Looking forward to the new Resident Evil movie, stumbling with undead groans into UK theatres later this year? Nina Romain looks at the appeal of zombies over the last few years and how Brit undead measure up against American ones
If Resident Evil can prove one thing, it’s probably that the undead don’t give up easily. After the success of the first movie in 2002, featuring the games’ heroine Alice brought to celluloid life by Milla Jovovich, the franchise was spawned. Over two decades later, the upcoming RE movie, coming out in the UK this September, is written and directed by Weapons’ Zach Cregger and stars Austin Abrams, rather than the previous director/screenwriter Paul WS Anderson and Alice (his protagonist-partner Jovovich).
British zombies tend to live a long way from the underground glamour of the fictitious Hive or elegantly-destroyed Raccoon City of their American counterparts, and are likely to be found looking decayed in less photogenic surroundings.
UK undead films are also frequently comedy-based, such as the famous rom-zom-com Shaun of the Dead (2004) and Cockneys vs Zombies (2012). When they’re not playing the undead for laughs, they often take more of a realistic look at what zombie-ravaged life would be like. Dead Set (2008) a British zombie horror miniseries, sees the heroes trapped inside by the undead with no access to flush their toilets and therefore facing the nightmarish future of “taking turns sh*tting in a wastepaper basket” until their imminent deaths.
Although the Zombieland movies tap into the comedy possibilities of a deserted world (going around fun fairs, killing the undead with banjos in supermarkets, searching for Twinkies), Resident Evil: Extinction (2007) sees post-apoc life more realistically. Here the survivors are on a permanent search for tinned food, batteries for power and anything else they need to survive.
Lee Alan Donaldson, whose zombie short Dead Zero will feature on Horror-on-Sea’s Take Over Day on Saturday 6 June, thinks the appeal of the undead, whether in Resident Evil or UK comedic horror, is straightforward. Pictured below in Dead Zero as the undead scientist, and kneeling in the centre of the group shot, he says:
“I feel the audience is fascinated with how the survivors tend to turn on one another, despite daily challenges and struggles of zombie threats. The humans still fight amongst themselves, as opposed to working together for better outcomes. Human psychology is always the biggest downfall within these types of films.
“Everyone loves to see how people cope and adapt to living among the undead. When your fellow – infected – human is your predator, it makes you wonder how these people keep going. Most would surely just give up. I also know that we all love to see some good old fashioned gore.”
He adds of his own short: “[Dead Zero] isn’t set in a global threat, but a contained zombie risk that has been deliberately manufactured to allow one man to conduct his illegal experiments, on his staff and those he lures into his trap. My inspiration for it came from a love of action, horror and zombies.”
Resident Evil’s Alice fortunately didn’t have any bathroom concerns to worry about while dealing with the undead, but her replacement in Austin Abrams is going to have his work cut out for him this September to fill her zombie-slaying boots.
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