Total Film, August 2001
Rough Cut: Resident Evil
ON THE SET OF RESIDENT EVIL
Dead Residents
MILLA JOVOVICH DOES THE MONSTER-BRAIN MASH . . .
A secret underground laboratory. Crack military goons. Flesh- gobbling zombies. And Milla Jovovich shrink-wrapped in a skimpy, wet dress clasping a juddering gun. After years in development, the movie take on this grisly shoot-'em-up Resident Evil is rolling on a Berlin soundstage, under the helm of Paul Event Horizon Anderson . Zombie tsar George A Romero was down to direct, but he was ditched in favour of Anderson whose script reads like an action-packed mix of the Alien movies with a jolt of Alice in Zombieland jammed in for good measure.
Rather than playing it straight and slotting the game's dynamics
into the movie (as he did with Mortal Kombat), Anderson rustled
up a prequel which sets up the game world of Resident Evil.
"It's what could have happened before the first game," explains
producer Jeremy Bolt.
Today, the ever-enthusiastic Anderson is fizzing round the set like a kid on Hooch, fine-tuning one of the movie's climatic scenes. There're fire effects, splats of gore and, since you know not everyone is gonna make it out alive, at least one major cast member shuddering about in zombie make-up. "We've got really infantile mentalities on this movie," grins Jovovich, stating the obvious. "We're like: 'It's gross - cool! It's disgusting - print it!' You have to think like a 15-year-old. Wet dress. Zombies. Guns. Cool!"
FACTGASM
Braindead, bloody trivia, anyone?
1. Haitians think people become zombies by flouting social rules.
2. South Park thinks dunking corpses in Worcester Sauce does
the trick.
3. Rum, pineapple, orange and lime make a zombie cocktail.
4. The blood in George Romero's movies is mostly chocolate syrup.
5. First movie to use Zombie in the title? 1932 Bela Lugosi chiller
White Zombie.
