Resident Evil’s original live-action cast reunites to shoot an absurd, hammy short film
Chris, Barry, and Wesker are back, and they’re not dressed for the desert.
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There have been a frankly incomprehensible number ofResident Evil filmsover the years, and they’ve all existed somewhere on a spectrum from mediocre to terrible. Even more damning, none of them have ever been able to match the level of cheap, gawky charm that’s embodied in the originallive-action cutscenes for 1996’s Resident Evil 1.
Someone out there has decided to do something about it: the people over at theResidence of Evil YouTube channelare coordinating a project that will see some of the original cast members of RE1’s cutscenes—the actors for Chris Redfield, Barry Burton, and Albert Wesker—come together once more to create a short film in the spirit of the original game. They’ve already created a short teaser (featured above), and are hoping to fund a “more in depth short film with higher production value” with money from theirPatreon.
The teaser that Residence of Evil has already made is pretty impressive for something shot on a less-than-shoestring budget. You’ve got the original actors, a helicopter flight shot on green screen, and the dialogue is appropriately cheesy as we watch Barry fly Chris to a tense encounter with Wesker, who’s just, like, hanging out in the middle of the desert for some reason. Classic Wesker.
It’s not the first collaboration between Residence of Evil and the old games' live-action cast. Before shooting this teaser, the channel shota comedy skitfeaturing Chris Redfield and the real-life model for the RE3 Remake’s version of Carlos Oliveira, and there’s a 40ish-minuteinterview with some of the original RE1 cast, too.
I hope they manage to shoot their planned, longer film, if only because it’s always fun to see actors having fun with their old and iconic roles (though in the case of the RE1 cast, the game was pretty much their only major role before they moved on to other things). Much in the same way that I enjoyed seeing TF2 spring back to life when its voice cast decided toraid the American west coast for sandwiches, it’ll be cool to see ’90s Resident Evil return for a bit in the form of a cheesy short film.
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One of Josh’s first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he’s been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He’ll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin’s Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you’re all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.
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