Editorials
The ‘Resident Evil’ Games You Might Not Know About
With ever more ‘Resident Evil’ games joining the library, and news of ‘Resident Evil 7’ just around the corner, we take a peek at some of the lesser known titles out there!
It’s kind of crazy to think that Resident Evil 7 is moving into production. In spite of video games being a sequel-heavy world, not many franchises work there way to number seven (and technically nine, if you count Resident Evil Zero and Code: Veronica, which you absolutely should) before resetting the clock or revamping in some manner. The series’ commitment to continuing down this main timeline is a testament to the work they’ve done and the story that’s been built, but in the meantime there have also been an abundance of side stories and ugly redheaded step-zombies that have crept up along the way. You know the core games in the series to death, so here’s an opportunity to look at some of the lesser known games in the Resident Evil series that actually came out, whether you believe it or not.
Resident Evil Gaiden
Platform: Game Boy Color
Resident Evil Gaiden is such a bizarre, glorious experiment for the mere prospect of saying, they released a Resident Evil game on the Game Boy Color!? Yes, Capcom’s famous zombies were presented in the Game Boy Color’s classic 56-color scheme. Gaiden is…problematic, to say the least, but still a wonder that it squeaked by in the first place. A shocking amount of effort was put into Resident Evil’s first foray into the handheld market, with the original Resident Evil’s Shinji Mikami acting as an advisor for the title, with the story actually being written by Hiroki Kato, who would later go on to be Code: Veronica’s director. There’s a great deal of novelty present in this title, but it still manages to put forward a pretty creative story, too. The title’s set on an ocean liner, for instance, long before Resident Evil: Revelations was mining that territory, and sees you playing as Leon Kennedy and Barry Burton, of all people. It even features a BOW that’s ultimately a shape-shifter who ends up turning into Leon, in a welcome twist to the bosses that you fight. Due to the Game Boy Color’s limitations, your zombie action takes place in a top down view, with the shooting mechanic creatively swapping to a first-person perspective using a Mario Golf-like reticle-matching system to fire. Resident Evil Gaiden is a nice reminder of what we were willing to put up with, just because we were so eager for any more Resident Evil to get our hands on.
Resident Evil: The Missions
Platform: Mobile Phone
The first of the many obscure mobile Resident Evil games that would see release, The Missions might not pack a lot of story, but it’s the perfect sort of fodder for the mobile platform. Available in both a 2D and 3D version, the title is more or less a modified sort of spin-off of the Mercenaries games (which also have their own mobile title), giving a hefty list of 150 bite-sized missions to work through as Jill Valentine. It’s hardly anything special, but it’s a more than fun way to kill a few minutes while you’re waiting for the train to come.
Resident Evil: Genesis and Resident Evil: Uprising
Platform: Mobile Phone
Genesis and its follow-up, Uprising, are both essentially puzzle adventure games, making them extremely interesting takes on the survival horror material. With these titles specifically made with the smaller screens of mobile devices in mind, careful thought was put towards areas like movement and button pushing, lending itself to this puzzle structure. With a creative setup behind them, these titles were set to re-tell pivotal events from the Resident Evil titles, but in this new context. Genesis has you as Jill Valentine, working through events of the original game, with Uprising exploring Resident Evil 2’s canon as Claire. In spite of the limitations of their hardware, these actually make for creative, fun games. It’d be interesting to see a modern take on this premise (exploring more recent Resident Evil main universe games), even if the whole point of these was to capitalize on the hardware’s limits.
Resident Evil: Confidential Report
Platform: Mobile Phone
One of the perks of these weird offshoot mobile games is their tendency to mix up Resident Evil’s genre every now and then. Confidential Report, for instance, mixes survival horror with turn-based strategy while incorporating a grid-based combat system. Confidential Report at least tries to do its best Resident Evil 2 impression structure-wise, giving you two (bland) characters to play as, Tyler Hamilton and Naomi McClain. It might not all totally mesh together, but it is an impressive, unique deviation in the series, all while being on your phone, no less.
Resident Evil Assault the Nightmare
Platform: Mobile Phone
Certainly one of the more visually grabbing Resident Evil titles that are out there, Assault the Nightmare pulls its look from an art style reminiscent of anime, while mixing this with the aesthetic of first person shooters. Here zombies are cartoonish rather than frightening, and people resemble typical anime fare. The inconsequential story is set at a nondescript castle, with the title utilizing your phone’s arrow keys to aim your gun. Assault the Nightmare probably isn’t worth your time, but it’s still an interesting footnote, and radically mixing up Resident Evil’s look (imagine a cel shaded title?) isn’t necessarily a bad idea.
Resident Evil: Degeneration
Platform: iOS/Nokia N-Gage 2.0
The cream of the mobile crop here, Resident Evil: Degeneration actually looks pretty damn good. Using the build of Resident Evil 4 Mobile Edition (yes, that was a thing), full 3D environments are in play here, with Degeneration being the mobile title that operates the most like your standard Resident Evil game. Based off of the events of the CGI film of the same name, Degeneration has you controlling Leon Kennedy, stuck in an airport while preventing planes full of viruses from taking off. Originally developed as the flagship title for the second coming of Nokia’s N-Gage (you remember the N-Gage, right? Right!?), this hardware was eventually just absorbed into most modern mobile phones in the first place. While a very impressive title, due to Degeneration’s nature to not mix up the norm, it ends up just feeling like a poor-grade Resident Evil title. For completists and staunch zombie haters though, it’s certainly worth checking out.
Resident Evil Zombie Buster
Platform: Mobile Phone
Resident Evil Zombie Buster’s twist on the norm is that it presents Resident Evil as a top-down shooter, with you plowing down seemingly endless hordes of zombies. It’s a monotonous time-killer of a game, but one that’s at least made a little more fun by its Resident Evil makeover. In Zombie Buster’s defense, it is one of the earlier mobile titles included here, and one that still gives you the (pointless) option as choosing between Claire and Leon.
Resident Evil Survivor, Resident Evil Survivor 2 Code: Veronica, and Resident Evil: Dead Aim
Platform: PlayStation (Survivor), PlayStation 2, Arcade (Survivor 2), PlayStation (Dead Aim)
Granted, while some of you might be familiar with Resident Evil’s Gun Survivor series, its relative obscurity still warrants these games to be touched on. After all, these can’t all be niche mobile entries. Starting off on the PlayStation, Capcom’s Gun Survivor series set out to turn some of its most popular survival horror titles into revamped light gun shooters. It’s a plan that’s a natural fit for Resident Evil (and one that makes so much sense it would later be touched on in the Wii’s Umbrella and Darkside Chronicles).
Resident Evil Survivor, the first attempt at this, is a first person light gun title (although the US release didn’t include the guns due to what was going on with Columbine at the time), where you play as an amnesiac protagonist, as you you’re bombarded with enemies from the series’ first two titles. Survivor 2 Code: Veronica is largely the same deal, except with Code: Veronica as its playground. It’s also famously remembered for maddeningly all being a dream of Claire’s in the end! Dead Aim (which has the infinitely cooler title in Japan, Gun Survivor 4: Biohazard: Heroes Never Die) mixes things up a little bit by using a third person perspective when you’re moving around, but switching to first person when shooting. It’s a little awkward of a transition, but adds a little depth to the experience at least. Dead Aim is not a great Resident Evil game, nor is it a great light gun game, which is really its biggest hang up. It’s still surprising that 2005’s Namco x Capcom actually had the titles protagonists, Bruce and Ling, as characters, confirming that this wasn’t just a crazy fever dream.
If anything, it even feels like Capcom has gotten a little looser with the Resident Evil license in recent years. More tangential titles could certainly be on the horizon, and I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of Resident Evil invading the mobile market either (especially in Japan). Who knows, with the many cameos of Resident Evil characters in fighting titles, and some recent appearances in Project X Zone 2, maybe something like a Resident Evil fighter isn’t even out of the realm of possibility. All I know is that I’ve got dibs on Barry, if that’s the case.
Editorials
Not Another ‘Scary Movie’: Revisiting Forgotten Parody ‘Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th’
After Scream (1996) made a killing at the box office, as well as won over critics and audiences, a lot of folks in the movie biz thought they could do the same thing (and yield similar results). That thing, of course, being a slasher. Most of these opportunists wound up being pretty straightforward; they were low on humor or commentary. Yet others, like Scary Movie (2000), saw the potential for spoofing Scream, and acted on that impulse with both haste and excitement.
A few months after the Wayans’ comedy first hit theaters, Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th landed on the USA Network, as part of the channel’s “Shriek Week” programming. That straight-to-cable (then home video) destination is possibly why many people still don’t know about this one. Or they simply chose to forget. Whatever the reason, only one of these two horror parodies came out on top—and it’s certainly not the movie where Coolio channeled Prince, and Tom Arnold saved the day.
Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th previously went by the name of I Know What You Screamed Last Semester. That Trimark acquisition then settled on a wordier title, just so it could avoid the litigious wrath of Miramax Films. Folks may or may not remember that Columbia Pictures was sued over the “implied connection” between I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) and Scream. So, yeah, there was no way that this competing Scream parody wasn’t going to be kept on a tight rein.
A Heavy Reliance on Late ’90s TV References
Simon Rex, Julie Benz, Majandra Delfino, Harley Cross, Danny Strong, Tom Arnold and Tiffani-Amber Thiesen in Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th.
Naturally, there would be similarities between Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th and Scary Movie—their scripts are built on the backs of the same two movies. It goes without saying that the other big slasher of the 1990s, I Know What You Did Last Summer, was as much of a target as Scream. However,the film pads itself with more TV references than Scary Movie did.
Half the cast coming off of (and in some cases, returning to) a WB show could be a reason why. Dawson’s Creek is particularly zeroed in on, based on how there’s a central character named “Dawson Deery“, and how the teen drama’s teacher-student affair plotline is satirized to the nth degree. As if there weren’t enough nods to television, Baywatch, VH1’s Pop Up Video, and even those cheesy Mentos commercials all serve as joke prompts.
Shriek director John Blanchard and writers Sue Bailey and Joe Nelms all hailed from television, so it’s understandable that they would stick close to home. The movie’s humor in general makes more sense, in light of learning that Blanchard worked on SCTV, Kids in the Hall, and MADtv. The writers, on the other hand, were each fairly green, with Bailey being the most experienced of the two; she wrote and produced the game show BattleBots. Nevertheless, they, plus Blanchard, churned out a passable, joke-a-minute movie. The whole thing is staggeringly of its time, but no one here was aiming for longevity.
Having seen enough of these kinds of movies, we know to expect jokes of the low-hanging fruit variety. That’s the parody’s whole prime directive. From the characters having names like “Screw Frombehind” and “Doughy Primesuspect”, to stereotyping that feels taboo nowadays, this is a movie from a different era of comedy. Its coarse, corny, and unapologetic sense of humor won’t sit well with everyone in these more enlightened times. In which case, Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th can be treated as a time capsule.
Does Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th Humor Still Hold Up Today?
“You may already be a victim”—Someone receives a most peculiar threatening piece of mail in Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th.
Although Shriek doesn’t live up to its own claims of being so funny that you’ll die of laughter, its bawdier parts could still lead to some nervous laughter. For instance, after this movie’s parallel to Drew Barrymore’s Scream character is done in—not by the killer but by a bug zapper—the movie throws a newspaper next to the victim’s fresh corpse. The headline? “Popular slut killed! Football team mourns”.
We then move on to the wacky and inappropriate goings-on at Bulimia Falls High School, home of the Hurlers. At this nexus of constant absurdity, indecency, and surrealism, students are seen fornicating on the lawn, cheerleading squad applicants are advised to be comfortable with partial nudity, and terrorists openly prepare for an anthrax attack. It can be a tad jarring to watch, especially if you didn’t grow up witnessing this style of comedy firsthand. Hell, even if you did, you may still have a “what the hell were they thinking?” reaction.
It’s not just the aggressively edgy humor here that can make you chuckle—the slapstick, the sight gags, and the ribaldry all have a decent chance of landing. The movie’s own villain, whose hockey mask was instantly transformed into a crudely Ghostface-esque one after coming in contact with an open flame, commits more cheap laughs than kills. His and his victims’ chase sequences, most of which are cartoonish in nature, left this writer grinning. The Scooby-Doo fan in me also totally ate up that clever unmasking joke.
Final Thoughts on This Forgotten Horror Parody
Shriek If You Know What Did Last Friday the 13th
Now, the jury is still out on whether these comedies are to blame for the death of the first slasher revival. There is more to consider than some parodies. At the very least, the likes of Scary Movie didn’t exactly encourage big studios to put their money on a trend that was being derided to death (and not as profitable as the spoofs). These sorts of movies also felt unnecessary at the time, given how their principal inspiration is already a deconstruction of the genre. But like anything else that quickly becomes popular, mockery is unavoidable.
Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th is indeed a movie nobody asked for, much less needed. As a sample of pre-millennium humor and cultural attitudes, it’s not always precise. But as I’ve laid out, your mileage may vary. Horror parodies typically don’t have the best track record, so managing one’s own expectations here is recommended.
Upon rewatching, I for one laughed a bit more than I did back then. Only this time, I responded to the jokes that my younger self didn’t notice or find all that amusing. So it just goes to show that the movies don’t change—we do.
Harley Cross and Majandra Delfino must unmask the killer a number of times in Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th before learning their true identity.
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