Six Silly Resident Evil Moments

Resident Evil is back. Four years since its’ last numbered instalment, the classic zombie killing, key finding, door opening franchise has returned in full force with Resident Evil 7. Its seminal shift to a tense first-person viewpoint is a breath of fresh (or should that be mouldy?) air for the series, which has been slowly stagnating since Resident Evil 4.  Heavily influenced by backwoods body horror of genre classics such as “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, “The Hills Have Eyes” and other gritty grindhouse fare, Resident Evil 7 finally recaptures its old fear factor. Whilst the game is an effectively chilling and gruesome horror that will set your teeth on edge, it’s missing a little of that Resident Evil charm. Horror and comedy have always had a symbiotic relationship, many mediums balancing out their scares with a little bursts of laughter. Think “Evil Dead 2″, “Drag Me To Hell” or “Shaun of The Dead”, and you’re on the right track. Laughter acts as catharsis after a scene of unbearable tension, with the added bonus of lowering your guard ready for that next jump scare. Resident Evil has always had a vein of comic absurdity running through it, unlike its biggest and oldest genre competitor, Silent Hill.  Resident Evil 7 ditches the witty one-liners and often absurd scenarios, in favour of employing genre conventions in a pretty straight-faced manner. In light of this, here’s a few of my favourite silliest moments in Resident Evil history.

 

The Master of Unlocking (Resident Evil, 1996)

Let’s start with the famous one. In the original 1996 Resident Evil, STARS agents Barry Burton and Jill Valentine explore an abandoned mansion in search of their missing teammates. Scared that they could become lost in the twisting corridors of the cavernous building, Barry thoughtfully hands Jill a lockpick, uttering the immortal words, ” It might be handy if you, The Master of Unlocking, take it with you” Whether the fault of shoddy scriptwriting, flat line delivery, or just plain old mistranslation, this phrase has gone down in the gaming history books. It’s weird, bizarre, and instantly quotable, and forged a Resi legend in the process. Other Barry Burton highlights include ” You were almost a Jill sandwich!” and ” It’s a weapon. It’s really powerful, especially against living things” You’re quite the wordsmith, Burton.

 

Boulder Punch.(Resident Evil 5, 2008)

Another Resi moment that has truly become meme-worthy appears during the climatic boss battle of Resident Evil 5. Pursued through the fiery bowels of an active volcano by the hideously mutated big bad, Albert Wesker, Chris Redfield is trapped. With a rubble-strewn lava flow blocking his escape to freedom, he does the only thing a sane man would do: he punches a boulder. Through a button mashing quick time event, Chris pounds at the massive slab of rock with his bare fists, pushing it away into the lava, clearing his path. It’s a truly ridiculous moment, even in the context of a game full of slippery tentacle monsters, Chris’s steroid pumped muscles and grunts of exertion sounding more funny than exciting. This moment is seen by many as the moment when Resident Evil finally fell over the edge it had been unsteadily teetering on. A poor copy of its action focused predecessor, the boulder moment finally demonstrated how the franchise was devolving from taught horror into a farcical parody of modern action games.

 

Bingo? (Resident Evil 4, 2004)

Resident Evil 4 is an undisputed classic. Changing the staple fixed camera angles to the “over the shoulder” view was the improvement the series sorely needed.To really show off the new action gameplay, Resi 4 opens with what is a strong contender for the best sequence in any game ever. In his search for the Presidents’ kidnapped daughter, Leon enters a rundown rural village. At first, the locals seem harmless enough, going about their chores without paying our perfect-haired hero even a glance. But when Leon stumbles across a corpse strung up in a bonfire, the tables turn, and he’s soon on the run, pursued by a relentless horde of pitchfork wielding locals. The terror builds as you barricade doors, leap through windows and clamber over rooftops to avoid being shredded. Just when you think things can’t get any worse, with the arrival of gamings’ most famous chainsaw, the bell finally tolls. The church bell rings out through the misty air, bringing a sudden halt to proceedings as the villagers drop their makeshift weapons and shuffle off. Leon, who by all accounts should be traumatised after this ordeal, instead offers up a corny one-liner that would make John Mclane wince: “Where’s everyone going? Bingo?” It’s the perfect stress relief after the intensity of the fight, showing how well the franchise does both cheesy and frightening.

 

Poor Steve (Resident Evil: Code Veronica)

Unrequited love can be a painful thing. You spend months or even years waiting for the moment when that special someone finally appreciates you for what you are. Unfortunately, that moment comes a little too late for Steve in Resident Evil: Code Veronica. Like all good love stories, this one begins in prison. Steve meets Claire Redfield (sister of Chris) when they are imprisoned together on the contaminated Rockfort Island. Steve pines after her, but never gets anything more than a smile out of Claire. After becoming injected with the deadly mutating T-Veronica virus, Steve transforms into a giant reptilian creature and chases the newly anointed love of his life. Seconds away from slicing Claires’ head in two,  Steves’ human form resurfaces, and he confesses his love for Claire before dying in right front of her eyes. Claire is understandably heartbroken, Although clearly meant as a touching heartfelt scene, the piano score and Claires’ preference for turtle shell look makes the whole thing seem cheesy, more like a soap opera episode than a horror game.

The helicopter/motorbike chase (Resident Evil 6, 2012)

Let’s get this out of the way: All of Resident Evil 6 is silly. In a move that dumfounded long term fans of the classic horror series, its’ sixth numbered entry took a turn towards high octane action. Through its’ three different interlinked campaigns, Resident Evil 6 manages to squeeze in everything but the kitchen sink. Almost every over the top action set piece you can imagine pops up at some point, making Resi 6 feel like the end product of an excited child mashing all of his action figures together. You can only imagine what the production meetings were like. ” What if there was this tank that smashed through buildings chasing you, and then there was this dog monster that you fight top of a train, and there was this other monster hanging from a helicopter with a huge gun and……” Yeah, it’s exhausting to even write. However, there’s one moment in Jake and Sherrys’ storyline that tops all of these in spectacularly silly fashion. Under attack by a fully armed helicopter, Jake jumps a snazzy motorbike literally over skyscraper rooftops in his attempt at escape. Several death defying jumps, fiery explosions, and one slo-mo back flip over the rotor blades later, Jake and Sherry speed off to whatever craziness comes next. It’s an explosive sequence, that whilst acts as a nice slice of big, dumb Hollywood fun, is a world away from the classic scares and sense of dread that Resident Evil became known for.

 

Wesker throws his sunglasses. (Resident Evil 5, 2008)

Albert Wesker is the bad guy to end all bad guys. Everything about him screams “I’m up to no good!”. A famed double agent, corportate spy, back stabber and Matrix Cosplayer, Wesker has been a thorn in our side since the original Resident Evil released back in 1996. As the series progressed, Wesker transitioned from annoying antagonist into one of the primary Resident Evil villains. By the fifth entry, Wesker had gained superhuman strength, speed and agility from an injection of the mutating T-Virus. When he finally turns up for a throwdown with Chris “The Human Bicep” Redfield, he begins the fight with a characteristically underhand (and weird) move to confuse his opponent. In one of the most gratuitous uses of slo-mo ever, Wesker removes his famous sunglasses, tossing them directly at the camera. For a brief second, Chris’s confused face is reflected in the lenses as he reaches out to grab them, distracting him long enough for Wesker to land a sneaky punch. It’s a ridiculous moment that sums Wesker up as a character, with his classically evil get up, cheesy one liners and cheating nature, and was so cool that it was even copied in the less-than-canon movie, Resident Evil: Afterlife in 2010.