The (Garbage) History Of 'Resident Evil' Adaptations In Prep For The Netflix Show

Dear Resident Evil fans, we regret to interrupt everyone's attempted recovery from the damages sustained from the previous attempt at bringing Resident Evil to the big screen with the information that there's yet another Resident Evil adaptation coming out. Netflix has just announced a new Resident Evil tv series starring Lance Reddick as Albert Wesker, a decision that would've been bizarre in itself because Wesker is like the main bad guy, but is even crazier because it'll focus on Wesker's daughters, people who are never even mentioned in the games. Reddick rocks and he's already big among gamers because of his role as Zavala in Destiny 2, so we're not scared for his performance, but Netflix must bring their A-game if their aim is to either avoid creating the most bizarre adaptation of the IP ever made or if it is to finally come up with a bizarre take on the series that's actually good.

The good part is that we have many examples of what not to do, and we're not even talking about the awful Paul Anderson movie adaptations. Yeah, you might have seen the films that they somehow had the courage to release in theaters (and that we had the lack of self-love to turn into a worldwide hit), but there's something even worse – The Resident Evil CGI animated movies, a collection of works of art so daunting that they make the films look tame.

'08 saw the release of Resident Evil: Degeneration, the first and the tamest of a slew of ever-weirder adaptations. Unlike the games which started off with a focus on horror then moved on to being more action-focused, and the live-action films that have never been focused at all, Degeneration is seemingly focused on getting people to sleep because it is a total slog.

Resident Evil Degeneration Poster — Capcom

But then things start to get good.

In 2012 we got Resident Evil Damnation, a movie that despite being directly connected to Resident Evil 6, the worst game in the series, still manages to understand that the previous film was a bore-fest. It solved the problem by creating some of the most bizarre action scenes ever put to a CGI screen, like one where the president of a conveniently fake country where everyone knows Kung Fu engages in an unnecessary one-on-one fight with a spy.

As well as one where the main character is saved from the main monster by a guy who somehow gets to control the zombies with his mind. And you thought Alice's powers from the films were dumb.

It probably shouldn't surprise you that it sits at a rotten tomatoes score of.. uh.. 100%.

No, really.

Resident Evil Damnation's actual score — Rotten Tomatoes

The producers were very happy that the hard work they'd put into making the dumbest possible Resident Evil adaptation worked, so they set out to make something even worse. The holy grail of bad Resident Evil adaptations is Resident Evil Vendetta from 2017, a movie that feels less like an adaptation of Resident Evil, more like a sillyfication of the gunfights from John Wick.

Every action scene is pure gold,

but nothing we could say can prepare you for any of the 50 different things taking place in the 50-second clip shown below.

The big shootout between the hero and the big villain makes the dumb gun-katas from Equilibrium look good.

Then in 2021, we got Resident Evil Infinite Darkness, an adaptation that went full-on Star Wars delivers a political war thriller spanning over the course of 4 episodes.