Resident Evil and the adaptation accuracy debate

Game-to-film adaptations have, particularly in 2026, found themselves in the limelight. The first half of the year alone has seen Super Mario Galaxy, Mortal Kombat, Silent Hill, The Exit 8 and The Mortuary Assistant all finding second homes on the silver screen, with the latter three noticeably being horror titles. As if we didn’t already have enough, acclaimed comedy-turned-horror filmmaker Zach Cregger’s own spin on adapting Resident Evil hits theatres before the year meets its end — but why does nobody want it?

Despite this adaptation onslaught, most of them aren’t being received well at all. The aforementioned The Mortuary Assistant landed as one of the worst-rated atrocities in the history of Letterboxd, second only to the review scores of the politely abominable Return to Silent Hill. In fact, most all video-game adaptations — horror especially — soon find themselves denizens of the ‘rotten’ rating, such as every single other attempt at bringing Resident Evil into the live-action medium.

The frequently-cited shot in the foot for these cinematic disasterpieces is always the ‘accuracy’ of the adaptation: how it fails to meticulously follow the game’s story, or how it butchers the casting and characterisation of certain fan-favourites. Fear of this repetitive occurrence has already struck the fans of Capcom’s landmark survival horror franchise in the heart, a flame certainly fanned further by the script reportedly leaking online for a brief time.

Fans on Reddit remark how “there’s very little Resident Evil in this Resident Evil movie“, inferring that, while it may be a decent script, it won’t succeed as an adaptation. But I’ve long felt that there’s some ignorance and hypocrisy in this debate for this series specifically, as if it’s so ingrained in the minds of film-bro gamers that they must wish for their favourite franchise to be adapted, only to denounce and berate its very existence post-hoc until their last breath.

What makes the least sense is the fans’ unwavering repugnance to anything Resident Evil that doesn’t follow Capcom’s lead. It’s as if we forget that this gaming series often reinvents itself (Resident Evil 7: Biohazard for instance) and becomes something entirely foreign: new protagonists, new scares, new camera perspectives even, but it’s still Resident Evil because it’s played with a controller in your room, I guess.

When Resident Evil 7 hit shelves and put us in the shoes of a relatable, totally ordinary everyman Ethan Winters, we shifted to a first-person camera for the first time in franchise history, and didn’t even get to see the face of who we play for another five years. Masked; a blank slate for player input. If Resident Evil 6 put us behind the wheel of four separate protagonists, all of which virtually superhuman action-stars by this point, RE:7 couldn’t have been a further departure. So then, why do we accept that as masterful and reinvigorating, when Cregger’s own original story for the big screen is reproached?

Described by test screenings as RE on Fury Road, his adaptation is an attempt at making an “entirely original story” of the Raccoon City outbreak, free from the shackles of having to orbit around the same Leon Kennedys and Albert Weskers we’ve continually failed to translate. Weapons gem Austin Abrams returns here to play an infected-crossed courier delivering a package to a medical facility (likely a front for some franchise-staple Umbrella Corporation antics) suffering some zombie insurrection on day 0 of the T-Virus.

Why fans seem so adverse to accepting this original, ostensibly self-contained off-shoot in the Resident Evil world, yet meanwhile are able to accept the exact same thing happening on a console, is beyond me. Especially with how the campy at best, utterly disastrous at worst tries at making Resident Evil have already fallen flat on their face, why are we unable to welcome and endorse an original effort? Further, in a time where novel stories are needed far more than endless sequel-mania, an original innovation set in the universe of an established franchise is arguably the best of both worlds.

Something also worth mentioning is the promotional short film that coincided with the release of Resident Evil Requiem, the series’ ninth main instalment, earlier this year. Titled Evil Has Always Had a Name, this three-minute bite starring Maika Monroe is weirdly pretty great, and a tangible, legitimate improvement accuracy-wise from Paul W.S. Anderson’s handling of the franchise’s filmography. Naturally, a three-minute glorified ad doesn’t correlate to the quality of a whole studio movie, but it could end up being the first step towards a rebirth.

This could all age like milk if the film turns out to fall short, acting as another disappointing but unsurprising tarnish on Capcom’s big-screen transitory history. However, this is one of the best chances we’ll get in recent memory of a video-game adaptation actually being good, even if the ‘adaptation’ part is a little loose, instead acting more as a referential ode. Especially with a director like Zach Cregger — an on-record worshipper of Capcom’s franchise, and the same man who apparently made Jordan Peele fire his whole Artists First managerial team over losing the Weapons war, mind you — let’s put our trust in this being a hit, as it certainly has a better chance than its ancestors.