"The Dead Walk!" + Top 10!

I do not anoint a worst-ever movie lightly. It always seems hyperbolic. I have a new champion, at least until I see something worse.

I had been avoiding watching Resident Evil since it's massive swing in popularity when I was in grade four. But one thing leads to another grad school assignment and I've ended up seeing it.

They do say you need to know what not to do.

I will keep the critique brief, because I don't think there's much point in reviewing a movie that came out over ten years ago and there's no point in analyzing something so unbelievably bad. Like zombie viruses themselves, bad writing can infect.

Let's open on a positive, shall we? The film used gunk music extremely effectively.

Suffice it to say that my favourite (and I use the term loosely) character--the Red Queen computer system--undergoes the sort of character shift 2/3s of the way through the movie that would make absurdist Lewis Carroll proud. If there was any motivation or reason for it whatsoever beyond needing a more violent ending, it might have worked.

The ending is one, long, fifteen minute sequel hook for Resident Evil: Apocalypse and it is very, very obviously constructed solely for this purpose. If I'm assigned to watch that film, too, I will do myself the favour of taking deathly ill for a week to get out of the assignment. The first movie ends with the protagonist cocking a shotgun so as to save the writer having to think up a transition to the next film.

The screenwriter's (who is also the director and whose IMDb profile opens by explaining how he got a movie banned in England; he's also responsible for the absolutely abominable The Three Musketeers that came out in 2011, featuring zeppelins) favourite line, the literary marvel "When we get out of here, I think I'm gonna get laid," is so adored it is used twice: once in one of the more predictable moments of the movie and once for effect in the credits sequence.

The film compares badly to Atlanta Nights, the mock novel written purely to be bad.  I broke down laughing at the end.

This movie cost $33 million to make and I'm sure the pre-pubescent male audience seeking illicit mildly pornographic wish fulfillment enjoy it to this day.

Save yourself the trouble.

But since I was required to watch it for class, and since it is--apparently--a frightening movie, I've taken the liberty of providing a Top 10 just in case anyone is scared after watching it.

And now it's time for Top 10!!!!!!! The Top 10 ways to relieve the terrible fright after watching Resident Evil.

10. Listen to "We Built This City" by '80s phenomenon Jefferson Starship. For extra effect, watch the video:



9. If the previous step fails, first increase your speaker volume, then try something by Whitesnake instead. We suggest this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gin-l4LDdXQ

8. Enjoy Terry Gilliam's analysis of Evil in Time Bandits.



7. Having freed yourself of mind control, indulge in classical literature. We suggest Genesis 2.

6. If that doesn't work, try Canadian literary fiction.

5. Read Raymond Chandler's rant about Hollywood writing. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/11/writers-in-hollywood/306454/ Realize that it was written in 1945 and still applies today.

4. Read something and actually realize how scary a good writer can be.



3. Yes, we know that wasn't actually scary at all. Neither was Resident Evil. But I know which one I enjoyed more. Proper storytelling can, in fact, be entertaining, so to that end, acquire yourself a novel by the late Iain Banks and realize how frightening original imagination can be.

2. Pick up a phone and give Ghostbusters a call. There aren't any ghosts in Resident Evil, but we're pretty sure Bill Murray could have improved the movie.

1. Watch a proper horror film by either Alfred Hitchcock for real fright or Guillermo del Toro for things that can be done to the mind.

And that's Top 10!