Resident Evil: How Sweet Home Inspired the Series

Before Resident Evil, there was Sweet Home.

This is how a half-forgotten film and game spawned a video game genre…

This article originally appeared atDen of Geek UK.

Ring,Audition,Dark Water,Onibaba,House,Kuroneko… TheSweet Homemovie is a curious genre mishmash with an impressive pedigree.

In one scene, a cameramans lower body is reduced to a streak of crimson goo.

In another, an old man (played by producer Juzo Itami) is stripped to his bare bones.

Kurosawas fingerprints can still be found inSweet Homes more vivid moments, however.

I carefully considered how to go about bringing elements from the movie to the game screen.

The films deadly shadows are replaced by randomly-spawning monsters, but an air of horror tension still remains.

Once the PlayStation was released, Fujiwara recalls, conversation turned towards the idea of launching an original franchise.

It was mainly on the graphics front that my frustration had been building up.

I was also confident that horror games could become a genre in themselves.

But I was a little worried about how well a horror game would really sell.