Resident Evil: Retribution 3D comes out in theaters this week and is quite possibly one of the most overlooked successful film franchises. While hard core gamers are familiar with the series, what the average person may not realize is that original story line for Resident Evil focuses on one of the most famous homes ever featured in a video game: Resident Evil Mansion.
Let’s not take away from the majesty of Bowser’s Castle from Super Marios, but is that really a home? There’s no furniture or real decor. Just a lot of lava pits you have to jump over. Resident Evil Mansion on the other hand is a place, that at one point in time, you could have actually lived in.
Resident Evil Mansion is actually known as Spencer Mansion since it was owned by Sir Oswell E. Spencer who used his residence as a place for his secret laboratory in the sub-basement levels for creating illegal biological weapons and experiments that resulted in the creation of some seriously angry zombies and the t-Virus outbreak.
But if we look past the egregious experiments and the monster ridden hallways that are prevalent in both the Resident Evil games and movies, it’s actually a really nice place. Located in Raccoon City, which is assumed to be a town of about 100,000 people somewhere in the Midwest, the Spencer Mansion has a sprawling layout and seems to be influenced by classic Victorian decor.
You can see in the slideshow photos above the behind the grim and grit of an abandoned home with a touch of paint, a week’s worth of cleaning and a few gallons of Clorox, the mansion would be quite a nice place.
You could even argue that the place is more livable than Downton Abbey. Of course the mansion is currently destroyed thanks to the Special Tactics and Rescue Services (S.T.A.R.S.) initiating a self-destruct sequence in the home to destroy the mansion and keeping anyone from finding the laboratory inside.
The film version of the mansion is called Arklay Mansion and was actually filmed on location in Potsdam, Germany at an estate called Schloss Lindstedt. Rumor has it the entire cast and crew was creeped out by the place during the entire film.
Some have even used floorplans of the mansion that are available online to recreate the place in real life and in online virtual worlds. To learn more about the Resident Evil/Spencer mansion, check out Resident Evil Wikia.
Images courtesy of Resident Evil Wikia
Actually Believe it or not, The Mansion was never actually intended to be lived in by Spencer. It was built as a “Guest House for High up Umbrella Executives”. But after it was finished Spencer said He was moving his Headquarters to Europe and wouldn’t need the mansion and then boarded it up to appear “Abandoned”. Had even paid Chief Irons off to turn away from the fact it wasn’t really abandoned. Due to the fact of the Facility having its own secret power plant and everything underground it would appear on the outside to look abandoned, meanwhile the inside was maintained and very much used. Which is why the gardens and everything are overgrown. I found all this out by reading the Novels.
Very cool Kyle. Thanks for the details!
The novels are wrong as far as the game canon is concerned. The mansion was just utilized as a front for the Arklay Research facility, nothing more and nothing less.
Yeah, I never knew alot of Details until I read the Novels. Of course they still neglect to mention how they were able to build a 4 level sub basement Laboratory without anyone noticing.