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Zach Cregger has a brilliant track record of directing horror films that are both horrifying and hilarious (at times). Weapons and Barbarian had moments of levity which made each respective film so much more bearable to sit through. Cregger is trying to do the same with his upcoming survival horror film, Resident Evil, the only problem was he did too good of a job at first.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter Cregger revealed that one change he made after Resident Evil was shown at test screens was to dial down the jokes. “I learned that people really liked the movie, but they thought it was too funny,” Cregger explains. “So over the course of my testing, I stripped out as much of the jokes as possible.”
Resident Evil isn’t adverse to a good quip or wise-crack—that’s like 40% of Leon Kennedy’s personality—but its humour only works so well because it happens infrequently. Leon’s almost constant stream of action film-style one liners is one of the many reasons as to why I wouldn’t class Resident Evil 4 as a horror game at all. And while there are certainly protagonists in other Resident Evil games who know how to joke around, like Ethan Winters, they are more serious than not.
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Too many jokes in a horror film wouldn’t work for the same reason they don’t when packed into games. The point of a light-hearted moment amidst the horror is to provide some respite for viewers who have had their nervous system stretched and strained almost beyond tolerance—there’s a reason it’s called comic relief. You want to settle their hearts and blood pressure just enough to ensure they don’t break and clock out of the movie entirely, so you can carry on scaring them. “A little bit of humour goes a long way in a horror movie,” Cregger adds.
But too many jokes can turn it into a gimmick. A horror film with rabid zombies doing weird stuff is already a bit fantastical—add loads of jokes and then it’d just lose all of its atmosphere. So it comes as no surprise that after some of the jokes were removed Cregger “found that not only did the audience enjoy the movie more, but I also liked the movie a lot more.” I’m sure the Resident Evil film will be better off for it.
