Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City Featurette: Bringing The Creepy Creatures Of The Game To Life

With less than a week to go before the premiere of "Resident Evil: Raccoon City," the special featurettes from Sony are still coming at us fast. We've already met characters like Claire Redfield, Chris Redfield, and heard about how director Johannes Roberts would love to adapt "Resident Evil 4," but yesterday's featurette release is centered on the groundbreaking monsters that made "Resident Evil" famous. Zombies, Lickers, and the tragically grotesque Lisa Trevor are all vibrantly on display and given the movie vs. video game side-by-side treatment.

"Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City" is a reboot of the Paul W. S. Anderson penned cinematic series based on the popular Capcom game franchise of the same name. The film aims to be a more faithful adaptation of the first two "Resident Evil" games, including game set recreation and shot-by-shot reenactments of some of its most iconic moments. The story centers on a group of survivors looking to investigate the now-ravaged Midwestern town of Raccoon City in an attempt to figure out what caused the deadly, mutated outbreak, and how it relates to the pharmaceutical conglomerate, the Umbrella Corporation. 

Check out the featurette below for some bloody, gory, video game goodness.

"We see a lot of the fan-favorite creatures in this movie," says writer/director Johannes Roberts. "It was very important to me to bring something new with the zombies whilst also making sure we were faithful to the game." Roberts talks as we see the team investigating the Spencer Mansion, including a cinematic adaptation of the "Turning Around Zombie" scene from the first "Resident Evil" game, the very first time the player interacts with a zombie in the history of the franchise.

"We didn't cast extras," Johannes says in the featurette. "We cast actors." All too often, character work for hordes of creatures are frequently not given the same attention as main speaking leads, but it looks like Roberts took the time to ensure that the mutated baddies were just as compelling and memorable as the heroes.

"Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City" features a cast of genre favorites including Kaya Scodelario as Claire Redfield, Robbie Amell as Chris Redfield, Hannah John-Kamen as Jill Valentine, Tom Hopper as Albert Wesker, and Avan Jogia as Leon S. Kennedy. The film will also include supporting players from the game franchise like Lily Gao as Ada Wong, Donal Logue as Raccoon City Police Chief Brian Irons, Neal McDonough as William Birkin, and Marina Mazepa as the monstrous Lisa Trevor.

"Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City" releases in theaters on November 24, 2021.