Resident Evil has always been silly. While it has often taken its survival horror elements and the responsibility of scaring its audience seriously, you’d be a fool not to acknowledge many of its characters and narrative elements as a little bit absurd.
I mean, the 1998 original follows a squad of police officers with horrendous voice acting into a haunted mansion filled with everything from man-eating plants to giant spiders, right before descending deep underground into an evil science lab where the apocalypse is brewing. It manages to offer several moments of unparalleled terror, but these are always mixed in with a delightful campiness that Resident Evil simply wouldn’t be the same without.
This brings me to a moment in Resident Evil 5 that has gone down in series history due to its ridiculous nature. During the final battle with a mutated Albert Wesker inside a volcano, Chris Redfield punches a massive boulder in order to use it as a platform. It’s a long sequence that asks you to perform several quick-time events in order to complete a pretty simple action, and that might be why it’s become so infamous over the years.
But to me, it feels pretty tame — especially compared to a bunch of other moments in the series that easily match its absurd nature. So let’s take a trip down memory lane and remember some equally ridiculous bits of the Resident Evil canon that give this boulder-punching roid rager a run for his money.
Remember When Leon Kennedy Ran Away From A Giant Napoleon Robot?
Speaking of ridiculous, Resident Evil 4 is a wonderful fever dream. What begins as a horrific descent into a rural Spanish village soon develops into an adventure where you venture into medieval castles ruled by an infected child, peruse underground labs while hiding from giant bugs, all before heading to an island filled with zombies packing more firepower than major countries.
It’s a rollercoaster ride that never lets up, and even gets literal with its theme park inspirations when you embark on a larger-than-life minecart excursion. But one moment that completely upends any shred of believability comes later on in Salazar’s Castle when Leon is forced to run away from a giant mechanical version of the regal dictator as it marches into his general direction. He could move to the left or the right and avoid its immovable pursuit, but instead Leon partakes in one of the game’s most memorable and ridiculous set pieces.
I love to think about the thought process behind constructing a statue like this that is capable of moving on the off-chance that a righteous hero comes along trying to rescue the President’s daughter one day. It is so delightfully video-gamey it hurts, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Resident Evil 4 is a perfect evolution of the series’ formula that keeps its cool and collected approach to camp and unsettling horror intact while evolving them for a brand-new generation. But beneath all of this bombasse, the narrative is still taken seriously by not only the characters, but by the players too. This tonal balance is not an easy thing to achieve.
There’s also Resident Evil Zero, whose primary antagonist is James Marcus, a man capable of using his singing voice to command a neverending army of evil slug monsters. I could even bring Resident Evil 2’s Raccoon City Police Station into this discussion and the fact that every single part of its architectural design appears to exist because it would one day be the subject of a survival horror video game.
I’ve got a strong suspension of disbelief, so one of my favourite things about this series is considering the context behind its ridiculous impracticalities. Leon even pokes fun at these puzzles in Requiem upon visiting the RCPD ruins, almost poking fun at how many hoops he had to jump through in order to survive.
Resident Evil Would Be Nothing Without Its Camp, Absurdist Identity
Whether it’s Jill sandwiches, dodging spears in native African swamps (yikes), or fighting a literal dinosaur made up of infected tissue, there is no shortage of silly moments in Resident Evil. Trying to embrace more serious elements of horror at the cost of leaving qualities like this behind would never work in its favour. I feared Resident Evil 7 was going to do such a thing when it rebooted the franchise back in 2017, but even that swiftly began to embrace familiar iconography and themes as it became clear Ethan Winters was doing battle with evil mold monsters. It maintains that skin-crawling horror without ever sacrificing camp, and it is this precise combination that makes Resident Evil so beloved.
Chris Redfield punching a boulder, despite being completely whack when presented out of context, is par for the course when its heroes are used to roundhouse kicking giant bugs or using three individual ancient stones to unlock a normal wooden door. Nothing about Resi feels or looks normal, and that’s precisely what makes it so brilliant. I respect this profound middle ground of possessing lore and characters worthy of investment while still having the freedom to throw them into larger-than-life situations that, despite everything, still manage to have real stakes. Few modern properties are capable of that balance, and I’ll never take it for granted.
Resident Evil 5
- Released
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March 5, 2009
- ESRB
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m
- Engine
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havok, mt framework
- Multiplayer
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Local Multiplayer, Online Multiplayer
