ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - March 15th
"RESIDENT EVIL" released in 2002
A special military unit fights a powerful, out-of-control supercomputer and hundreds of scientists who have mutated into flesh-eating creatures after a laboratory accident, in Paul W.S. Anderson's Resident Evil!
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In the near future, the powerful Umbrella Corporation has a hidden research facility called The Hive underneath Raccoon City, where the scientists develop genetically engineered drugs for medical purpose and biological weapons. After stealing the lethal T-virus, a thief contaminates The Hive and the artificial intelligence Red Queen seals the Hive and kills all the staff and guinea pigs. A woman called Alice (Milla Jovovich) awakes naked in a bathroom of a mansion without memory and soon a commando squad, including Rain Ocampo (Michelle Rodriguez) and led by James "One" Shade (Colin Salmon), subdues her and another man called Matt (Eric Mabius), who claims to be a cop. Alice learns that she is a security guard with her partner Spence (James Purefoy) assigned to protect the entrance to The Hive and her memory will return in an undefined period since she was affected by a gas, explaining The Red Queen had a malfunctioning five hours ago and had shut down the facility and killed everybody releasing a lethal gas. Planning to shut down the Red Queen and restart her systems, the team use an underground train to reach The Hive - where the Red Queen warns them to leave. However Kaplan (Martin Crewes) disables the Red Queen opening the doors in The Hive. Soon the group learns that the staff has turned into zombies and now they are under siege! Most of the commando dies, leaving only Alice, Spence, Matt, Rain and Kaplan alive. Realizing the Red Queen will soon seal all the remaining entrances to the Hive, the group must battle the ravaging horde of zombies - as well as the treacherous elements amongst themselves - to reach the surface, and stop the deadly T-virus from being unleashed on the entire world!
[The survivors confront the Red Queen]
Red Queen: Even in death the human body still is active. Hair and finger nails continue to grow, new cells are produced, and the brain itself holds a small electrical charge that takes months to dissipate. The T-virus provides a massive jolt, both to cellular growth, and to those trace electrical impulses. Put quite simply, it reanimates the body.
Rain: It brings the dead back to life?
Red Queen: Not fully. The subjects have the simplest of motor functions. Perhaps a little memory, but virtually no intelligence. They're driven by the basest of impulses, the most basic needs.
Mr. White: Which is?
Red Queen: The need to feed.
Top and Above: The survivors, led by Alice (Milla Jovovich) with cop Matt Addisson (Eric Mabius), Rain Ocampo (Michelle Rodriguez), and Kaplan (Martin Crewes), must battle the evil AI the Red Queen (Michaela Dicker) to escape the Hive.
In 1999, Sony and Capcom greenlit a Resident Evil film with George A. Romero signed on as the film's director and screenplay writer, Capcom having worked with Romero previously when the latter directed an ad campaign for Biohazard 2 (Resident Evil 2) in Japan. Basing his screenplay of the first Resident Evil game (which apparently Romero had made his secretary play and record the game in its entirity so he could study it), Romero had included characters Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine as the leads, and included Barry Burton, Rebecca Chambers, Ada Wong, and Albert Wesker. However, Romero's script was disapproved of by Capcom, who believed fans would feel that the film had been altered too much from the game and that newcomers would dislike the premise. Production was placed into development hell, until late 2000 when Mortal Kombat director Paul W.S. Anderson was announced as the new writer and director of Resident Evil, putting on hold his plans to remake the cult film Death Race 2000.
Because Constantin Film, who had acquired the rights to the series, weren't willing to spend more money than they already had on failed attempts (including a script by Romero), Anderson convinced them to write the script, titled The Undead, on spec. Anderson theorized that if the new producers liked it, he would sell it to them as a Resident Evil film; and if not, he would take it elsewhere and try to make it unrelated to the games. Anderson saw the film as a prequel of sorts to the first game in the series, and as such didn't put any characters from the games in it, a fact which was criticized by fans, and instead introduced an original character named Alice. Alice would eventually be played by Milla Jovovich, who, along with Michelle Rodriguez and James Purefoy, were the first to be cast in the film in early 2001. David Boreanaz was originally intended to portray the male cop lead of Matt Addison, but turned down the role to continue work on the WB series Angel. The role of Matt Addison then went to Eric Mabius who was cast in March 2001, along with Heike Makatsch, who was cast as Matt Addison's sister Lisa Addison, an employee working for Umbrella's Hive facility.
Because Constantin Film, who had acquired the rights to the series, weren't willing to spend more money than they already had on failed attempts (including a script by Romero), Anderson convinced them to write the script, titled The Undead, on spec. Anderson theorized that if the new producers liked it, he would sell it to them as a Resident Evil film; and if not, he would take it elsewhere and try to make it unrelated to the games. Anderson saw the film as a prequel of sorts to the first game in the series, and as such didn't put any characters from the games in it, a fact which was criticized by fans, and instead introduced an original character named Alice. Alice would eventually be played by Milla Jovovich, who, along with Michelle Rodriguez and James Purefoy, were the first to be cast in the film in early 2001. David Boreanaz was originally intended to portray the male cop lead of Matt Addison, but turned down the role to continue work on the WB series Angel. The role of Matt Addison then went to Eric Mabius who was cast in March 2001, along with Heike Makatsch, who was cast as Matt Addison's sister Lisa Addison, an employee working for Umbrella's Hive facility.
TRIVIA: The film was originally subtitled as Resident Evil: Ground Zero when the movie was considered a prequel to the games, however the subtitle was removed due to the 9/11 attacks.
Top: Humans aren't the only beings altered by the virus;
Above: Rain succumbs to the T-virus!
Principal photography began on March 5, 2001 at numerous locations including the then unfinished station U-Bahnhof Bundestag of the Berlin U-Bahn, Landsberger Allee, Kaserne Krampnitz and the Schloss Linstedt, and on sound stages at Berlin's Adlershof Studios. During production, professional dancers were hired to star as zombies as they had better control of their body movements. While computer effects were used on some zombies, much of the undead appearances were accomplished through make-up while their movements were a more laissez-faire approach, as Anderson told the actors to move however they thought a zombie would, given their conditions. Whilst filming, there was a shortage of manpower where the available dancers were not enough to represent the required numbers of undead, however some of Capcom's executives and several of the film producers including Jeremy Bolt agreed to make appearances. Even the film's stunt coordinator also made an appearance as the dog trainer while Bolt's girlfriend and sister both appeared as zombies.
Halfway through production, Sony Pictures Entertainment subsidiary Screen Gems acquired the US distribution rights to the movie, who officially released Resident Evil on March 15th, 2002, in 2,528 theaters and grossing nearly $18 million in it's opening weekend. Eventually grossing over $40 million at the North American box office (and another $60 million worldwide), Resident Evil was a huge commercial success, that would spawn the remaining films in the series (in fact, Resident Evil: Apocalypse was greenlit not long after Resident Evil's theatrical release). Despite the box office, reviews for Resident Evil were mostly negative, with Roger Ebert describing the movie as a zombie film set in the 21st century, where "large metallic objects make crashing noises just by being looked at", and he criticizes the dialogue for being a series of commands and explanations with no "small talk". The New York Times' Stephen Holden awarded Resident Evil 1.5 stars out of 5 saying that "it has a frantic staccato that is more game-oriented than cinematic". Most interestingly however, in a 2014 interview, legendary filmmaker James Cameron named Resident Evil as his biggest "guilty pleasure"!
Halfway through production, Sony Pictures Entertainment subsidiary Screen Gems acquired the US distribution rights to the movie, who officially released Resident Evil on March 15th, 2002, in 2,528 theaters and grossing nearly $18 million in it's opening weekend. Eventually grossing over $40 million at the North American box office (and another $60 million worldwide), Resident Evil was a huge commercial success, that would spawn the remaining films in the series (in fact, Resident Evil: Apocalypse was greenlit not long after Resident Evil's theatrical release). Despite the box office, reviews for Resident Evil were mostly negative, with Roger Ebert describing the movie as a zombie film set in the 21st century, where "large metallic objects make crashing noises just by being looked at", and he criticizes the dialogue for being a series of commands and explanations with no "small talk". The New York Times' Stephen Holden awarded Resident Evil 1.5 stars out of 5 saying that "it has a frantic staccato that is more game-oriented than cinematic". Most interestingly however, in a 2014 interview, legendary filmmaker James Cameron named Resident Evil as his biggest "guilty pleasure"!
ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 34%
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