Resident Evil: The Influences of Classic Horror on Ethan Winters' Story

Resident Evil 9: Requiem is closer than ever, and fans of the franchise are already counting down the minutes until its release on the 27th of this month. While we wait and try to calm our anxiety to see Leon and all that awaits us in this title that promises to bring back many classic characters and moments (and to see Leon), how about revisiting the last two games? More specifically, the way horror was implemented in them, since RE 7 and 8 were highly praised precisely for bringing the franchise back closer to its roots.

Resident Evil, more specifically the first game in the saga, was undeniably a landmark in the history of video games, naming the term "Survival Horror" and pioneering the genre. Although it wasn't even close to being the medium that solidified the concept of "zombie" as we know it today (that position is held by George Romero's 1968 film Night of the Living Dead) nor the first video game to feature zombies as the main enemy (the first to do so was the PC game Zombie Zombie, created by the studio Spaceman Ltd and published in 1984), it was the original RE that popularized the presence of zombies in video games, a theme that remains quite prominent to this day.

If not all, the vast majority of today's horror games are heavily influenced by elements of classic horror, whether obvious, such as the inclusion of monsters like vampires and zombies, or more subtle in the form of references or Easter eggs. These usually allude to themes, films, or even other games that inspired the medium in question, or are simply too integral a part of the foundations of horror not to be included.

And with a franchise as iconic as Resident Evil, it couldn't be any different. Throughout all the games in the series, various themes and monsters straight out of horror classics make their appearances, but none as prominently as in the two titles that tell the story of the franchise's most recent protagonist: Ethan Winters.

First, let's recap some key points from these two games, since they were released a while ago. In Biohazard, the infectious agent isn't the T-Virus, but something more akin to the Las Plagas from RE4, the Mold. It's literally a mold, a modified biological agent originating from the Megamycete, which we'll discuss further when we get to VIII.

For now, in Biohazard, the mold is used to infect people and control their actions. Some are successful experiments, like the Bakers, and become final bosses – I mean, they become stronger monsters with unique abilities and personalities, and the failed experiments become the Molded, a humanoid mass of mold and organic matter – in other words, the game's common enemies.

However, the mold in this game doesn't just refer to the enemies, but is also one of the game's central themes. The moldy, corrupted and disgusting, the visceral reaction evoked by seeing something common in our daily lives completely rotten. This applies both to the characters, normal people transformed into bizarre creatures, and to the environment itself. The forest and rural atmosphere of the first few minutes of the game quickly transform into truly gross scenarios, full of moldy food, garbage, broken and destroyed things, all overrun by flies, maggots, and cockroaches. This atmosphere is one of the game's greatest strengths, and it truly evokes that feeling of disgust when faced with such decay.

Starting with the most iconic elements: the characters, whether they’re the villains or heroes of the presented narrative. And when it comes to the enemies, each of the game's villains represents an archetype from horror films, from their design to their pursuit patterns, how they attack and torment Ethan, their dialogue, and even the environments where each "stage" of the game, related to each boss, takes place.

The Hands That Have Suffered the Most in Gaming History - Ethan Winters

Ethan is perhaps the most controversial protagonist in the franchise. The idea is great: to create a protagonist with few lines, little personality, whose face we never even see, and this makes the player project their own personality onto him, their own reactions to what Ethan faces. However, the execution of this idea… not so much. It works very well in the first game, but in Village, the lack of prior character development is painfully present when he takes on a more prominent role that demands better character building, which simply doesn't exist.

Although this aspect is a focus of criticism regarding both games, it works by positioning Ethan as a true mirror of the player, or the viewer watching a horror movie. The relative linearity of the games also reminds us of a film. Of course, it's a game and therefore an interactive medium, but it's not a choice-based game, and the story will always be the same, with the player seeing everything through Ethan's eyes. Literally, since the camera is in first person (another point that received a lot of criticism).

Mia Winters

Mia, Ethan's wife, is a direct reference and homage to Mia Allen from Evil Dead, a franchise that heavily influenced the developers of Resident Evil VII, according to past interviews. Beyond the name, the Mia in the film is also possessed by an external force (a demon in the film, mold in the game) and turns against the people she loves, brutally attacking them.

Even the chainsaw, so emblematic of the Evil Dead franchise, is present in the game, in the sequence where we find our missing wife for the first time, and a very strong visual parallel between the two Mias can also be made; the appearance of both when possessed is quite similar.

Welcome to the Family, Son - The Bakers

Jack, Marguerite, Lucas, and Zoe Baker are the most tragic victims in the game, and yet another family on the long list of "collateral damage" from experiments by shadowy organizations obsessed with biological weapons in the saga. They were a completely normal family, living in a rural area of ​​Louisiana, in the US, until their lives were shattered when they innocently rescued a little girl, Eveline, from a shipwreck and took her into their home.

It turns out that Eveline was actually one of the biological weapons in question, and with her abilities to infect and control the infected, she quickly took control of Jack, Marguerite, and Lucas, transforming them into monsters literally and figuratively.

The entire family is already a reference to one of the classic villain "categories" in horror movies: The hillbillies who live in isolated locations and take prisoners or kill victims who cross their path. One example is the family of incestuous and cannibalistic hillbillies that antagonizes the Wrong Turn film series, but the most famous example is undoubtedly the Sawyers, from the classic Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

When it comes to the Sawyers, it goes beyond inspiration. The scene where we first meet the Baker family is a direct parallel to one of the most famous scenes from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, only with Ethan in Sally's place. He finds himself tied to a chair, sitting at a table set with a disgusting dinner, alongside a totally dysfunctional and cruel family who torture him, laugh maniacally, and fight amongst themselves. It's both an homage to a classic and a scene that perfectly establishes the dynamic between the family members.

Jack Baker

Jack, the father, is the archetype of the Slasher, the killer who stops at nothing, who appears out of nowhere to pursue the protagonists, always with his "calm" walk, without running desperately or trying to create big traps, doing superhuman things like breaking walls with his punches, and above all, who doesn't die, even when he should’ve died dozens of times because nobody can stand any more movies (hello Jason Voorhees). Besides Jason, another good example is Michael Myers, from the Halloween franchise, both characters who have already taken countless shots, stabs, explosions, drownings, gone from space to hell (seriously, nobody can stand Jason's absurd movies anymore), and always come back.

Jack has another quite obvious reference: Jack Torrance from The Shining. Besides the name (yes, another direct homage in a character's name), both are fathers whose minds have been corrupted by an evil force, hurting and persecuting their own children and becoming the villains of their own stories.

Marguerite Baker

Marguerite, the mother, is the archetype of Body Horror, and also brings a less common, yet still present theme in horror classics: Insects. Regarding Body Horror, whose foundation is to evoke terror through the distortion of the human body, we can think of references such as The Fly, The Thing, and The Brood. The latter, from 1979, directed by David Cronenberg, was an inspiration for the design of Marguerite's "final" form and also involves themes of motherhood, as well as the aspect of insects.

She has the power to control swarms of highly aggressive insects, create enormous "webs" and cocoons, and transforms into a grotesque insectoid creature in the final boss fight. Her "spawning" of these insects is a reference both to her role as the matriarch of the family and to her maternal instinct to care for Eveline and Mia in the beginning, and, in the same way that Jack represents "paternal" terror, Marguerite is the personification of maternal horror, coming from a figure who should caretake and protect.

Lucas Baker

Lucas, the eldest son, doesn't undergo any grotesque transformation like his parents; his transformation was more mental than physical. Lucas was always an inventive boy who enjoyed creating things and solving puzzles, and he already possessed a certain wickedness within him, liking to play cruel pranks and having hurt other people even before the infection. Upon being infected by Eveline, he became practically an evil engineer, much like John Kramer. Literally, in fact, because he’s directly based on Jigsaw, the villain from the Saw franchise.

Instead of physically going there to torture or kill his victims, Lucas, like Kramer, creates elaborate traps and scenarios that people have to try to solve, but almost always end up dying in the process. His section of the game takes place in a building full of neon lights, deadly traps, rooms covered from floor to ceiling in plastic, and an industrial atmosphere and lighting that fans of the Saw franchise will immediately recognize. Another reference that can be found in Lucas is to highly intelligent villains who "play" with their victims or with the police, as in Zodiac.

Zoe Baker

Zoe, the only one in the family not manipulated by Eveline (although she was infected), is the archetype of the best friend/romantic partner of the Final Girl, which in this case is Ethan. Zoe helps you, guides you, and is present for most of the game, even if only through the phone, but there's no guarantee that this character will survive.

And, in Zoe's case, her ending is death if you choose to cure her instead of Mia (who knows, maybe you've gone crazy), or being left behind by the protagonist (she’s later saved and freed from Eveline's influence and the mold in a separate DLC that tells the character's canonical ending, but she never reunites with Ethan). Practically every horror movie involving a group of friends, especially Slashers, has a character like that.

Other Themes and References

Although not as prominent as the themes discussed above, the game still contains several minor references and homages to various other films and tropes of the genre. Let's look at a few:

Tapes and Found Footage

In the first house we enter when starting a new game (and at a few other points throughout the game), we find a cassette tape, and by putting it in the VCR (probably the first time many players have used a VCR. I'm getting old.), we take control of the person who was filming and actively play through the events of the video that Ethan is watching.

In this first tape, we follow a team of ghost hunters who went to film an episode of their TV show in this supposedly haunted house, but this time the danger was real and the entire team meets its end. In the video, the person with the camera goes down to the basement of the house and finds one of their friends motionless, not reacting to anything at all, standing in a corner, facing the wall. Sound familiar?

Eveline

Besides Eve being the game's main villain and final boss, she has two forms that are very common in horror movies: the strange, haunted-looking child and the somewhat sinister old woman who just stands there, but you're sure that at some point she's going to do something. In both forms, she's quite unsettling.

And speaking of her, the final part of the game, where much of the story of how she ended up there is revealed, takes place on a huge, sinister, abandoned ship full of terrifying creatures, in addition to the visions of young Eveline scaring you. Haunted ships are also classics in horror, like in the movie Ghost Ship and even older legends that have appeared in various adaptations, such as The Flying Dutchman.

Easter Eggs

Finally, we have two small direct homages: in the final fight against Jack Baker, when he grabs the electric scissors and comes at you (quite friendly), one of the things he says is "Groovy". This line is another direct reference to Evil Dead, when Ash Williams says the same thing in an iconic scene when he puts the chainsaw to their arm in Evil Dead 2.

And in the Jigsaw-worthy trap/game that Lucas sets for you (and for the poor soul who played the game on the cassette tape you find there), when the clown grabs your arm and cuts the keyword into it, he writes "loser" on your left forearm, a parallel with the movie IT, where they write the same thing in the same place, only on Eddie's cast.

The time has come to talk about the true origin of evil in these two games (and perhaps more? It's revealed at the end that Mother Miranda, the Big Bad of this game, the great final villain, knew Oswell Spencer, the creator of the T-Virus and the Progenitor Virus, and shared her research with him, so who knows how far her influence might extend?): The Megamycete. As the name suggests, it's a fungus, discovered by Mother Miranda, and has the ability to "absorb" the people it infects, as well as infect others and grant them supernatural abilities and powers. The manipulation of this fungus is what gave rise to the mold.

The closest comparison we can make to the effect this fungus has is with Cordyceps Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, the "Zombie Ant Fungus," which also served as the basis for the zombies in another world-famous franchise, The Last of Us. Here, the main villains were purposefully implanted with a parasite derived from this fungus, Cadou, during experiments conducted on them by Mother Miranda, and the "common" enemies, mostly werewolves, are, again, failed experiments, either by Miranda herself or the Lords.

This game explores horror classics in a slightly different way than its predecessor. Instead of archetypes, the villains and the themes surrounding them represent classic monsters. After all, if we have zombies, why not vampires, werewolves, and swamp creatures?

The game's "common" enemies are the werewolves mentioned above, the villagers transformed into ferocious, bloodthirsty Lycans as a result of experiments performed on them. Having werewolves instead of zombies as the most common enemy in a Resident Evil game was certainly a choice, but one that fits the "dark fairy tale" theme that permeates the game.

Besides the movie references, the game also features several sections with very different gameplay styles; there are parts that are pure psychological horror, others that are practically a Metroidvania with lots of exploration and backtracking, others that are an action adventure, a puzzle thrown in somewhere… It would take another whole article just to talk about how rich this game is in gameplay styles and how it's living proof of Capcom's ability to seamlessly transition between these genres.

The Four Lords

Alcina Dimitrescu

Let's start with the biggest reason why many people were interested in the game, and also the biggest reason for the frustration of many when they realized she wasn't as present in the game as the marketing led them to believe: the 3-meter-tall, domineering vampire to whom many people would willingly offer themselves as victims. She isn't exactly a vampire in the classic sense, but rather a carrier of a rare blood disease that required her to drink blood to survive, who was lured to the village by Mother Miranda and became a guinea pig for her experiments with the Megamycete, resulting in her intimidating size and powers.

Besides being called Lady Dimitrescu, or Lady D, with the same initial as probably the most famous vampire in horror, Dracula, Alcina is the heiress of a noble family that lives isolated in their Gothic castle in Romania. Her three daughters, who live with her and are in turn Dimitrescu's successful experiments, are reinterpretations of Dracula's three brides.

In her final form, after being stabbed by Ethan with the magic dagger conveniently found at the exact moment, and which kills vampires, she turns into a dragon, a creature strongly associated with Dracula, so much so that his name originates from the Romanian word for "Dragon", Dracul. This association can also be seen in classic horror films such as Bram Stoker's Dracula, where the titular character's armor in the opening sequence is made to resemble the scales of a dragon.

Donna Beneviento

Following the sequence of the game itself, we have Donna Beneviento and her terrifying doll, Angie. This is the psychological horror part, with ghosts, hallucinations, shadow play, things moving in the dark, dolls, babies and mannequins, all classic elements of horror.

References that can be clearly seen here are The Invisible Man, which had a recent remake in 2020, but is based on a book by H. G. Wells from 1897, first adapted for film in 1933, due to the way Donna becomes invisible and interacts with objects around her, and one of the great classics of horror films: Chucky and the entire genre of killer dolls, such as the famous Annabelle.

Salvatore Moreau

Moreau, the most disliked of the four Lords and the butt of jokes for all the others, is simply and directly a swamp monster. He has a grotesque appearance, quite reminiscent of films like The Blob and the Body Horror films mentioned earlier, and the location where his part of the game takes place is a swamp full of water and slime.

Based directly on Creature From The Black Lagoon from 1954, Moreau also drew influences from Japanese legends in his design, specifically from the Kappa Yokai, a water spirit.

Karl Heisenberg

Finally, we have Heisenberg; the last of the Lords, the most charismatic (largely thanks to the voice acting of Neil Newbon, the eternal Astarion), who is based not directly on a monster (although many confuse them), but on its creator: Victor Frankenstein, from 1818.

He has a massive factory where he creates humanoid and robotic hybrids, experimenting with corpses to reanimate dead creatures and people, much like Frankenstein. In this factory, you fight against several of them, including a mini-boss, and finally defeat all the Lords. Heisenberg also brings to his personal story some themes of horror/family trauma that were very strong in the previous game: He’s part of Mother Miranda's bizarre "family," but totally against his will, and conspires to overthrow her, even though he’s forced to obey her orders.

Other Archetypes

And the themes present in the game don't stop there. Again, Body Horror is quite strong, from some bosses like Alcina's transformation and Moreau's grotesque appearance to the design of other characters like Duke, the NPC who mentions being a friend of the Merchant, to the delight of RE4 fans, and who functions as a shop, upgrades your weapons and helps you at various points throughout your journey; as well as the very concept of what happened to Ethan's daughter, Rose, who was dismembered and placed in several separate jars, being "revived" at the end of the game as a receptacle for Eva, Miranda's daughter.

Miranda

And speaking of her, we have the game's main villain: Mother Miranda. Again, motherhood is a central theme in the game, since Miranda's main objective with all the experiments she conducted and all the horror she caused was to obtain a vessel for her daughter, who died decades ago from Spanish flu, but still "exists" inside the Megamycete, and the villain is willing to do anything to get her back.

Another theme built around Mother Miranda's presence in the game and her effect on people is cults. The villagers all worship her and the four lords, in a religion revolving around the "Black God", who is the Megamycete himself, and they all blindly follow, even seeing their homes and lives destroyed by the experiments and the monsters that resulted from them. In real-world cults, of course, the monster aspect is absent, but the disastrous consequences for the lives and families of people who find themselves in cults are well represented in the game.

Resident Evil doesn't have a very good track record when it comes to movies; the existing film adaptations of the franchise scare many fans, and not in the good way one expects from a zombie medium. Interestingly, this could’ve been very different, since the "father of zombies", George Romero himself, even proposed a script to direct the first RE film, but it was rejected, and the film was left in the hands of Paul Anderson… And the rest is history, and a very bad history involving countless Alice clones. But that doesn't mean that the influence of other horror films doesn't add a lot to the story and elements of the games.

Resident Evil 7 and 8, Biohazard, and Village can be read as a great love letter to classic horror and the works that solidified the genre. Both games have their weaknesses and are certainly open to criticism, but when it comes to atmosphere of terror, they’re undeniable successes, and any horror movie lover will have fun looking for references throughout these titles.