Few games have single-handedly changed the landscape of an entire genre like Capcom’s massively successful Resident Evil 4. Since the game’s initial launch on the Nintendo GameCube back in 2005, I can’t think of another singular title that (much like the franchise’s iconic undead enemies) simply refuses to die. While I’m partial to the underrated Wii version, the sheer amount of remasters and re-releases here serve as a testament to just how big of an impact this game had on the industry.
At this point, much has been said about how the title was such a big hit that action-oriented copycats nearly destroyed AAA Survival-Horror as a whole (until indie developers redefined interactive scares years later), but today I’d like to talk about something other than the polished third-person shooting and clever level design. While these things are certainly major factors in the game’s massive popularity, what makes this sequel stand out from the rest of the franchise is how it takes a sharp turn away from the established (and honestly, convoluted) Resident Evil continuity, preferring to dive into the bizarre world of Spanish horror while sharing some very specific ideas with the works of Stuart Gordon and H.P. Lovecraft.
So today, I’d like to discuss whether or not these similarities are intentional.
For those who haven’t played this certified classic, here’s a brief rundown of the plot: Since his escape from a zombie-infested Raccoon City six years prior, Leon S. Kennedy has become a special operative for the United States Government. When the President’s teenage daughter is kidnapped by a mysterious cult known only as Los Iluminados, Leon tracks the felons to an isolated Spanish village where nothing is as it seems. It doesn’t take long for the agent to realize that there’s something wrong with the townsfolk, and so begins a perilous journey into terrifying, uncharted territory (for both the player and the RE series as a whole).
Of course, most of the story here is just set dressing, functioning as an excuse to take players from one horrific location to the next while having a clear goal in mind. However, despite some remarkably cheesy B-movie moments, there’s actually quite a bit to unpack especially where the setting and backstory are concerned.
Looks familiar?
In fact, the opening levels of the game bear an uncanny resemblance to Stuart Gordon’s Dagon, a 2001 adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s A Shadow Over Innsmouth. From the protagonist being a foreigner stranded in a remote Spanish settlement to being pitted against bizarre villagers manipulated by an ancient cult, these stories have much in common. It’s not just the setup that’s familiar, as both the look and feel of the game hearken back to Gordon and Lovecraft. Not only that, but Dagon was a Spanish production, with the setting of the original story being changed from New England to a village on the Spanish coast for both production and marketability reasons. At that point, the country had also produced another Lovecraft adaptation, Beyond Re-Animator, and would eventually develop a passionate homage to the writer in the form of the Valdemar Legacy duology. Because of this, I have a strong suspicion that the setting of Resident Evil 4 might have been chosen specifically because of Spain’s interest in this type of macabre story
With that in mind, it would also make sense for the game to abandon the corporate espionage elements from previous entries and focus instead on classic eldritch horror. Hell, even the lore behind the Ganados (the main enemies within the game, infected by a prehistoric parasite around which the cult was founded) has more roots in cosmic horror than the traditional sci-fi zombies of previous games.
And speaking of zombies, both Lovecraft and Gordon are well-acquainted with the undead menace that started this whole franchise, with the former having written the Frankenstein satire Herbert West: Re-Animator (which some claim to be the first appearance of what are now popularly known as zombies) and the latter having directed the cult-classic adaptation of the story starring Jeffrey Combs as the titular mad scientist. In fact, Gordon seems to have made a career out of adapting Lovecraft’s tales, having directed five incredibly entertaining takes on the writer’s stories.
It might seem like a bit of a stretch to associate these specific creators with the third sequel in an insanely popular videogame franchise over just a few passing similarities, but the game actually goes a bit further with these parallels. While one might argue that the sections of the game where you’re trapped in a laboratory with inhuman horrors, such as the nigh-invincible Regenerators, are actually hearkening back to the Herbert West stories, I think the greatest evidence of these influences are present in the stages where players infiltrate a medieval castle.
Encountering odd characters, chained up freaks and ancient European lineages, it’s impossible not to be reminded of another (extremely loose) Lovecraft adaptation by Gordon, namely Castle Freak. Though this film takes place in Italy instead of Spain, certain levels within the castle portion of the game look like they were ripped straight out of this underrated classic, with enemies like the tortured Garradors acting as analogs for the titular antagonist, and the Salazar family replacing the Italian Duchess. The original version of the game was actually set almost entirely within the castle itself, so this may have been the jumping-off point for the rest of the title’s ideas.
This could easily have been a boss battle.
So, was Resident Evil 4 definitely influenced by any of these films or stories? While I’m almost certain that the creative team was at least subconsciously channeling elements from Dagon, there’s no hard evidence to support this. However, I find it highly unlikely that all of these similarities are just a coincidence. The developers over at Capcom (Shinji Mikami especially) have always been proud of their love of horror movies, so it stands to reason that the aesthetics here could be more than what they seem.
We may never truly know if these were intentional references or just a case of creators coincidentally drawing from the same source of inspiration, but I can’t help but imagine what a true videogame adaptation of any entry in Stuart Gordon’s filmography might look (and play) like. Now that Lovecraftian stories are popular again, both in gaming and in film, and with filmmaker/game-developer partnerships becoming more common, it would be interesting to see what insane shenanigans developers could come up with when given access to this kind of source material.
Even if we never get more games like this, at the end of the day, it’s likely that Resident Evil 4 will always be playing on a console near you. And I think that’s a good thing.
