the first resident evil is i think generally the most well liked one of the lot? it's the one i always hear people say was the "only good one" sometimes maybe even throwing extinction in there too, while i think most of these are good i do agree this is one of the best ones and pretty easily so, it's the one i think best encapsulates the horror vibe of the game and its for sure the scariest of them (which admittedly isn't saying a lot), though i think apocalypse is the better adaptation with the better atmosphere, this is the one that best hits that tension and that feeling of exploring a dead area like those early games hit so well. the starting chunks in the mansion are so interesting, they're quiet and tense and that little walkabout feels so close to something that would have been in the games, down to finding guns in a drawer you can't open, heck it's not even the only section that does this, when they're wandering around the lab it feels so like that and the destroyed lab set looks amazing, or when they manage to turn off the red queen and all the doors open, it gives me the same energy as when you find a key in the older games and all of a sudden it feels like the mansion is opening itself up to you, they capture those little feelings so well, there's even a few direct references too like the statue in the mansion being kind of similar to the one in the first game in its mansion, the red dress being super reminiscent of ada wongs and stuff like the nemesis program and racoon city hospital being mentioned, plus the bad CG licker being here for a good chunk of the movie, plus the zombie dogs, they even fight the licker on a train a little like the berkin fights from 2 and the licker here is i think practical effects? because it looks much better than the other licker scenes, it's strange. there's some gore here too which will sell some people, not me though, but i do think the zombies look very good with their makeup and there is a scene with a laser hallway that got referenced later in resi 4 and that's really cool, thankfully beyond that its not too big on the blood, i'm squeamish, there aren't too many cheap jumpscares too! sure not everything is all that scary, the bad CGI licker is silly but it does look cool in its own way in the scenes were its not CG and the red queen looks also very silly, but both are pretty endearing. the ending i think i also really liked, it's so spooky and i love the crane shot they used, plus its an ending stinger that actually gets followed up on, something that's very rare in this series.

the soundtrack here also is weirdly great, movie scores for me tend to be more misses than hits, for every sonatina you'll have like 50 boring scores that have no music you will ever remember for your whole life and honestly its the same with games that try and emulate movie music, but this one is actually great! like, some of the best resi music period is here in this movie, that main theme is a top tier piece of music and it's one i'll throw on even years after first watching it, it's made by of all people marylin manson, something that dates it so hard that it becomes really cool, despite the very big issues with the man himself, he did solid work here and his involvement does put it right in that zone alongside tomb raider the movie in being some of the most early 2000s media possible, it owns and it really shows you just how big both resi and this movie were at the time that they managed to get names like that attached. the whole movie in general feels so nostalgic, i had watched this and its two sequels long before i ever even considered playing video games and when i eventually did start playing games it was movies like this and the first silent hill one that pushed me to make those series some of the first i ever tried, so these do mean a lot to me in that way and the vibes of them just, really bring me back, despite that i was only 4 when this came out lol. one interesting thing is that the movie was actually made with the intent that you could very well fit it into canon if you wanted to which i thought was really neat, it could have just been another racoon base and mansion and the characters could have easily fit in well in the timeline, it does a good job doing its own thing with its OC's that you kind of like and feel bad for and i like all the alice in wonderland references, the games even take some of these things on into their canon like with the aforementioned laser hallway or with umbrella chronicles referencing red queen, though the sequels very quickly toss all of this out the window and go way far off the rails, which might have been for the best honestly.

resident evil apocalypse is not as widely loved as the first, calling it loved at all would be an overstatement, but I love it, it's my favourite out of all the live action resi material and one of my favorite movies like, ever, maybe, up there with the likes of speed racer and sonatine and kikujiro and pulse, the top of the top, it's the best dumb action movie out there and its one that manages to actually be the most faithful to the games out of any of the resi movies, also it has some STYLE. it's mostly an adaptation of 3 and it's the only one of these that really tries to do that, with 1 being mostly about capturing the vibes than adapting and the rest just taking imagery and characters in random situations, this is just resi 3, it has jill, it has the mercs, it has nemesis and STARS and it's set during the racoon city incident and it even recreates the opening FMV!, sure it doesn't have any specific locations beyond a brief detour to racoon hospital at the start and later on with carlos, but it gets so much right that you don't super mind. the tone of the movie especially in that first half an hour when you see the city slowly go to hell is so good and when it does finally go to hell it gets that atmosphere of despair down so well and the destroyed city looks amazing, like the recreation of the opening scene has so much footage of the city in chaos and it looks amazing and there's some amazing scenes of the cast just walking in the empty, desolate city that are so atmospheric, there's even a scene on a bus later on that shows the wider street full of destroyed cars and zombies in the background and it looks so good, they really took care with the atmosphere to capture racoon city so well. they even throw in some references to resi 1 to make it clear that it did happen in this world, you can even read a little of it in a newspaper clipping in the movie and i think thats really cool. it's also just a really fun zombie movie, you got the dumb with fist fights with nemesis or watching alice take out a licker by driving a bike into it and making it explode, you got fun spooky fights in graveyards or genuinly spooky scenes in a church with some lickers and a larger chunk of the movie set in a school full of the cool Cerberus's and zombie kids (which i think is a little far but it is admittedly scary) and there's some genuinely funny comedic relief in there too with its comedic relief character LJ, who is honestly the best OC in any of these movies and his actor kills it with the role, he's so fun! even the other OC's here are cool like this movies take on the ashfords as not-stephen hawking and his daughter and even a snarky journalist whos a lot of fun,i wish we actually got the sequel that this movie hinted at with them going on anti-umbrella adventures rather than the direction we got, it's a fun group of characters. it is also a shame we didn't get more from stars, all of them being merked in a scene is very cool and that sniper was rad, but it's a shame we didn't get more of them, throw in some scenes with brad vickers or something.

i mean seriously the movie looks so cool, the outfits! the fonts! the weirdo scifi stuff! it all looks so good, it's so of its time in a way that makes me so nostalgic, the outfits alone like jovavich's alice has some really good outfits in these movies, the red dress from 1 and the cool desert warrior fit from 3 both look amazing, but this like, mesh top jeans look is so iconic to me and its like, peak action movie cool, and even beyond her sienna Gilroy's jill looks so perfect, like the outfit is so on point and she fits the vibe so perfectly, it makes you wish the movie did a bit more with her, even the less stylish characters like carlos look pretty perfectly cast and fit for the characters, though Nicolai looks a lil off (shoutout him being played by the postal guy though lol),the stars uniforms look great too and i love LJ's golden desert eagles. the movie isn't all amazing though, while alice's ascent to psychic kung fu hero is cool as hell, this is also the start of her massively overshadowing the game cast and it ends up with jill in this being weirdly out of character later on, she starts it so cool with her police station entrance when she free's LJ and kills a bunch of zombies and even later on in the church and the graveyard after, but after this it feels like the movie neglects her a lot and she ends up being weirdly passive, which sucks and its something that only happens more and more after this. the movie has some more monsters than the first, like the aforementioned lickers and Cerberus's but it also thrown in nemesis and he looks great, like seriously great, they got him down so well even down to his STARS, i wish they did a little more with him beyond a few small fights and the stars scene but he has such a cool presence and i loved seeing the practical design for him.

one good thing is just how accessible they are, the first one is on youtube for free and the rest are on a few free streaming services, i went out of my way to find the old blu rays for them since they were so cheap, only £2 a piece for the first 5 and they come with tons of cool special features and even the boxes are kind of cool, like check the box for apocalypse, its so aggressively blu ray, my copy even had a "works on ps3!" sticker, which is cute, gamer compatible, some of them like afterlife even have 3D compatible versions if you have the right tv and player, so that's cool. the rest of the movies aren't bad either, i'd want to talk about them on their own but they're pretty solid, extinction is considered one of the better ones, afterlife is the dumbest in the series but in a good way i think, i mean it has the best wesker performance and its worth watching for his fight scene alone, retribution is also great since its just a good action movie and its got both leon and B A R R Y, though the final chapter isn't great, it's the only one i won't defend, it's just kind of lame, but these two movies own and if you like resi at all they're worth checking out!