Sony’s Resident Evil reboot Welcome to Raccoon City has now officially received an R rating from the MPA. Thank goodness. Or Hell!

In a general relief for Resident Evil fans, Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City has now been officially given an R-rating by the Motion Picture Association (MPA). The film received this rating for “Strong violence and gory scenes and language“, which is exactly what you would expect from a movie full of zombies and other horror fares.

Viewers of Sony Pictures‘ brutal film will be plunged straight into the thick of the undead. Once the thriving home of pharmaceutical giant Umbrella Corporation, Raccoon City is now a dying Midwestern town. The company’s exit has left the city a wasteland… and beneath the surface, evil rages. When this evil is unleashed, the townspeople will be… changed forever… and a small group of survivors must band together to discover the truth behind the Umbrella and survive the night.

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, written and directed by Johannes Roberts, reportedly takes inspiration from Capcom‘s first and second games and serves as a reboot of the Resident Evil film series starring Milla Jovovich. The production features a cast of emerging talent, including Kaya Scodelario (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales), Robbie Amell (The Duff), Hannah John-Kamen (Ant-Man and the Wasp), Tom Hopper (The Umbrella Academy), Avan Jogia (Zombieland: Double Tap), and Neal McDonough (Sonic the Hedgehog), and several recognisable characters from the video game series, including Claire Redfield, Jill Valentine and Chris Redfield, also appear.

The synopsis will be familiar to fans of the popular Resident Evil video game series and clearly states that director Johannes Roberts is going back to the beginning for the reboot. “There is a Resident Evil [movie] franchise, but this movie has nothing to do with it,” Roberts said recently. “It’s a completely separate origin story based on the roots of the video games series and the world of horror… We’re not [doing a remake]. We’re going in a completely different [direction].” This current R rating certainly bodes well for Roberts’ plan to resurrect the more horror-based elements of the story and bring the franchise back into the genre it was intended for, as opposed to the action movies that the previous Resident Evil film series became.

Lead actor Tom Hopper has since assured fans of the video game that the crew will be working hard to please hardcore fans and revealed that the source material had a significant influence on every element of the adaptation in the making. “But I think from an aesthetic point of view, the games are really influencing this in the right direction,” Hopper said. “It’s an aesthetic that – when we were shooting it – I was like, ‘Man, it’s like a game. I really hope that the game fans take something beautiful out of it, that it’s the game plus more. Plus more depth to these characters.”

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City is released in the US on November 24, 2021, under Sony Pictures Releasing.

Source: Bloody Disgusting