"RESIDENT EVIL" DVD: Yogurt Of The Living Dead (reviewed by AX)

I'm not a huge video game fan. When I started having sexual intercourse on a regular basis, I kind of lost interest in them. But I have to admit, sometimes they do make a really cool game, and RESIDENT EVIL was one of them. I don't recall being very good at the game, but I do remember actually getting scared by it, which is absurd because it's a goddamn game. Then again, Playstation is a long way from the Atari that I grew up with.

What I do happen to be a big fan of is horror movies. That's kinda been a lifelong thing and I don't see myself changing from that. Ever. I remember years ago reading that George Romero (director of...ah, fuck you if you don't know who he is) really campaigned hard to get the job of directing RESIDENT EVIL the movie, but his script was eventually turned down. Fans were upset, but after seeing what Paul Anderson ended up doing as director of the film, I personally do not thing ol' George could've done it better. After all, it's based on a game. So you need action. You need big fuckin bang. Let's face it, George may have directed some of the greatest zombie movies of all time, but there's no way he could have been as faithful to the game as Anderson. Romero would've gotten carried away making some big social statement like he always does in his movies, and probably would've forgotten about the action all together. That's right, RESIDENT EVIL is an action horror movie, featuring zombies. And it's goddamn good too.

Paul Anderson (not to be confused with P.T. Anderson of MAGNOLIA fame) actually made one of the most terrifying movies of the 90's, a little flick called EVENT HORIZON. Anderson himself has dissed the movie in several print articles, but some of us think it's fucking brilliant. And you know what? His movie SOLDIER with Kurt Russell is actually quite good too. So EVIL was certainly in good hands. It's fast, scary, cool, and pays tribute to Romero's similar 80's zombie film DAY OF THE DEAD multiple times. It was completely intentional, and it made me smile.

I also smiled because Milla "Multipass" Jovovich and Michelle "I Punched My Roommate Out" Rodriguez are incredible actors in this movie. Milla jumps around kicking more ass and firing more guns like she did in THE (highly underrated) FIFTH ELEMENT, and Michelle says more with just her eyes than most actors do with their entire careers. The effects are good except for a few assorted bad CGI shots, and the ending left me wanting more right away.

And now...my DVD review! Hahaha. Sorry.

The package says "Special Edition", but I have the feeling a better edition might get made somewhere along the line. This movie was a lot bigger production than the wimpy extras would have you believe.

You get a decent "making of" featurette, which, like most fluffy extras like this, is padded out with scenes from the film. Come on, fuckers! We just WATCHED the movie. We wanna see how it was made. I did enjoy seeing interviews with the cast and crew, but it was way too thin and could have gone into much more detail. What about the game? Hello? Shots from the game compared with shots from the film would have been nice for starters.

Also there is a way too long piece about the score of the film, which was a collaboration between the guy who scored SCREAM and everybody's favorite musician, Marilyn Manson. Granted, Manson did a fine job on the score (and who better to score a scary movie than a scary motherfucker), but I got sick of hearing him drone on and on talking in his "too cool for school" voice about how clever he is. The score definitely works. It's hard to take someone seriously when they're wearing vampire makeup anyway.

Now we get into the real reasons why I think we'll see a better edition of RESIDENT EVIL sometime soon. For starters, the feature titled "Zombie Makeup Tests" is a complete letdown. In the making-of, they kinda touch on how the effects were done, but don't get into a whole lot of detail. The makeup test is like 4 minutes long and it just shows the various finished zombie faces. That's it. Come on! Horror fans will be the ones buying this disc, so why not give them something cool to watch? That really blew ass.

Second, the commentary track is lacking. It's fun to listen to, because Michelle Rodriguez and Milla Jovovich are both extremely funny. They spend the whole movie making fun of stuff and cracking good jokes on each other. I really loved listening to them. However, they dominated the track, so the producer and director never got a whole lot of opportunity to talk about how the movie was made. This especially sucked because of the sorry featurettes on the disc. During the commentary track, Anderson notes that the visual effects guy was getting a separate track to discuss how all the monsters and shit were done, so he doesn't go into any detail. Too bad. The track never made it on this DVD for some odd reason, so we're left wondering what the fuck happened.

And finally, THERE ARE NO DELETED SCENES! Come on, now. In the commentary, they talk about an alternate ending. We wanna see that shit! Now! Plus, you know they had to have cut some gore out of the film because Anderson notes at one point, "if we'd have had one more drop of blood in this film, we couldn't have gotten an R rating". So you know there's something to be seen. Deleted scenes are standard features on DVDs. What the fuck?

RESIDENT EVIL gets a 3.5 out of 5 on the scale. It needed at least two commentary tracks (I think three were necessary), deleted scenes, and a way better feature on the special effects. The movie itself rocks, though. Perhaps later they'll make a Special-er Edition.

(7.28.02)