The story of Resident Evil wasn't laughable. The premise of scientists making zombies and other monsters for use of bio-weapons through science was a good one. Just for one reason or another they decided to play tribute to B movies and told the story in a laughable way until they finally started to play it straight when the remake came out for the GameCube. Despite all that the old games still have plenty of atmosphere and it defined the survivor horror genre.

Resident Evil 4 was the day they decided to appeal to a more mainstream audience and removed everything that made Resident Evil, Resident Evil. As well as time skipping over important plot points that could have filled in a game between CV and RE4 just to keep it up to date. The closest this game comes to horror is The Merchant.