LASTING IMPACT: Resident Evil

Paul W.S. Anderson's 2002 film, Resident Evil, has lodged itself permanently in my psyche partially on the merits of it being my first. Everyone remembers their firsts, and I fondly recall the first time I was profoundly freaked out by a movie.

Yet something else about the movie lingers on my mind. Even though I've subsequently seen better and more traumatic zombie movies, Resident Evil is still one I think back on most frequently.

Resident Evil, unlike many of its horror-zombie movie brethren, is a film largely unconcerned with mortality. Characters come, characters die. I suppose it's tragic, but the movie doesn't particularly care.

Instead, Resident Evil concerns itself with the limits and fallibility of human perception.

The movie's biggest scares come when Anderson gleefully twists the seemingly benign into the horrific. A normal-looking silhouette of a dweebish office dweller turns to reveal a bloody, zombified face. A bland, unimpressive tunnel actually hosts laser-guided death.  

It all goes hand in hand with the movie's heavy-handed allusions to Alice in Wonderland and Matrix-esqe post-industrial cyberpunk. Anderson's fixation on the fluid nature of perception has turned a video game adaptation into a dream-like, existential nightmare.

Of course, that's not to suggest that Resident Evil contains much depth (it doesn't) or is a wholly successful horror movie (it isn't).

Simply having the elements in place, however, elevated Resident Evil from a trashy, forgettable flick to a more haunting experience for my 10-year-old self. This heady, potent brew of casual carnage and existential freak-out provided nightmare fodder in the years since my first viewing.

One of the last shots in the film is of the protagonist pounding against the one-way mirror of a containment cell. The camera is placed on the other side of the mirror, allowing us a view of her sterile white room and the tiniest glimpse of the wrecked control room beyond.

It's as haunting a shot as any, wryly asking the viewers if we really wanted to see what was beyond the limits of the camera, and of our senses.

chzhang@umdbk.com