A medical courier is tasked with delivering an important package to a hospital in Raccoon City. Unfortunately, Raccoon City has recently become ground zero for a zombie virus outbreak. Resident Evil is a survival horror flick full of suspense—but also a biohazard’s worth of grisly, blood-spattering gore and harsh language.
Bryan is just trying to make a delivery.
Now, granted, this delivery is a little more important than a DoorDash dropoff: Bryan is a medical courier, tasked with making sensitive, and potentially lifesaving, healthcare deliveries. Right now, he might be transporting an organ that could save an ailing patient.
But he also, maybe, might be, using this late-night delivery as a way to avoid talking to his girlfriend about their unexpected pregnancy. She didn’t really go for his earlier “your body, your choice” deflection.
No matter. He’ll make this urgent delivery—for double pay, no less—which will give him enough time to think of a way to smooth things over with his girlfriend. Now he just has to find his way through the wintery night to get to the hospital in Raccoon City.
Should be simple enough. It’s not as if he’ll have to contend with, say, the terrifying, murderous and mutagenic results of a viral outbreak triggered by a careless, multinational biotechnology company, right?
Bryan is undoubtedly dedicated to his job as a medical courier. Despite increasingly horrifying opposition, he remains committed to making his delivery, which has the potential to save countless lives. And while Bryan is initially shocked by his girlfriend’s pregnancy and fearful of the change it will bring, his harrowing experiences help him realize that he does want to have a baby and grow as a family.
A member of the Umbrella Corporation, the biotech firm that accidentally released the mutating pathogen, says the company had been developing a serum to create a “hyper-evolved organism.”
Someone describes the chaos that has consumed Raccoon City as “hell.” A man exclaims, “Thank God!” A character’s survival is described as a “miracle.”
Bryan and his girlfriend discuss their unplanned pregnancy over a few phone conversations, and it seems they have been living together. Bryan tells his girlfriend that he loves her.
We see Bryan shirtless in one scene, though it’s not meant to titillate, and Bryan quickly covers himself when he realizes he’s not alone. One infected individual is naked and grotesquely fat, which obscures any critical parts from view.
I normally avoid terms like “grotesquely fat”, but I think it’s probably appropriate here, given the context.
The violence in Resident Evil is extreme—and extremely gory. The virus that infects people and animals in the film resembles a zombie outbreak, though with some gruesome additions.
Pulpy, fleshy mutations result in some grotesque imagery, including the bodies of the dead conjoining into a reanimated tangle of limbs and faces. Zombified rats burst from a man’s bloated gut in a bloody mess. The virus transforms a man into a hulking beast with multiple eyes, tentacles and a toothy mouth emerging from his abdomen. Tentacles protrude from a dog’s face. A room is covered in bloody limbs and polyps. Even children are not exempt from the grotesquerie: A young girl’s foot has morphed into infected tendrils, and her face splits open to reveal the red muscle underneath; a newborn baby appears malformed and mutated.
As you might imagine, these monstrous masses are not there just for show. They cause a whole bunch of carnage. Heads rupture. Limbs are hacked. Entire bodies explode. A giant monster mouth consumes a few people. Infected zombies leap from tall buildings and burst upon hitting the ground. Each gory moment is accompanied by gallons of red goop.
One woman is torn in half; we don’t see the deed occur, but we do see what’s left of her, including loose entrails. We’re a given an extended look of a woman’s headless body as viral tendrils emerge from the bloody stump of her neck.
Bryan and others shoot a variety of guns at the infected with predictably grisly results—and several splattering headshots. We see the destroyed face of an infected animal. Someone gets bitten by an infected person and is slowly, and painfully, transformed by the virus.
A woman is struck by a car. Another car swerves and crashes, killing one of its occupants. Someone gets shot in the leg, and we see a bloody spray. A man bleeds from his face in a hospital waiting room. A nurse attends to a gnarly wound on a woman’s leg at that same hospital.
Harsh language is a near constant, thanks in part to Bryan’s motormouth commentary. He utters the vast majority of the film’s profanity, which includes more than 125 f-words (preceded a handful of times by “mother”), 30-plus s-words, multiple misuses of God’s name (often paired with “d–n”) and seven abuses of Jesus’ name.
Additional language includes uses of “d–n,” “h—,” “a–” and “a–hole,” “b–ch” and “d–k.”
Harsh language is a near constant, thanks in part to Bryan’s motormouth commentary. He utters the vast majority of the film’s profanity, which includes more than 125 f-words (preceded a handful of times by “mother”), 30-plus s-words, multiple misuses of God’s name (often paired with “d–n”) and seven abuses of Jesus’ name.
Additional language includes uses of “d–n,” “h—,” “a–” and “a–hole,” “b–ch” and “d–k.”
Two people decide to abandon a third person who ran off to help someone being pursued by the infected. Bryan considers forging someone’s signature.
Fresh off the acclaimed (and very problematic) horror film Weapons, director Zach Cregger delivers his take on video game company Capcom’s popular Resident Evil media franchise, which spans more than 30 video games and 12 feature films, not to mention tie-in novels, comics and TV series.
Resident Evil certainly leans into the grisly, bloody body horror of its source material. And much like Weapons, Cregger walks an effective line between white-knuckle tension, shocking horror and even comedic absurdity.
The best I’ll say for this flick is this: While it is a nonstop splatter-fest, it’s not a mindless one.
There’s an interesting throughline about accepting change and growing up. Through the insane circumstances caused by the Umbrella Corporation’s zombie virus, protagonist Bryan realizes what he really wants—a family with the woman he loves and the baby already growing inside her.
But all that is background to a relentless cavalcade of mutated flesh and exorbitant gore. Tack on an equally incessant string of harsh and vulgar language, and families might as well consider Resident Evil a biohazard.
Bret loves a good story—be it a movie, show, or video game—and enjoys geeking out about things like plot and story structure. He has a blast reading and writing fiction and has penned several short stories and screenplays. He and his wife love to kayak the many beautiful Colorado lakes with their dog.
