On a snowy Christmas Eve, rookie cop Aya Brea attends the opera at Carnegie Hall. In the middle of the performance, while the star performs a haunting aria, the theater and people within it burst into flames. Screams and crackling wood form a symphony with the still-singing star. This is how Parasite Eve opens. It’s stunning, it’s gripping, it’s cinematic. So when Square Enix took to social media on March 5 to ask fans which one of its games should get the movie adaptation treatment I immediately jumped to the company’s 1998 horror masterpiece. It’s a perfect fit.
If you scroll through the responses to Square Enix’s question you will see a lot of the expected answer: Final Fantasy. People want adaptations of various entries in the series, but it’s definitely the most common answer. But Final Fantasy, every entry, doesn’t work as a movie. They are too sprawling and epic, and we’ve already learned from Spirits Within, Advent Children, and Kingsglaive Final Fantasy movie will probably not be well received. Parasite Eve, on the other hand, already feels like a movie. Following Aya Brea over the course of a handful of days, this thrilling detective story centers on unraveling the case of the villainous Eve and her ability to weaponize mitochondria. Unlike the lengthy catalog of critically-acclaimed fantasy RPGs from Square Enix, Parasite Eve’s story is relatively concise and has a small cast of key characters. Take out the interactive combat sequences and what is left is a lean thriller with potential for cinematic flourishes fit to scare audiences.
As the opening scene demonstrates, the game itself already feels like it was conceived cinematically from the start and would transfer wonderfully to the screen. HBO’s successful adaptation of The Last of Us shows that the games that work on screen typically already have some cinematic influences in their style and storytelling, and Parasite Eve fits the same criteria. And there is so much potential for grand setpieces, as Parasite Eve’s story takes players and Aya on a tour of some of New York’s most iconic landmarks. I can already imagine moodily lit scenes in the Central Park Zoo or the Chrysler Building that would keep audiences on the edge of their seats.
That doesn’t even mention that Parasite Eve is already proven to work in other mediums outside of games. The original game serves as a sequel to the 1995 novel of the same name by author Hideaki Sena. The novel itself was adapted into a film in 1997. And while Parasite Eve is so often reduced to being Square Enix’s attempt to produce a challenger to Resident Evil, the game could actually succeed where Capcom’s series failed by having a good film adaptation (as much as I love certain entries in Paul W.S. Anderson’s Resident Evil film series). So, Square Enix, do the right thing. Give the people a Parasite Eve movie adaptation!
