George A. Romero's Resident Evil

Justin Totino

**tl;dr:** This documentary is fine but underwhelming. It's probably interesting for fans of Romero / Resident Evil who had no idea about the unrealized film, but really you can just go and read the script that's been floating around online for yourself. **Full review:** The documentary is fairly one-sided. We only ever hear information from Romero's side of the story; interviews with people from the George A. Romero Foundation, the George A. Romero Archives, friends, and colleagues, among others. We only get one interview with someone from Capcom and it's about the creation of the first Resident Evil (video game, 1996), not about the unrealized film. The only information we ever get from the Capcom or Constantin Film side of the story is from narrator Pablo Kuntz quoting articles and interviews that range anywhere from as recent as 2023 to up to almost 25 years ago. I love Romero's work, don't get me wrong. However, as a documentary, I think to get a complete picture of the how's and why's the project didn't work out, you also needed to hear from all sides: Romero, Capcom, and Constantin Film. Granted, for all I know director Brandon Salisbury and crew did ask Capcom and Constantin Film to be part of the project and they refused. Brief as they are, why do we have interview clips with James Rolfe (Cinemassacre/Angry Video Game Nerd, 2004 - present)? All he does it talk about how much he loves Night of the Living Dead (1968). It adds nothing to the overall narrative of the documentary. Along the same lines, why do we have interview clips with J.J. Turlock from the YouTube channel Residence of Evil? Unless I'm mistaken, from my understanding the channel helped get the documentary made and were basically the only sort of marketing this film ever got. I know that is how I heard about the documentary in the first place - and it's just about the only time I ever saw YouTube videos/trailers for it. So they had a hand in its making, fine. But still, like James Rolfe, all Trulock does is talk about how much of a fan he is of Romero's films, how much of a fan he is of the Resident Evil video game series, and how excited he coulda/woulda been for a Romero-directed Resident Evil film. It's all empty calories, pointlessly included to stretch the film's runtime. The most information we get about what could have been for Romero's film is from Rombie of The Resident Evil Podcast (2012-present). While the fact that he only appears as a disembodied voice from a radio is distracting, his segments are otherwise very good. He gives a breakdown of the various versions of the film scripts, both Romero's and the version Alan B. McElroy wrote before Romero. Everything from Rombie is, I feel, the core of the documentary. He gives a great breakdown of each script, the differences and similarities they have to the games, etc. The documentary also gives a number of speculations for Romero's changes to the source material and how those changes relate to his previous ...of the Dead works. Everything around Rombie's segments is really just a history and tribute to George A. Romero and the great impact he had on the horror genre. The last few minutes of the documentary are touching in this regard, as his friends and colleagues recount how much he influenced and meant to them, their last interaction with him, or how they heard about his death. The of the documentary's presentation features a nameless solider exploring a building that is supposed to be similar to the Spencer Mansion from the very first Resident Evil game. The small CRT TVs, notes, and diaries he finds are supposed to be the information being delivered to the audience via the narration and interviews, but it's honestly more distracting and filler than it has to be. However, I still appreciate the film crew's attempt at evoking the feeling of the game series while we watch the documentary. , I don't think it is necessarily a bad documentary. It's just underwhelming. I think I was expecting more out of it. This will probably be interesting for Romero and/or RE fans who happen to never have heard that he was meant to make a Resident Evil film. But really, you can just read the script that's been online for years for yourself.

Review via The Movie Database (TMDB)