For the most part, the horror genre is much better off if the creature designs boast at least a little bit of a practical element. Obviously that can be difficult to pull off if the ghouls and monsters are more fantastical in nature, but something tangible is always much scarier than anything that’s been created entirely inside a computer.
Think how much better the vampires from I Am Legend, the title character in Mama or the vast majority of The Thing remake would have been had they not succumbed to over-pixelation, something the team behind Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City will hopefully be taking on board.
After all, director Johannes Roberts has already said he’s looking to craft an atmospheric chiller in the vein of vintage John Carpenter, albeit with the terrifying monsters seen in the first two installments of the classic video game series. It’s a delicate balancing act to pull off, no doubt, and producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi has now confirmed that effects work is in full swing, which comes just a couple of weeks after it was revealed that Welcome to Raccoon City had entered post-production.
“I have one more announcement for you, related to the live-action reboot of Resident Evil. Filming in Toronto has wrapped up and we are in the middle of creating the creatures in CGI.”
The reboot was delayed not long ago to November 24th from September 3rd, so there’s plenty of time to make sure the CGI is up to scratch, which is hugely important to the movie as whole. After all, not many things can sink a film or ruin your immersion like bad visual effects work, and Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City is going to be hugely dependent on its monsters and zombies to both drive and inform the jump scares peppered throughout the running time.