Our contemporary idea of Zombies is born out of cinematic imagination. The slow-moving swarms of undead in George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1978), and Day of the Dead (1985) have dramatically shaped the way we perceive of Zombies cinematically. While the origins of the creatures can be drawn from folklore and mythologies, our modern perspective comes from the movies, and George A. Romero is the grandfather of the genre.
If George A. Romero finished his Resident Evil movie it would’ve been like coming full circle. His spec script more closely evoked the games than the eventual action-fest Paul W.S. Anderson movies that were actually released, but in turn, the videogame franchise later turned more toward what those movies were like, and away from their Survival Horror routes. Two different modes of cinematic expression, with different goals and perspectives. But the way it all began, was much more in the model of a George A. Romero creature feature.
Resident Evil famously was adapted from Capcom’s Famicom (NES in Japan) horror game Sweet Home (1989), itself adapted from the Japanese horror film of the same name directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Resident Evil (1996) was originally intended as a 3D remake of Sweet Home but through the iteration of its development, became a puzzle-focused cinematic horror game that helped shape an entire genre of videogame.
Capcom hiring George A. Romero to write and direct the initial movie would have made a lot of sense. The slow-moving zombies of the games remind us of his movies, the bioethical concerns of its plots remind us of his social commentary, and the situation of a small team holed up in one setting swarmed by Zombies, is exactly like one of his movies.
George A. Romero’s Resident Evil, then, traces the possibilities of what would’ve been. The short answer is we don’t really know. The long answer is a more grim and serious Zombie horror movie emphasizing gore and leaning into the social commentary machinations behind the storytelling.
The documentary about the speculative movie, then, doesn’t have too much to work from. It offers, for the most part, a series of talking heads who tell us about the possibilities, but also trace the credit for projects like this one back to the origins of George A. Romero’s filmmaking.
George A. Romero’s Resident Evil will likely not offer very much for diehard fans who may already know or can at least imagine the possibilities of what could have been. But, it does offer the preservation of an idea, and a glimpse of an alternative future wherein more serious Resident Evil movies could have been made, and interlocked the videogame franchise with the cinematic legacy which it follows in the undead footsteps of. For the curious, this alternative plan may be just enough to chew on, though it’s not detailed enough to really make the prospect seem like a huge missed opportunity. Nothing in the documentary makes us believe the end result would’ve pushed beyond what Romero’s trifecta of Zombie movies have already done. For now, we’re left with a sweet dream of a cancelled project.