Capcom's perennially popular survival-horror video game franchise Resident Evil has been allowing players to take on hordes of undead and other things that go bump in the night across a line of titles for over two decades. While the franchise has veered from globe-spanning action-horror to a recent shift back to its more terrifying roots, the original game, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, remains a highly influential title in video game history.

Resident Evil is credited with popularizing the survival horror genre. Though the inaugural installment received an enhanced remake on the Nintendo GameCube in 2002 that heightened its cinematic and horror elements, much of the charm from its initial iterations stem from its B-movie sensibilities.

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The original Resident Evil follows a squad of elite police officers known as S.T.A.R.S. that investigate a series of grisly murders on the outskirts of Raccoon City that already claimed another unit. Ambushed by a pack of zombie dogs, the officers scatter and take refuge in a nearby mansion only to discover it teeming with the ravenous undead and even more monstrous horrors awaiting them throughout the ominous domicile.

As players control Jill Valentine and Chris Redfield and continue the investigation, the officers find an entire subbasement laboratory as the police realize that the threat has grown far more deadly and sweeping than they originally believed. However, the game's B-movie quality is apparent right from jump with a live-action opening cutscene revealing the S.T.A.R.S. squad being beset by bloodthirsty zombie dogs. The overacting -- complete with ham-fisted line delivery -- cheap costumes, camera zooms straight out of Evil Dead, and black and white presentation immediately sets the mood.

Resident Evil originally stemmed from Capcom's plans to update its 1989 video game adaptation of the Japanese horror movie Sweet Home before director Shinji Mikami decided instead to make the project its own original title. In addition to the popular haunted house movie, Mikami was inspired by 1978's Dawn of the Dead, leading to the development team to decide to have the game's primary enemies be zombies instead of ghosts.

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Even beyond the opening cutscene and cinematic inspirations, Resident Evil included plenty of content worthy of low-budget, direct-to-video cinema. In addition to zombies and other undead animals, players battled giant spiders ready to pounce on unsuspecting prey as they entered darkened room and a giant snake worthy of a late-night cable movie that would swallow S.T.A.R.S. teammate Richard Aiken whole if given the opportunity -- and did so with some truly flat-line delivery.

The underground labs similarly contain a genetically engineered, voracious shark that provides some Deep Blue Sea-level thrills as it attempts to make Jill or Chris its next meal, as the game's story veers from straightforward zombie horror to something a bit more sci-fi oriented as the story nears its conclusion.

With all this in mind, it's no wonder the Resident Evil film series was able to find so much success as it leaned hard into the B-movie thrills that are prominent in the initial games. Resident Evil 2 lets players control a giant, walking piece of tofu if the tongue-in-cheek elements weren't readily apparent at first glance. While later Resident Evil games have grown progressively more serious, it's good to remember that the franchise embraced the outlandish and gleefully low-budget potential that defined the horror genre for years while revolutionizing how players could immerse themselves in such a title starting with the 1996 original game.

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