on popular culture as a whole.
Whether or not you think the flick is a good adaptation of Stephen King’s seminal novel, 1980’s The Shining slowly but surely grew into one of the most influential genre movies ever made, inspiring everything from surprisingly heartfelt sequels to classic episodes of The Simpsons. However, not all The Shining references are created equal, and today I’d like to shine a light on six unexpected homages to Kubrick’s iconic film.
In this list, we’ll be focusing on references and Easter eggs that either came out of the blue or came from creators that you wouldn’t expect to be fans of this classic ghost story. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own favorite references to the Torrance family and the Overlook Hotel if you think we missed a particularly memorable one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
5. A Nightmare on FaceTime – South Park (2012)
Regardless of the brand’s iffy reputation among former employees, the death of Blockbuster Video was a serious blow to fans of physical media. Of course, some folks were more affected by this than others, and South Park’s Randy Marsh definitely took things a little too far in the twelfth episode of the show’s sixteenth season.
Titled A Nightmare on FaceTime, the main plot of this 2012 story is a surprisingly faithful recreation of The Shining where Randy purchases an empty Blockbuster store and begins to go mad once he realizes that his investment may not have been a very good idea due to the rise of streaming and the now-defunct RedBox storefronts.
4. The Overlook Hotel Level – Ready Player One (2018)
I was never really a fan of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, so I viewed Stephen Spielberg’s divisive adaptation of the novel as an improvement over the source material despite having its own narrative issues. In fact, I actually prefer how Spielberg changed the story by removing several references to his own work and replacing a lengthy Blade Runner detour with an over-the-top homage to The Shining.
A CGI-heavy recreation of the film’s most iconic moments that feels like a big-budget ghost train ride set within the Overlook Hotel, this intense sequence is more of a recreation of the freaky aesthetics of The Shining rather than its mind-bending narrative. However, it’s still fun to see Spielberg make a heartfelt tribute to a filmmaker that was once his close personal friend.
3. IKEA Singapore Halloween Ad (2014)
It makes sense that commercials don’t typically borrow from the horror genre, as it might be a bad idea to scare away potential customers, but some references are just too much fun to pass up.
That’s probably why the publicists behind this Ikea ad from Singapore were allowed to turn their commercial into a genuinely unsettling recreation of Danny’s tricycle scene from The Shining. After all, nobody cares if your store is haunted so long as it offers late-night shopping hours and a large selection of merchandise that you can become lost in forever and ever…
2. The End of ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’ – Community (2014)
Community is no stranger to recreating iconic movie moments within the show, and the series had previously tackled horror tropes in episodes like the fan-favorite Epidemiology. However, the most laugh-out-loud moment on this particular list comes from a brief gag towards the end of the season five episode ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’.
The majority of this episode has nothing to do with scary movies, but there’s a brief subplot involving supporting character Chang and a possible encounter with ghosts that leads him to question his own existence. This subplot culminates in the episode’s hilarious ending where the camera zooms in on a black-and-white photograph of Chang in period clothing at some kind of celebration, just like Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining.
However, the picture’s subtitle eventually reveals that it’s merely a conveniently placed keepsake from the ‘Old Timey Photo Club’.
1. The Overlook Hedge Maze Sequence – Zootopia 2 (2025)
Disney movies are pretty far removed from both the gruesome horror of Stephen King and the heady filmmaking of Stanley Kubrick, so I don’t think anyone was expecting the climax of last year’s Zootopia sequel to take place in an animated version of the snowy hedge maze from The Shining.
In this unexpectedly intense sequence, friend-turned-villain Pawbert Lynxley (an unhinged lynx cat played by Andy Samberg) chases our protagonists through a creepy labyrinth in a loving recreation of Jack Nicholson’s icy demise outside the Overlook Hotel. The actual ending here might be a little more child-friendly than what’s being referenced, but it’s amazing that the filmmakers were able to push the horror elements as far as they did – especially since the scene doesn’t really have anything to do with the rest of the movie.
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