Movies
‘Resident Evil’ Reboot Screenwriter Talks Returning to the Scary Roots of the Games
Say what you will about Paul W.S. Anderson’s Resident Evil film universe, but at least the guy gave us entertaining films (even if they progressively drifted from the game’s canon). But now with Anderson off doing Monster Hunter (with his wife Milla Jovovich in the lead role), the Resident Evil film franchise is in reboot mode.
In an interview with DiscussingFilm, screenwriter Greg Russo talks about the first draft of the screenplay for the upcoming reboot of the film franchise, which was announced last year, with James Wan producing.
In the interview, Russo describes the progress of the screenplay as “good”, having worked on the reboot for about a year before Wan came in. After that, Russo says, “my involvement on that project has kind of concluded, so I’m not sure what they’ll really do with it”. However, Russo says that the producers “were happy with [my draft]”, which Russo says attempted to go back to the horror roots of the franchise, in lieu of action.
“Obviously I’m a huge fan of the franchise so to work on that was a lot of fun,” says Russo. “For me it was very clear-cut that I wanted to go back and make it scary again like a horror film in terms of the classic James Wan style so that was the pitch, going back and looking what made the games scary in the first place so yea Resident Evil 7 was a bit of a touchstone for my draft.”
When you think about it, the RE film franchise aped the action-oriented mayhem of Resident Evil 5 and 6, and drifted away from the scares. Russo agrees, though “not to shame the original film franchise that was made, I think that did very well”. But, as a fan, Russo says that he “always considered the franchise to be horror at the forefront and action as a secondary feature.”
Whether or not Russo’s draft will survive is yet to be seen, but at least going back to what made the games great in the first place is a good start.
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.
You must be logged in to post a comment.