Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016)

“Evil Comes Home”

Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson
Starring Milla Jovovich, Ali Larter, Shawn Roberts, Ruby Rose, Eoin Macken, William Levy and Iain Glen

Dr James Marcus, a scientist seeking a cure for his daughter’s progeria, creates the T-virus, Umbrella Corporation, and programs his daughter’s personality into the AI known as the Red Queen, before losing control of all he has created to A-list swine Dr Alexander Isaacs (Glen) and his hired goon Albert Wesker (Roberts).

That’s right: It’s backstory time!

Overlord (2018)

“Every Soldier Must Face Their Demons”

Directed by Julius Avery
Starring Jovan Adepo, Wyatt Russell, Mathilde Ollivier, John Magaro, Gianny Taufer, Pilou Asbæk and Iain De Caestecker

On D-Day, a US Paratrooper squad is shot down en route to destroy a key radio tower. Surviving the drop and Nazi forces on the ground, Privates Boyce (Adepo), Tibbet (Magaro) and Chase (De Caestecker) regroup under the driven veteran Corporal Ford (Russell) and attempt to complete the mission, with the aid of local scavenger Chloe (Ollivier).

Dead Rising: Watchtower (2015)

Directed by Zach Lipocsky
Starring Jesse Metcalfe, Meghan Ory, Virginia Madsen, Dennis Haysbert, Keegan Connor Tracy

Reporter Chase Carter (Metcalfe) and camerawoman Jordan (Tracy) are reporting on the evacuation of East Mission  in the face of a resurgence of a zombie virus despite the use of a drug called Zombrex to control infection. When the Zombrex injections fail, panic breaks out and zombies run amok.

Gallowwalkers (2012)

“Live by the gun. Die by the gun. Come back for more.”

Directed by Andrew Goth
Starring Wesley Snipes, Kevin Howarth, Riley Smith, Tanit Phoenix, Patrick Bergin, Diamond Dallas Page and Simona Brhlikova

A desert. A child in a bad wig hauling buckets of blood. A man on a horse. A body. A woman with an axe. A group of yellow-eyed, gunslinging cardinals re-enacting the opening sequence of Once Upon a Time in the West. Gruff, internal monologuing cowboy Aman (Snipes) apparently shoots four men with two shots, then rips one man’s head off.

The Resident Evil franchise (2002-2012)

 

Alice was not convinced Rain was pulling her weight as a posture pal.

My handle is happyfett, and I remember everything.

Actually, that’s blatantly untrue; memory like a sieve, and in fact I have typically found myself in a Dirty Harry style quandary regarding the Resident Evil movie franchise. Have I seen five movies, or just four? Well, for now at least I know, because with The Final Chapter coming out next year, in time for the franchise’s fifteenth anniversary, I’ve spent the past couple of days catching up as far as possible on the series. I couldn’t get the first and third movies easily, but I had already seen them.

So, here we go with a run down of the first five Resident Evil movies.

Darkest Day (2015)

Random trivia: All of those soldiers are the same guy.

Directed by Dan Rickard
Starring Dan Rickard, Chris Wandell and Samantha Bolter

A man, Dan (Rickard), wakes on the beach in Brighton to find the city deserted and in ruins. He meets a young couple scavenging food. One of them is killed by marauding zombies (although as is now de rigeur, we’re not really using the Z word,) and the other leads him back to a house where a group of young survivors have gathered, including muscular, weirdly well-armed Sam (Wandell) and reserved tough girl Kate (Bolter).

Ghosts of Mars (2001)

Back in the day, when a studio might insist on a big star like Ice Cube if all you had was Jason Statham.

“It’s their planet… We are the aliens.”

Directed by John Carpenter
Starring Ice Cube, Natasha Henstridge and Jason Statham

Ballard (Henstridge), a police officer on Mars, reports to a panel after a mission goes royally tits up. Through a series of nested flashbacks, she explains how a simple pick-up of accused murderer ‘Desolation’ Williams (Cube) from a mining town jail went south as her team – Commander Braddock (Pam Grier), Ballard, Sergeant Jericho Butler (Statham) and a pair of rookies – stumbled into a town full of men and women possessed by, if you will, the ghosts of Mars.

Pride & Prejudice & Zombies

Badass.

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.”

Directed by Burr Steers
Starring Lily James, Sam Riley and Jack Huston

In a Regency era Britain beset by hordes of the undead, Elizabeth Bennett (James) and her sisters have been trained in the martial arts to repel the zombie horde from their family estate. When the wealthy Mr Bingley (Douglas Booth) buys nearby Netherfield Hall – recently vacated after an outbreak of zombism at a wist party – Mrs Bennett (Sally Phillips) sees a chance to begin marrying her daughters out of what she sees as an undesirable warrior lifestyle. Jane (Bella Heathcoat) soon falls in with Mr Bingley, but Lizzie falls into an altogether more confrontational relationship with Bingley’s friend, professional zombie killer, Colonel Darcy (Riley).

Summer of Lovecraft: City of the Living Dead (1980)

Buckle up, kids; this is going to be a rough one.

“From the bowels of the Earth they came… to collect the living.”

Directed by Lucio Fulci
Starring Christopher George, Catriona MacColl and Carlo De Mejo

The Story

There are vestiges here of ‘The Dunwich Horror’, but only in the broadest terms – Dunwich, horror, gateway to Hell.

The Film

Mary (MacColl) apparently dies of fright during a seance, but is rescued from a premature burial by reporter Peter (George) and describes her vision of a priest committing suicide in a town called Dunwich. Her medium, Theresa, explains that this was prophesied in the Book of Enoch, and that the priest’s suicide opened the gates of Hell. If he is not destroyed by All Soul’s Day, the dead will rise and destroy the living.

The Summer of Lovecraft: Re-Animator (1985)

“Herbert West has a good head on his shoulders… and another one on his desk.”

Directed by Stuart Gordon
Starring Bruce Abbott, Barbara Crampton, David Gale and Jeffrey Combs

The Story

Herbert West – Reanimator is the account of an unnamed narrator and his friendship with the eponymous West, a fellow medical student and later physician who led the pair’s exploration of the mechanisms of the human body and how they might be reanimated after death. From medical school to practice to service in the Great War, a series of episodes describe the progress of West’s work on his reanimating serum, ending each time in a distinctly qualified success. Finally, the victims of his work come for him, or the narrator finally cracks. One of the two.