Director – Brandon Salisbury, Screenplay – Robbie McGregor & Brandon Salisbury, Producers – Thomas Touhey & Joel Welsh, Photography – Tom Robenolt. Production Company – Key 13 Films/Point Five Films.
Alex Aniel, Matt Blazi, George Demick, Normal England, Kenichi Iwao, Pat Jankiewicz, Michael Felsher, Charlie Kraslavsky, Jim Krut, Michael McGee, James Rolfe, Rombie, Ben Rubin, Christian Stavrakis, J.J. Trulock, John Wrightson
George A. Romero (1940-27) was a cult director. Romero’s cult rests on his having created the modern Zombie Film with Night of the Living Dead (1968). This was a sleeper hit and Romero followed that success with two sequels Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Day of the Dead (1985). The financial flop of the latter put paid to any further zombie films and Romero went on to other projects for a number of years. The 2000s brought a major revival of the zombie film, including several sequels to and remakes of Romero’s earlier works. In the midst of this, Romero was given further funding to make new zombie films with Land of the Dead (2005), Diary of the Dead (2007) and Survival of the Dead (2009).
Just predating the zombie revival of the 2000s was the videogame Resident Evil (1996), originally titled Biohazard, from the Japanese company Capcom, which substantially drew inspiration from Romero’s zombie films. Then came the news that Romero had been hired to direct a thirty second commercial for the release of the game Resident Evil 2 (1998). This was followed by the announcement that Romero has signed on to direct and write a film adaptation of Resident Evil for the German production company Constantin Film, who held the film rights to the game. This dragged on for some time before the announcement by Capcom that Romero had been fired. The film eventually went ahead with Paul W.S. Anderson’s Resident Evil (2002), followed by a string of sequels.
George A. Romero’s Resident Evil comes in the vein of various other Documentaries made about troubled or legendarily unmade productions such as Lost in La Mancha (2002), Jodorowsky’s Dune (2013), Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau (2014), The Death of “Superman Lives”: What Happened? (2015) and Doomed: The Untold Story of Roger Corman’s The Fantastic Four (2015). Here director Brandon Salisbury sets out to explore what happened concerning the unmade Romero Resident Evil film. The film is a directorial debut for Salisbury who says that he was a fan of Romero and his films since childhood.
Salisbury starts out with the familiar – charting the basic career trajectory of George Romero, his making Night of the Living Dead and his other films. There is nothing here that is new and uncharted, just the covering of overly familiar ground. The documentary gains more teeth when it gets to discussion of the development of the Resident Evil game. We get interview time with Capcom story planner Kenichi Iwao who was instrumental in some of the character designs and game story elements. The last third of the film is a long tribute to the late Romero where most of this seems focused around people who were fans but had no or very limited access to Romero and any of his productions.
The bulk of the film focuses around the Resident Evil commercial that George Romero directed and then the discussion around his planned version of the film. There are various clips of the commercials and shots from the set. Unfortunately, the material devoted to Romero’s proposed Resident Evil film is limited. There is a lack of interviews with any of the people who were involved – the principals, Romero and Constantin head Bernd Eichinger, have passed away, while there is no input on this from Capcom. There was no footage of the film that was ever shot. At most, the documentary is stuck with quoting articles that were written about the production (which were often lacking key information or merely speculative) and showing Berni Wrightson’s design for one of the monsters. The most substantial input comes from the various treatments and scripts held at the George A. Romero Archive at the University of Pittsburgh. There is a narrator who goes through a detailed synopsis of the script (and Alan B. McElroy’s previous script), offering commentary.
It is not even clear why Romero was removed from the Resident Evil film. Statements were made by Capcom that Romero had been fired but Romero seemed to have no idea about this. There was speculation that it was just his script that would not be used and that he would continue to direct. The most substantial argument offered seems to be that Romero wrote the type of script that Romero usually does – one that wades heavily in gore – and that this was seen as non-commercial. Elsewhere, we get various quotes from Bernd Eichinger that he disliked violence and bloodshed. It is seen that this was the reason that Constantin went with the Paul W.S. Anderson version where zombies were de-emphasised and more given over to the action element. There are comparisons made between the Romero and Anderson versions where Romero’s is seen as being much more faithful to the first game, whereas Anderson introduces and focuses around new characters like Alice that are not part of the game.
Perhaps the most frustrating thing about George A. Romero’s Resident Evil is the lack of material screened. There is material from Night of the Living Dead, which is in public domain, and some clips from the Resident Evil games and Romero’s commercial. However, other films discussed throughout only appear on a grainy tv set that has then been filmed. There is a credit at the very start dealing with ‘fair use copyright’ exemptions and you wonder if Brandon Salisbury has made his film without getting clearance for any of the clips.
Trailer here