The Resident Evil series serves no master other than itself. Resident Evil is what it wants to be, when it wants to be, and Village is a testament to that. If Resident Evil 7, imo possibly the best and easily the scariest the series has ever been, was a testament to its origins, Resident Evil Village prays at the altar of its endgame. Horror sequels are universally hard, and it has nothing to do with video games. All horror sequels trend in the direction of action, because suspense is hard to maintain once the illusion is broken. A single xenomorph can only be spooky so many times, so how to up the ante? Maybe…hundreds of xenomorphs? What’s brilliant about Village is, unlike Resident Evil 7, it doesn’t pretend to be interested in tonal consistency, as it dances between terror (that fetus) and (the b-movie water creature) and, at times, horny (Dimitrescu). Taken individually, I’m not sure Village works all that well, but as part of a weird stew, it’s greater than the sum of its parts. That’s Resident Evil, baby.
