History Film / ResidentEvil

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/683290_413.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350: Hmmm, that resident evil is a looker.]]

->''"You're all going to die down here."''
-->-- '''Red Queen'''

''Resident Evil'' is a series of live-action films based on the video games of [[Franchise/ResidentEvil the same name]]. It includes the following films:

* ''Resident Evil'' (2002)
* ''Film/ResidentEvilApocalypse'' (2004)
* ''Film/ResidentEvilExtinction'' (2007)
* ''Film/ResidentEvilAfterlife'' (2010)
* ''Film/ResidentEvilRetribution'' (2012)
* ''Film/ResidentEvilTheFinalChapter'' (2016)

These films shouldn't be confused with ''Anime/ResidentEvilDegeneration'', ''Anime/ResidentEvilDamnation'', and ''Anime/ResidentEvilVendetta''. ''Degeneration'', ''Damnation'', and ''Vendetta'' explicitly follow the canon of the games; these live-action films integrate parts of the video game canon, but follow their own unique continuity.

In the first film, which this page covers, a young woman named Alice (Creator/MillaJovovich) awakens to find herself in an empty mansion with little-to-no memory of her past. After soldiers burst through the doors, they take her with them into the Hive, an underground bioresearch facility situated beneath the mansion. Alice, the strike team, and two tagalongs found in the Hive discover an unspeakable secret within the facility that the Umbrella Corporation wants hidden away for good: The company has developed a bioweapon far beyond anything the world has ever known. As Umbrella's response unit hunts for the cause of the devastation within the lab, the result of that devastation soon becomes clear: The dead have come back to life, and they hunger for fresh flesh!

A ContinuityReboot of the films, titled ''Film/ResidentEvilWelcomeToRaccoonCity'', is set to release in 2021. The film also takes place in its own continuity separate from the games, but is said to be TruerToTheText by specifically being a direct adaptation of the stories of [[VideoGame/ResidentEvil1 the first]] [[VideoGame/ResidentEvil2 two games]].
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!! For tropes related to the sequel films, please visit their individual pages; the first film contains the following tropes:

* AIIsACrapshoot: Mostly subverted. The team is told that the Red Queen has gone homicidal for no reason, but it is the Queen's job to contain possible outbreaks, which she did perfectly. True, she killed a couple hundred people without even explaining why they had to die, but that was required to keep the outbreak from escaping the Hive. And it's ''nothing'' to the destruction that follows in the sequels as a direct result of Umbrella breaking her quarantine. However, as soon as it's revealed she can speak wherever she wants and decides to only do so ''at the very last moment'' before they pull the plug on her, and that the only thing she can say is "''Please, don't turn me off. Get out!''", it's somewhat played straight.
* AbandonedHospitalAwakening: [[spoiler:Alice does this at the end of the movie.]]
* ActionGirl: Alice is the standout example, but there's also Rain.
* AdaptationalBadass: The zombies. In the games, a headshot wasn't necessarily required to bring down a zombie. Enough bullets (or even knife slashes) to the main body was enough to kill one. Here, it is established that only massive trauma to the brain or severing the top of the spinal column will do the job.
* AirVentPassageway: At one point, the surviving team members go through air vents to evade the zombies.
* AliceAllusion: Alice, the Red Queen, and in later movies, the White Queen:
** The Hive is located behind two mirrored doors (''Literature/ThroughTheLookingGlass'').
** Kaplan constantly worries about time (as the White Rabbit does).
** A white rabbit is used to test the T-Virus.
** The Red Queen orders Alice to kill Rain by chopping off her head, and she actually chops off the Medic's head.
** When the first zombie is seen, Matt is sitting on a high ledge (supposed to be a reference to the caterpillar).
* AllForNothing: The survivors are offered an opportunity by the Red Queen to leave the Hive alive; all they have to do is execute Rain, who's already infected. The survivors refuse, knowing that there's a potential cure somewhere, and as a result spend way more time in the Hive than they otherwise would have had to, with more than a few extra casualties along the way. [[spoiler: Rain turns into a zombie anyway as they inject her with the cure too late, so it was all for naught. The final survivor count would have been higher if they had just taken the Red Queen's offer.]]
* AndTheAdventureContinues: [[spoiler:At the end of the movie, Alice wakes up again alone and confused, apparently facing a T-Virus outbreak, just like at the start.]]
* ArtificialOutdoorsDisplay: In the Hive, one room has a window which displays the sights and sounds of a big city:
-->'''Matt:''' Makes it easier to work underground, thinking there's a view.
* ArtisticLicenseBiology:
** The Red Queen infamously says that the human body remains active after death - a common myth is that hair and fingernails continue to grow. You'd expect a supercomputer to know such a thing.
** Matt says blood only coagulates after you're dead, indicating who attacked them was a zombie. Blood does indeed coagulate in living beings. In fact According to most articles, blood does coagulate in dead and living organisms, which means Matt is mostly 100% correct. But there is a mistake. Blood doesn't just coagulate after your dead. Blood can also coagulate when you're alive due to blood clotting from specific conditions, diseases, and viruses as well as untreated injuries such as untreated cuts and bruises. Still, Matt was 100% correct.
** The medic and the second Commando should have fallen to the floor instantly when the laser went through them; severing the spinal column would not keep them standing.
** Probably the most absurd example is the fact that not one protagonist actually aims for the heads of zombies. Most militaries, including special forces units, are trained to automatically aim for center mass, or basically anything that would result in almost instantaneous death. This includes the Brain and the Heart.
* ArtisticLicensePharmacology: The lab the virus was released into allowed it to escape through air ducts. Any room that requires people to wear safety suits - and the scientists say it's sealed - would have air vents.
* AteHisGun: Kaplan almost does this. Instead, he just shoots a zombie.
* BeautyIsNeverTarnished:
** Alice makes it through the entire ordeal without getting cut up or bruised. When she emerges from The Hive, she's merely wet. Illustrating how much this is in effect, Milla Jovovich talked about being covered in lesions and bruises after shooting the brief moment where Alice is dragged across the grille in the train.
** Rain looks very good for someone who has been bitten by multiple zombies and only merely looks like she's got a bad hangover.
* BigBadEnsemble: The primary antagonist is the [[AIIsACrapshoot Red Queen]], who has sealed the hive and is terminating the Umbrella employees to contain the zombie infection. The other antagonist is [[spoiler: Spence Parks, who spends most of the film as an amnesiac]] and was the one who purposely caused the virus outbreak as a distraction for him to escape the Hive with the sample of T-Virus, which he would later sell on the BlackMarket.
* BigRedButton: Opens and closes the subway car's floor door.
* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Despite all their effort to escape the Hive, Matt is infected and he and Alice are taken by Umbrella to experiment on. Also, Raccoon City ends up somehow deserted and in ruins meanwhile. The only good side is that Alice is apparently alive and well at it.]]
* BlackDudeDiesFirst: Subverted in the laser hallway as [[spoiler:One is the last to die.]]
* BloodlessCarnage: When the commandos are sliced to pieces by the LaserHallway. {{Justified|Trope}} in that the lasers cut by burning, so the wounds are being cauterized even as they're inflicted.
* BlownAcrossTheRoom: Rain's machine gun fire sends a zombie flying about 20 feet.
* BookEnds: [[spoiler:The movie starts with Alice waking up nude, alone and confused and ends up that exact way.]]
* BoomHeadshot: Most zombies, since it's their weakpoint. [[spoiler:Also happen to J.D. and Rain.]]
* BottomlessMagazines: Bullets run out only when the film demands it. Otherwise even the ''revolvers'' can shoot non-stop with no need to reload whatsoever.
* BraidsOfAction: Rain, as the Vasquez of this film, has her hair sensibly tied back in a braid. Of course this ''is'' military protocol but the fact that she has it in a braid as opposed to the medic's bun shows that she'll be a badass.
* BulletProofFashionPlate: Spence spends most of the film wearing a tight T-shirt that doesn't get torn and he doesn't even get a scratch on his exposed arms. In contrast, Matt and Kaplan get plenty messed up.
* CanonImmigrant: The Red Queen.
* ChronicHeroSyndrome: Alice seems determined to save everyone, despite the fact that she's just met them. Especially Rain and Matt. [[ItsAllMyFault She takes Rain's death especially hard]]. This could be {{justified|Trope}} by the fact that she had always intended to [[spoiler:betray Umbrella and help Lisa escape with the T-Virus]].
* CombatParkour: Alice takes this to ridiculous extremes, as she sends full-grown adults (and zombies) flying with moves straight out of ''Franchise/TheMatrix''.
* CompanyTown: Raccoon City was under the thumb of Umbrella.
* CreatorCameo: Producer Jeremy Bolt has a cameo as one of the zombies.
* CreepyChild: The Red Queen is a great example. Although she is just literally a gender-less AI who only uses the avatar of a young girl, that doesn't make her any less creepy, especially as she speaks with her emotionless and monotone voice, and referring to herself as a "bad, bad girl" when [[spoiler:she revealed that she secretly released the Licker to kill Spence, and likely, everyone else, to further prevent the release of the T-virus]].
* CruelAndUnusualDeath: The laser room deaths. [[spoiler:One ends up diced into itty bitty pieces by the Red Queen's lasers.]]
* CuttingTheKnot: One manages to evade one of the LaserHallway beams by leaping up and grabbing the ceiling. When the next beam passes by, he prepares to either jump or duck, depending on its position. Then the beam [[spoiler:changes into an entire laser grid which is impossible for him to avoid]].
* DeadpanSnarker: Spence Parks, during the following exchange:
--> '''Rain:''' (covered in gore and bites) When I get out of here, I think I'm gonna get laid!\\
'''Spence:''' (beat) You may want to clean up first.
* DelayedCausality: [[spoiler: The medic and One are killed this way in the LaserHallway. They stay perfectly standing until their injuries start to show; the medic has her neck sliced open while One is cut into tiny cubes.]]
* DevouredByTheHorde: Subverted. [[spoiler:At one point, J.D. is pulled into an elevator and attacked by a group of zombies. However, when he turns up later on as a zombie, he is almost completely whole, so the zombies just infected him with the T-virus and didn't eat him.]]
* DiagonalCut: [[spoiler: In the laser hallway, after the first pass of the laser beam, the commando's head slides off. The last commando in the hallway is cut by a grid of lasers and slides into pieces.]]
* DisposablePilot: [[spoiler:Kaplan becomes this as soon as he gets behind the controls of the train for the ride out.]]
* DuelingHackers: Kaplan has a hacking duel with the Red Queen to bypass her defenses.
* DullSurprise: While not ''entirely'' dull, Rain reacts to a zombie (believing it to be an ordinary person at first) biting her hand with mere annoyance. She seems to think the woman just went crazy.
* DwindlingParty: The first film deals with a group investigating and then trying to escape The Hive. Not only is the facility armed with several deathtraps, but it is also infested with zombies and other mutations that attack anything living. This was guaranteed to happen.
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: The opening narration isn't done by Alice, and even has an opening crawl of sorts. The second movie justifies this by having Alice find the camcorder she supposedly recorded all the movies' narration on.
* EasyAmnesia: Both Alice and [[spoiler:Spence]] become amnesic shorty after the T-Virus outbreak in the Hive.
* EnemyRisingBehind: When [[spoiler:Spence]] is holding the other survivors at gunpoint, a zombie rises up out of the water behind him and bites him on the neck.
* EvilDetectingDog: The dogs being kept at an office seem to notice the incoming airborne viral outbreak as they bark aloud while looking at the air vents.
* EvilElevator: In the opening sequence, when [[spoiler:the Hive's employees get wiped out.]]
* EvilInc: Umbrella, who is performing illegal research and creating viral weaponry.
* {{Expositron 9000}}: The Red Queen.
* FaceHeelRevolvingDoor: The Red Queen's sole purpose is to keep the virus contained, and she won't help the strike team if it means the virus has any chance of escaping. All things considered, that's her job and she's got a point.
* FanDisservice: Alice shows the most skin when she wakes up at the end of the movie [[spoiler:on an operating table, and full of IV needles.]]
* FastRoping: The soldiers engage in this when they enter the mansion. Why they went on the roof first, or why they simply didn't just go in through [[ThereWasADoor the open front door]] is never explained, but it's probably RuleOfCool.
* FinalGirl: [[spoiler:Alice is the only one able to escape the Hive without getting killed or infected. She does get "infected" after she escapes, though. By horror movie standards, she subverts the 'most wholesome' aspects (she has flashbacks to having sex with Spence, appears nude and provides {{Fanservice}} by way of her sexy red dress) and she's also the rare [[SlashersPreferBlondes blonde]] Final Girl.]]
* {{Fingore}}: [[spoiler:One of the Commandos has his fingers sliced off in the laser hallway and apparently dies out of shock. Rain later has several of her fingers bitten off by zombies.]]
* {{Foreshadowing}}:
** As the group make their way into the Hive, they find several rooms that were sealed and flooded, with a woman's floating corpse inside. After they depart, the corpse's eyes open.
** At the same time, Matt hears the sound of mass moaning coming from one of the vents.
** The Red Queen warns that too long after infection, there's no guarantee the Anti-Virus will work. [[spoiler: Sadly she's proved right with Rain]].
* FromBadToWorse: The team shut down the Red Queen, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero only to release what she was trying to keep locked up]].
* GoryDiscretionShot:
** [[spoiler:One]] is literally ''diced'' by a grid of beams, but we only see the blurry image of his reflection as he's falling to bits.
** [[spoiler:Kaplan]] is seen putting a gun in his mouth; the film then cuts to a reaction shot of Alice hearing the shot being fired. [[spoiler:Subverted when it turns out Kaplan just shot a zombie and is looking for another way out.]]
** During the initial purge of everyone in the Hive, the camera cuts away at the last second before a woman is decapitated by an elevator.
* HalfTheManHeUsedToBe: [[spoiler: Commando 2 attempts to jump the second laser and is cut in half when the laser goes up.]]
* HandSignals: Rain and the team leader.
* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:J.D.]] ends up performing one unintentionally when he pushes Kaplan away from a locked door so that he can unlock it himself (which unfortunately turns out to have a horde of zombies behind it).
* {{Hologram}}: The Red Queen's projected image.
* HopeSpot: After [[spoiler:Rain]] is bitten and our remaining heroes are briefly trapped, [[spoiler:Kaplan]] pulls a BigDamnHeroes, the Mega-Licker finishes off [[spoiler:Spence]] for them, and they manage to get the antivirus he left behind, leave the Hive on the train, and inject [[spoiler:Rain. Then the Mega-Licker catches up to the train... oh, and the antivirus doesn't work, mainly because Rain was not only bitten so many times, but was also infected for a length of time that would render the anti-virus ineffective.]]
* IdentityAmnesia: Alice and [[spoiler:Spence]] have no idea who they are.
* IdiotBall:
** As ''Cracked'' [[http://www.cracked.com/article_18781_umbrella-most-wasteful-movie-corporation-ever.html notes above]], the highly-trained tactical team spends twenty minutes somehow ''not'' landing a headshot on the zombies. [[ATeamFiring They hit the walls, the floor, and the locks on the containment units. And even served far too right as all of the protagonists can barely aim to save themselves, most notably Rain who aimed for the chest instead of the head.]]
--->[They] shoot so badly, they actually ''increase the number of zombies''.
** The locks are designed to contain some of the most dangerous viruses known to man. These locks, when damaged, unlock instead of staying shut. There's ''no'' kind of manual lock backup like actual biohazard vaults might have.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Rain.
* JerkassHasAPoint: The Red Queen orders Alice to kill the infected Rain in exchange for opening a locked door, and while there is an Anti-Virus, it's not guaranteed to work. Rain is visibly sick from her wounds and could turn into a zombie at any rate, and considering what happens later, you can't really blame the Red Queen for doing this.
* KillItWithFire: How the Licker meets its end, though admittedly all Alice was hoping to do was crush it under the train. The fire was just an added bonus. Also, if flamethrowers and incendiary grenades were used at the very beginning instead of traditional weaponry, then half of the protagonists that ended up dead from zombie attacks would have never died in the first place.
* KnuckleCracking: After she succumbs to the T-virus infection and turns into a zombie, [[spoiler:Rain]] does the neck cracking variant just before she attacks.
* LaserGuidedAmnesia: [[spoiler:Spence]] becomes amnesic shorty after causing the T-virus outbreak in the Hive.
* LaserHallway: The Red Queen's main defense. It takes down several of [[spoiler:Umbrella's elite investigation squad before being shut down.]]
* MaleGaze: There are many shots of Alice's legs throughout the film. The camera is kept down as low as possible to view them.
* MegaCorp: The Umbrella Corporation has its fingers in a lot of proverbial pies, selling everything from cosmetics to industrial machines to [[BreadEggsMilkSquick biological weapons]].
* MortalWoundReveal: Two of the commandos' deaths in the LaserHallway.
* MsFanservice: Alice. She has a shower scene and there's a moment where she's briefly nude.
* MurderousThighs: Alice does a NeckSnap of a zombie this way.
* MythologyGag: While fleeing from the zombies, the group double back through the LaserHallway. To their confusion, the bodies of [[spoiler:the operatives]] killed there are gone. In the games, the bodies of dispatched zombies would often disappear after the player left the room.
* NecessarilyEvil: The Red Queen qualifies big time. [[spoiler:Yes, she did murder the entire Umbrella research facility staff, but she was only following her main directive to prevent a T-virus outbreak.]] Her actions are probably the most sensible out of anyone in the entire series when it comes to containing a T-virus outbreak. Her actions are brutal, but effective [[spoiler:at least until Umbrella unseals the facility and lets all the zombies loose.]]
* NeckSnap:
** Rain breaks a zombie's neck by twisting it.
** Alice snaps zombie necks three times, once with MurderousThighs and twice by kicking them in the head.
* NoOneGetsLeftBehind: Averted when Kaplan tells the rest of the party to keep going after he's cut off from them by zombies. [[spoiler:Then he makes it out alive and comes back to save everyone. [[ShootTheShaggyDog Then he dies at the last minute anyway]].]]
* NotAZombie: When the group first encounters the zombies, they assume they're just a bunch of injured survivors gone crazy.
* NotSoStoic: Badass ActionGirl Rain is openly crying in the background in the scene where Kaplan is separated from the group and they're forced to leave him behind.
* OffWithHisHead: One of the workers of the Hive is decapitated by the elevator in the intro of the movie. [[spoiler: The Medic is decapitated by the first laser beam.]]
* OhCrap: The last word of One, right before he gets sliced into chunks by the LaserHallway trap:
--> "''Shit''".
* OohMeAccentsSlipping:
** James Purefoy slips out of his American accent occasionally when pronouncing a word with an r in the middle.
** Colin Salmon does likewise when he says "now let's move it".
** Martin Crewes's holds up really well but does slip on the odd word.
* OurZombiesAreDifferent: These zombies exist because of science -- specifically, a virus. A cure exists, but doesn't have much reliability even when administered soon after infection. The T-Virus zombies move slow, and any head trauma (not just a shot to the head) will kill them; Alice kills two zombie dogs by kicking one in the head and smashing the other's head with a paperweight, while Rain kills a zombie by snapping her neck.
* PoorCommunicationKills: The Red Queen had ''very'' good reason to initiate a lockdown and keeping the doors shut. Yet the team did not bother to ask ''why'' she had done this, and she didn't bother to give clear explanation either until explicitly asked, but by then it was way too late.
* PullTheIV: Alice does this in the hospital scene that comes at the end of this and near the start of ''Apocalypse''.
* ReturningTheWeddingRing: [[spoiler:Spence and Alice were pretending to be a married couple. Near the end of the movie, Spence betrays Alice and is turned into a zombie. After she kills him, she drops her wedding ring next to his body.]]
* RuleOfCool: The whole series invokes this rule by the boatload, but special notice for this film goes to the laser hallway. The Red Queen could've just killed everyone right away by using the "laser grid" on the first pass. Watching the grid adapt to the victims' attempts to avoid it and take them down one by one makes for a much more awesome scene, though.
* SequelHook: [[spoiler:Alice walks out of the hospital to find that she's in a deserted [[ZombieApocalypse (except for zombies)]] Raccoon City]].
* ShesGotLegs: Alice's minidress allows her to show off her legs. Even when wearing Spence's jacket, she's still showing some leg.
* ShootOutTheLock: [[spoiler:Spence]] shoots out the lock on the lab door offcamera.
* SinisterScrapingSound: The first zombie limps in dragging an axe across the floor.
* SlowElectricity: When the Red Queen (and the power) are shut down and restarted.
* SpicyLatina: Rain downplays this, as her aggression is more 'understandable frustration at being locked underground with zombies' and she shows a softer side. But she plays it straight in being the most prominent ActionGirl, confrontational with the other characters and being just attractive enough despite her tomboyish appearance.
* StabTheSalad: The Red Queen computer demands that the remaining protagonists chop off Rain Ocampo's head (because she's infected with the T-Virus) before she'll let the rest of them go. Alice appears to agree. She raises up the axe, the music swells, and Alice chops into the video monitor the Red Queen has been using to talk to them.
* StatOVision: How the Red Queen [[RoboCam sees the world]].
* {{Stripperiffic}}: As Jovovich pointed out on the "Making Of" feature for ''Apocalypse'', they had to find a way to make Alice sexy since "in real life, she just wears a security uniform [and] no one pays to see that". Thus, Alice dons the red dress and black short shorts. Admittedly, the dress doesn't give her too much trouble since she's wearing a jacket over it for most of her action scenes.
* SurprisinglySuddenDeath: This happens ''four times'' -- once in the laser trap scene, once with the "dining room" attack scene, and twice with the Licker. This continues in the sequels.
* SwordDrag: In a hilarious bit of {{foreshadowing}}, a zombie is shown dragging an axe on the floor just like the Executioner will.
* TakeAThirdOption: The Red Queen gives Alice an ultimatum: Kill the infected Rain and escape or stay in the Hive and die. [[spoiler:Kaplan pulls off a BigDamnHeroes moment by frying the Red Queen and unlocking the door]].
* TakeMyHand: Rain to J.D. It doesn't work so well.
* TemptingFate: J.D. after entering the door code.
* ThirdOptionAdaptation: The movie features an entire cast of original characters.
* TongueTrauma: Alice pins the Licker's tongue to the grill in the train car's floor with a sharp piece of pipe.
* TooDumbToLive: One's unit didn't even bother to ask why the Red Queen had gone homicidal until it was too late. Later, Umbrella sends in another unit to reopen the Hive immediately after the first one. When this unit's confronts by Alice, who works for them and knows everything that happened down there, their knee-jerk reaction is to drug her and take her away for testing viral infection.
* VasquezAlwaysDies: [[spoiler:Rain]] plays this straight.
* VillainBall: The Umbrella clean-up team sent to investigate the Hive reveal that the Red Queen has a timer running on the facility. The T-Virus broke loose and infected everything within the facility, so when the Queen's timer counts down to zero, all of the Hive's entrances will permanently seal shut. Nothing gets in or out. This seems pretty smart so far. [[IdiotBall Umbrella does not agree with this]]. Not only does the system have a built-in override, but the team sent to override the system contains five people. ''[[ZombieApocalypse Guess what happens when they override the system?]]''
* VomitIndiscretionShot: Rain vomits [[spoiler:hours after being bitten by a zombie.]]
* WallCrawl: The Licker.
%%* WallSlump
* WhamLine: Upon seeing Matt start to mutate after being infected by the Licker, an Umbrella scientist has this to say:
-->"I want him in the [[VideoGame/ResidentEvil3Nemesis Nemesis Program]]."
* WhatADrag: The film shows us a rare heroic example when the Licker gets dumped out the cargo hatch and dragged beneath the train.
* WhooshInFrontOfTheCamera: Near the end of the movie, Alice wakes up in an operating room in the Umbrella facility. While the audience's POV is in an observation room watching her, a figure moves across the screen (inside the observation room) with a scare chord.
* XanatosGambit: The Red Queen pulls one when the protagonists try to escape The Hive before the doors close for good. Alice, Matt, and Rain are trapped in a lab with a Licker at the window, which it is slowly breaking through. The only door out of the lab is locked, and the Queen won't give Alice the code unless she kills the infected Rain (and invokes VasquezAlwaysDies). The Queen doesn't care if Alice kills her, as keeping the door lock will let the group live long enough for the Licker to kill them all -- and keep the virus contained. She would've won, too, if [[spoiler:Kaplan]] [[TakeAThirdOption hadn't taken Option Three]] and [[spoiler:fried the Red Queen to unlock the door and]] allow everyone to escape. [[NiceJobBreakingItHero This ends badly]].
* YouDidEverythingYouCould: As Alice and Matt near the exit, Alice feels responsible for not saving all of their comrades who died:
-->'''Alice:''' I failed all of them. I failed.\\
'''Matt:''' Listen to me. There is nothing else you could've done.
* YouKeepUsingThatWord: Despite the T-Virus being called a protean virus and mentioned as being capable of switching to airborne transmission, the characters never express concern that merely breathing the air could get them infected. The initial infection spread when a canister of the virus was shattered and the virus entered the Hive's air system, but once Alice and the strike team meet the zombies head-on, the virus has evaporated and bites seem to be the only way for anyone to actually become infected. The novelizations say the T-Virus has an airborne variant with a hot zone, and this is the initial deployment method, but the virus soon reverts to the non-airborne variant (with all the people-eating that entails). The film hints at this when the Red Queen notes that the transmission method depends on environment, but doesn't say it outright.
* ZombieApocalypse: The start of one anyway. The zombies are contained inside the facility, but they could [[spoiler:(and inevitably do)]] escape.
* ZombieGait: Averted, subverted, inverted, played straight, played for laughs and everything in between.

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These films shouldn't be confused with ''Anime/ResidentEvilDegeneration'', ''Anime/ResidentEvilDamnation'', and ''Anime/ResidentEvilVendetta''. ''Degeneration'', ''Damnation'', and ''Vendetta'' explicitly follow the canon of the games; these live-action films integrate parts of the video game canon, but follow their own unique canon.

In the first film, which this page covers, a young woman named Alice (Creator/MillaJovovich) awakens to find herself in an empty mansion with little-to-no memory of her past. After soldiers burst through the doors, they take her with them into the Hive, an underground bioresearch facility situated beneath the mansion. Alice, the strike team, and two tagalongs found in the Hive discover an unspeakable secret within the facility that the Umbrella Corporation wants hidden away for good: The company has developed a bioweapon far beyond anything the world has ever known. As Umbrella's response unit hunts for the cause of the devastation within the lab, the result of that devastation soon becomes clear: The dead have come back to life, and they hunger for fresh flesh!

A ContinuityReboot of the films, titled ''Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City'', is set to release in 2021. The film also takes place in its own continuity separate from the games, but is said to be TruerToTheText by specifically being a direct adaptation of the stories of [[VideoGame/ResidentEvil1 the first]] [[VideoGame/ResidentEvil2 two games]].

* OhCrap: The {{famous last word|s}} of One, right before he gets sliced into chunks by the LaserHallway trap:

* CruelAndUnusualDeath: The laser room deaths. [[spoiler:One ends up sliced into itty bitty pieces by the Red Queen's lasers.]]

* {{Fingore}}: [[spoiler:Commando One has his fingers cut by the first laser and dies because out of shock. Also Rain has her fingers bit off several times by zombies.]]
* Foreshadowing:

** Matt says blood only coagulates after you're dead, indicating who attacked them was a zombie. Blood does indeed coagulate in living beings. In fact According to most articles, blood does coagulate in dead and living organisms which means Matt is mostly 100% correct. But there is a mistake. Blood doesn't just coagulate after your dead. Blood can also coagulate when you're alive due to blood clotting from specific conditions, diseases, and viruses as well as untreated injuries such as untreated cuts and bruises. Still, Matt was 100% correct.

** Matt says blood only coagulates after you're dead, indicating who attacked them was a zombie. Blood does indeed coagulate in living beings, and it doesn't in death; it separates.

* {{Fingore}}: [[spoiler:Commando One has his fingers cut by the first laser and dies because out of shock.]]
* {{Foreshadowing}}:

* HopeSpot: After [[spoiler:Rain]] is bitten and our remaining heroes are briefly trapped, [[spoiler:Kaplan]] pulls a BigDamnHeroes, the Mega-Licker finishes off [[spoiler:Spence]] for them, and they manage to get the antivirus he left behind, leave the Hive on the train, and inject [[spoiler:Rain. Then the Mega-Licker catches up to the train... oh, and the antivirus doesn't work.]]

** As ''Cracked'' [[http://www.cracked.com/article_18781_umbrella-most-wasteful-movie-corporation-ever.html notes above]], the highly-trained tactical team spends twenty minutes somehow ''not'' landing a headshot on the zombies. [[ATeamFiring They hit the walls, the floor, and the locks on the containment units.]]

* KillItWithFire: How the Licker meets its end, though admittedly all Alice was hoping to do was crush it under the train. The fire was just an added bonus.

* AdaptationalBadass: The zombies. In the games, a headshot wasn't necessarily required to bring down a zombie. Enough bullets (or even knife slashes) to the main body was enough to kill one. Here, it is established that only massive trauma to the brain or severing the top of the spinal collumn will do the job.

* AdaptationalBadass: The zombies. In the games, a headshot wasn't necessarily required to bring down a zombie. Enough bullets (or even knife slashes) to the main body was enough to kill one. Here, it is established that only massive trauma to the brain or severing the top of the spinal collumn will do the job.

''Resident Evil'' is a series of live-action films based ''[[InNameOnly very]]'' loosely on the video games of [[Franchise/ResidentEvil the same name]]. It includes the following films:

* AIIsACrapshoot: Mostly subverted. The team is told that the Red Queen has gone homicidal for no reason, but it is the Queen's job to contain possible outbreaks, which she did perfectly. True, she killed a couple hundred people, but that was required to keep the outbreak from escaping the Hive. And it's ''nothing'' to the destruction that follows in the sequels as a direct result of Umbrella breaking her quarantine. However, as soon as it's revealed she can speak wherever she wants and decides to only do so ''at the very last moment'' before they pull the plug on her, and that the only thing she can say is "''Please, don't turn me off. Get out!''", it's somewhat played straight.

''Resident Evil'' is a series of live-action films based loosely on the video games of [[Franchise/ResidentEvil the same name]]. It includes the following films:

--> '''Rain:''' (covered in gore and bites) When I get out of here, I am getting laid!\\

* NotSoStoic: Badass ActionGirl Rain is openly crying in the background in the scene where Kaplan is separated from the group.

* BraidsOfAction: Rain, as the Vasquez of this film, has her hair sensibly tied back in a braid.

* DullSurprise: While not ''entirely'' dull, Rain reacts to a zombie (believing it to be an ordinary person at first) biting her hand with mere annoyance.

%%* EvilInc: Umbrella.

* FinalGirl: [[spoiler:Alice is the only one able to escape the Hive without getting killed or infected. She does get "infected" after she escapes, though.]]

* ShesGotLegs: Alice.

* SpicyLatina: Rain.

* CruelAndUnusualDeath: The laser room deaths. [[spoiler:One ends up sliced into itty bitty pieces by the Red Queen's lasers.]] This is followed by:

* {{Fingore}}: [[spoiler:Commando 1 has his fingers cut by the first laser and dies because out of shock.]]

** One is literally ''diced'' by a grid of beams, but we only see the blurry image of his reflection as he's falling to bits.

* HalfTheManHeUsedToBe: [[spoiler: Commando 2 attempt to jump the second laser and is cut in half when the laser goes up.]]

* NecessarilyEvil: The Red Queen qualifies big time. [[spoiler:Yes, she did murder the entire Umbrella research facility staff, but she was only following her main directive to prevent a T-virus outbreak.]] Her actions are probably the most sensible out of anyone in the entire series when it comes to containing a T-virus outbreak. Her actions are brutal, but effective [[spoiler:at least until Umbrella unseals the facility and lets all the zombies loose.]] [[spoiler:When the series hits the fifth film, however, she seems to have gone full-on evil.]]

* RestartTheWorld: [[spoiler:This turns out to be Umbrella's EvilPlan: use the T-Virus to wipe out humanity while their chosen survivors ride it out in cold sleep, then re-emerge to rebuild the world in their image.]]

* SurprisinglySuddenDeath: This happens ''four times'' in the first film -- once in the laser trap scene, once with the "dining room" attack scene, and twice with the Licker. This continues in the sequels.

* TooDumbToLive: Each one of Umbrella's security units that show up onscreen are really dumb to the point they have made it very easy for the ZombieApocalypse to happen. One's unit didn't even bother to ask why the Red Queen had gone homicidal until it was too late. Later, Umbrella sends in another unit to reopen the Hive immediately after the first one. When this unit's confronts by Alice, who works for them and knows everything that happened down there, their knee-jerk reaction is to drug her and take her away for testing viral infection.

* ZombieApocalypse: The start of one anyway. The zombies are contained inside the facility, but they could, and inevitably do, escape.

In the first film, which this page covers, a young woman named Alice (Creator/MillaJovovich) awakens to find herself in an empty mansion with little-to-no memory of her past. After soldiers burst through the doors, they take her with them into The Hive, an underground bioresearch facility situated beneath the mansion. Alice, the strike team, and two tagalongs found in The Hive discover an unspeakable secret within the facility that the Umbrella Corporation wants hidden away for good: The company has developed a bioweapon far beyond anything the world has ever known. As Umbrella's response unit hunts for the cause of the devastation within the lab, the result of that devastation soon becomes clear: The dead have come back to life, and they hunger for fresh flesh!

* AIIsACrapshoot: Mostly subverted. The team is told that the Red Queen has gone homicidal for no reason, but it is the Queen's job to contain possible outbreaks, which she did perfectly. True, she killed a couple hundred people, but that was required to keep the outbreak from escaping The Hive. And it's ''nothing'' to the destruction that follows in the sequels as a direct result of Umbrella breaking her quarantine. However, as soon as it's revealed she can speak wherever she wants and decides to only do so ''at the very last moment'' before they pull the plug on her, and that the only thing she can say is "''Please, don't turn me off. Get out!''", it's somewhat played straight.

** A white rabbit is used to test the T-virus.

* AndTheAdventureContinues: [[spoiler:At the end of the movie, Alice wakes up again alone and confused, apparently facing a T-virus outbreak, just like at the start.]]

* BoomHeadshot: Most zombies, since it's their weakpoint. [[spoiler:Also happen to [=J.D=] and Rain.]]

* CruelAndUnusualDeath: The laser room deaths. [[spoiler: One ends up sliced into itty bitty pieces by the Red Queen's lasers.]] This is followed by:

* EasyAmnesia: Both Alice and [[spoiler:Spence]] become amnesic shorty after the T-virus outbreak in the Hive.

* EvilElevator: In the opening sequence, when [[spoiler: the Hive's employees get wiped out.]]

* FaceHeelRevolvingDoor: The Red Queen's sole purpose is to keep the virus contained, and she won't help the strike team if it means the virus has any chance of escaping. All things considered, that's her job and she's got a point. [[spoiler:As of the fifth film, she seems to have gone full heel.]]

* {{Fingore}}: [[spoiler: Commando 1 has his fingers cut by the first laser and dies because out of shock.]]
* FromBadToWorse: Every film has more than a few examples. For example, the team shut down the Red Queen, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero only to release what she was trying to keep locked up]].

** During the initial purge of everyone in the hive, the camera cuts away at the last second before a woman is decapitated by an elevator.

* NeckSnap: Rain breaks a zombie's neck by twisting it. Alice snaps zombie necks three times, once with MurderousThighs and twice by kicking them in the head.

* OhCrap: The [[FamousLastWords famous last word]] of One, right before he gets sliced into chunks by the LaserHallway trap: "''Shit''".
* OurZombiesAreDifferent: These zombies exist because of science -- specifically, a virus. A cure exists, but doesn't have much reliability even when administered soon after infection. The T-virus zombies move slow, and any head trauma (not just a shot to the head) will kill them; Alice kills two zombie dogs by kicking one in the head and smashing the other's head with a paperweight, while Rain kills a zombie by snapping her neck.

* RestartTheWorld: [[spoiler:This turns out to be Umbrella's EvilPlan: use the T-virus to wipe out humanity while their chosen survivors ride it out in cold sleep, then re-emerge to rebuild the world in their image.]]

* RuleOfCool: The whole series invokes this rule by the boatload, but special notice for this film goes to the LaserHallway. The Red Queen could've just killed everyone right away by using the "laser grid" on the first pass. Watching the grid adapt to the victims' attempts to avoid it and take them down one by one makes for a much more awesome scene, though.
* SequelHook: [[spoiler: Alice walks out of the hospital to find that she's in a deserted [[ZombieApocalypse (except for zombies)]] Raccoon City]].

* StabTheSalad: The Red Queen computer demands that the remaining protagonists chop off Rain Ocampo's head (because she's infected with the T-virus) before she'll let the rest of them go. Alice appears to agree. She raises up the axe, the music swells, and...Alice chops into the video monitor the Red Queen has been using to talk to them.

* TakeMyHand: Rain to JD. It doesn't work so well.
* TemptingFate: JD after entering the door code.

* TongueTrauma: Alice pins the Licker's tongue to the grill in the train-car's floor with a sharp piece of pipe.
* TooDumbToLive: Each one of Umbrella's security units that show up onscreen are really dumb to the point they have made it very easy for the ZombieApocalypse to happen. One's unit didn't even bother to ask why the Red Queen had gone homicidal until it was too late. Later, Umbrella sends in another unit to reopen the Hive immediately after the first one. When this unit's confronts by Alice, who works for them and knows everything that happened down there, their knee-jerk reaction is to drug her and take her away for testing viral infection. This brings up a question: If they knew the reason why the Hive was locked away was because of the T-virus, why did they even bother opening it up again? It's like they wanted to have a reason to open the Hive and bring forth TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt.

* VillainBall: The Umbrella clean-up team sent to investigate The Hive reveal that the Red Queen has a timer running on the facility. The T-virus broke loose and infected everything within the facility, so when the Queen's timer counts down to zero, all of The Hive's entrances will permanently seal shut. Nothing gets in or out. This seems pretty smart so far. [[IdiotBall Umbrella does not agree with this]]. Not only does the system have a built-in override, but the team sent to override the system contains five people. ''[[ZombieApocalypse Guess what happens when they override the system?]]''

* YouKeepUsingThatWord: Despite the T-Virus being called a protean virus and mentioned as being capable of switching to airborne transmission, the characters never express concern that merely breathing the air could get them infected. The initial infection spread when a canister of the virus was shattered and the virus entered The Hive's air system, but once Alice and the strike team meet the zombies head-on, the virus has evaporated and bites seem to be the only way for anyone to actually become infected. The novelizations say the T-virus has an airborne variant with a hot zone, and this is the initial deployment method, but the virus soon reverts to the non-airbourne variant (with all the people-eating that entails). The film hints at this when the Red Queen notes that the transmission method depends on environment, but doesn't say it outright.