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Resident Evil Village

From AHVS311 Horror Video Game Wiki

An entry by Cameron Boyce

Cover Art for Resident Evil Village

Introduction

Resident Evil Village is a survival horror game released in 2021, developed and published by Capcom. The game is available to play on most platforms, including Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, Windows, MacOS, and more. It is a direct sequel to Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, and is one of very few direct sequels in the Resident Evil franchise. The game picks up three years after Resident Evil 7 ends, and follows protagonist Ethan Winter as he hunts for his kidnapped daughter Rose in a village seething with both terrifying creatures and terrifying secrets.  The game is set in a fictional region strongly hinted to be Romania. It takes place in a small unnamed village.

Throughout the game you face many monsters, primarily Lycans and Lycan-like creatures such as Varcolac’s and Urias’. The enemies come in a variety of shapes and sizes and hostility levels, and wield different weapons with various move sets.

Although you will face many difficult bosses throughout your expedition, the game pins four of the main mandatory ones you will inevitably face: Lady (Alcina) Dimitrescu, Donna Beneviento, Salvatore Moreau, and Karl Heisenberg. These four must be fought before you can fight the final boss: Mother Miranda, the keeper of many of Resident Evil Villages deepest and darkest secrets. Throughout the game you discover the hidden themes, as well as the underlying story.

Why this game matters (Autoethnographic component)

Ethan putting his hand back on

This game matters to me for various reasons. The Resident Evil series as a whole is a gift to the survival horror genre. It exceeds expectations in many categories. Moreover, Resident Evil Village is an interesting story wrapped in a haunting aesthetic. It doesn't take long for the game to show you there are many secrets hiding under the surface—it's not just mindless monsters. Due to the game's well-crafted atmosphere, no task ever feels too menial or repetitive. Different bits of action are integrated well, and since the tension rarely (if ever) abates, you’re locked in a constant state of paranoia, rightfully assuming that at any moment something could go horribly wrong. An example of this is when your (Ethan Winters) hand is unexpectedly sliced off by Lady Dimitrescu while you are in the dungeon underneath Castle Dimitrescu attempting to escape. You then essentially reattach the hand like its playdough with a vague twisting motion, leading you as the player to understand Ethan is not exactly what you think he is, because even in video games… that’s just not how hands work.

Themes and Connection to Scholarship

Resident Evil Village is a Survival Horror game. As a player you have limited resources in terms of weapons, ammo, and items, and must carefully manage those resources throughout your playthrough. The gameplay features reduced control, especially as the default mode for the game is in first person. The game achieves remarkable levels of tension through its use of music, lighting, and the general environments you encounter–something could jump out at you, fall on you, or at any moment you could be attacked or even kidnapped. Safety is a facade utilized often by the game to terrorize you when you least expect it.

While Resident Evil Villages primary genre is survival, it also has aspects of a few other genres. Body horror is evident within the game as there are many grotesque, mutated or transformed creatures; the mold and Cadou parasite are prevalent within the games main story and expansive lore. Folk horror aspects are also present: the game takes place in a rural, isolated eastern European village, assumed to be Romania, specifically Transylvania, and has relations to gothic horror novel Dracula; Marian-Andrei Vintila, and Florentina-Christina Mercui discuss this in their article, “Lady Dimitrescu is the most popular character in the game Resident Evil Village, a character that was created based on the legend “Dracula”. She is represented as an aristocratic vampire.” Furthermore, the villagers follow a cult led by Mother Miranda. Finally, Psychological horror elements also appear throughout the game. While there is a physical threat, it is ultimately undermined when you find out Ethan Winters died in the game prior and had been revived by the mold, thus he  is able to survive attacks and injuries that should have otherwise killed him. Moreover, Ethan is also plagued with guilt, grief, and anxiety.

Ethan Finding out the Truth about Himself

Resident Evil is a series that diverts from typical gender stereotypes within its games. In Andrei Nei’s book about survival horror video games they state, “Resident Evil’s gameplay systematically subverts the protagonists’ status of action heroes and, consequently, procedurally decon-structs the stereotypical representations of gender in the action genre.” Resident Evil Village is ultimately no different. Ethan Winters is not your average protagonist; he’s just a normal guy…except he isn’t. Instead of conforming to the often portrayed ultra-masculine male protagonist, Ethan Winters is a man whose mission is to rescue his daughter and reunite his family.

Lady Dimitrescu https://www.radiotimes.com/technology/gaming/resident-evil-village-lady-dimitrescu-height/

Resident Evil Village features multiple female antagonists who serve as powerful and compelling characters. The iconic, beloved Lady Dimitrescu:  a 9’6 vampire, as well as the daughters of Dimitrescu, Donna Beneviento, and finally, Mother Miranda, a character who is as brilliant as she is creepy and cunning. Each of these characters demonstrate one or multiple of the six major forms of the Monstrous Feminine theory. Lady Dimitrescu: could be considered as the Vampire, Archaic mother, or Witch; she’s a vampire, therefore undead, gothic, and timeless, and she has created her daughters through experiments rather than reproduction, and she exerts immense feminine power. Lady Dimistrescu’s creepy daughters, Bela, Cassandra, and Daniela, are not biological human daughters, rather they are monsters made from Cadou experiments. Their bodies are composed of swarming flies, though they take on the physical forms of beautiful, vampiric women as they lust to taste Ethan's blood.

Donna Beneviento (and ultimately Angie), represent both an archaic mother and monstrous womb forms. The dolls she creates are brought to life through the power of the Cadou parasite. Donna is unique in comparison to some of the other female antagonists as she depicts a darker, lonelier, more grief-stricken character. Mother Miranda takes on the archaic mother, monstrous womb, and witch forms of the Monstrous Feminine. Mother Miranda’s goal is ultimately to resurrect her own daughter Eva who died in 1919. She discovered the ‘Mold’ and began doing experiments. She infected people in the village and manipulated them into joining her cult. She created the Cadou parasite hoping to create a superhuman host to resurrect Eva. Most died or turned into the Lycans, but those who gained more desirable traits would become the lords of the four houses. She eventually sets in motion the kidnapping of Ethan Winter's daughter Rose, hoping to use her to finally resurrect Eva.

Resident Evil 8: village uses female agency, twisted, and peculiar women to evoke anxieties about motherhood and femininity.  In their article, Morgan Pinder states, “they represent the perceived degradation of the human form and delegitimisation of man's dominion over nature. These women—who have merged with the non-human ecosystem—have become creatures that challenge our conception of what it is to be human.” The female antagonists are far from being dominated by men, Mother Miranda is ultimately in control of everything in the village.

Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJ_-_T05SOE&t=29337s (Uploaded to You tube by the channel Shirrako on May 6 2021)

Citations

Scholarly Sources

  • Creed, Barbara. “The Monstrous-Feminine: film, feminism, psychoanalysis” (1993)

Non-Scholarly Sources

  • Byford, Sam. “Resident Evil Village has more guns but fewer scares” The Verge (2021)

https://www.theverge.com/22420738/resident-evil-village-review-playstation-xbox-pc

AI disclosure & appendix.

I did not use any AI to create, gain information for, or write this assignment.

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