Resident Evil is almost upon us, and it's more of a love letter to the video game franchise as a whole rather than a straight-up adaptation.
That being said, the movie is sprinkled with Easter eggs from throughout the franchise, focusing mostly on the earlier games. There are some ones you absolutely can't miss, but there are also a few that you might not have caught... which is perfectly understandable as the movie moves pretty quickly (and has a perfect 90-minute runtime, if I do say so myself).
Below, we've rounded up 10 Easter eggs from Zach Cregger's Resident Evil. Be warned: there are massive spoilers below. If you haven't seen the movie, turn back now!
First Aid Box / Organ Transplant Box
We love a double-nod to the games. In Resident Evil, our main character Bryan is a medical courier whose job is to carry transplant organs between hospitals. The first bag that he carries in the movie is the standard red bag with a white cross commonly used among hospitals. When he's tasked with the delivery of a lifetime, however, he's given a green bag with a white cross.
This green bag is a nod to the First Aid Box from Resident Evil Remake (which is an important distinction, as the First Aid Box tends to vary by game i.e. appearing gray in color in Resident Evil 3). When given the bag, Bryan assumes that he's he's delivering an organ transplant to Racoon City. In Resident Evil Requiem, the Organ Transplant Box is one of many puzzles, and the player has to open it in order to find the missing organs for that freaky body in the examination room.
Typewriter
Load up that save point. When Bryan enters the seemingly abandoned house in Resident Evil, he explores each room and turns on the light in an office upstairs. It's there that we see one of the most blatant Easter eggs of all: a typewriter. A typewriter is used throughout the earlier games as a location to save your progress, though it only works if you have a special ink ribbons. The ink ribbons are found lying around, and there aren't many: so you really have to apply some strategy if/when you decide to save your game.
Though the typewriter usually lets the player know that they're in a safe location... Bryan is far from safe in this room, and doesn't stay in it for long.
Shotgun-in-wall
It's not a trap! When Bryan is in the house looking for any semblance of help or normal human life, he grabs a shotgun off the wall. In Resident Evil 1, there's a shotgun mounted on a wall inside of a painting – and grabbing it will trigger the ceiling to fall down and immediately crush you. In Resident Evil 4, there's a shotgun sitting inside of a frame somewhere in the Village Square. The player must grab it, and then immediately look in the drawers around them for shotgun shells... which brings us directly to our next Easter Egg.
Heavyfield shotgun shells
After grabbing the shotgun, Bryan rips open every single drawer in the house in order to find bullets. Inside one of the drawers is a box of Heavy Field shotgun shells, the very same that the player finds in Resident Evil 4. Unlike Leon Kennedy, however, Bryan has no idea how guns work and struggles a bit to make it all happen before firing off a round at a mutated man located inside the house.
Green herb
It's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, but it's a good one. While still in the house, Bryan decides he's more or less safe inside the kitchen and makes a phone call to his girlfriend Michelle. To his left, we can see a green herb plant in a black vase with a gold stripe. Throughout the games, herbs are used to recover health and keep you from dying. They take various shapes and forms and be combined with other items, but the herb in the black and gold vase is specifically from Resident Evil 4.
Director Zach Cregger spoke out about this particular Easter egg, telling IGN: There's a plant, screen left, over his right shoulder, you can kind of see it," Cregger told IGN. "In the movie, the shot pulls out further and you can see it [better]. I took the green herb from Resident Evil 4 and I replicated the bucket exactly, you can see the bucket there at the very end of that shot with the horizontal copper striping on it and the herb is exact for Resident Evil 4."
Continues Cregger: "Even though this probably lives in the world of [Resident Evil] 2. I just wanted to use a little bit of 4 in here just because it's my favorite. And I have some other items from 4 scattered around in this movie that people will notice."
Cuckoo clock puzzle
I'll admit... this one might be a stretch. Inside the house, Bryan gets spooked by the sound of a cuckoo clock somewhere downstairs. There's a cuckoo clock puzzle in Resident Evil 4 during Ashley's section. You have to enter the correct time in order to open a passageway... or you're stuck there. Nothing jumps out at you or attacks you. You're just kind of stuck there forever.
A lot of houses have cuckoo clocks in horror movies, and a lot of horror movies use cuckoo clocks as a small jump scare... so it could be a reach. But given how many Resident Evil 4 references there are in this film, I wouldn't put it past Zach Cregger.
Umbrella Corporation lab
When Bryan gets picked up by Umbrella scientist Paul and Umbrella enforcer Maxine, they explain that there isn't an organ in that medical courier bag: it's actually an ingredient for the cure, and it needs to get to the lab on the very top floor of the hospital. Though Bryan nearly gives up, a voice over the intercom in the hospital's parking garage instructs him to get up to the 28th floor. When he does, the lab looks almost identical to the underground labs that are featured throughout the games... if not way brighter and a bit less sinister.
Sewers
It's Resident Evil 2 time, baby. In order to escape being chased by the now mostly-mutated residents of Racoon City, Bryan climbs down into the sewers. There, he encounters a bloated, rat-filled corpse, as well as that scary multiple-person mutated monster thing (that isn't in any of the games and was created just for the movie so we don't have a proper term for it yet).
In Resident Evil 2, Leon and Claire both have there moments wandering alone in the sewers and have to complete a few puzzles and kill a few zombies (including that giant G-Virus creature). Though Bryan isn't in the sewers for long, it's still a nice nod to those annoyingly difficult levels.
Adjule/Colmillos
Yes, a Doberman attacks Bryan at the house... but I don't think it's Cerebrus from Resident Evil 1. After breaking its head through the wooden barn, it opens its jaw to reveal tentacles and row after row of serrated teeth. The tentacles feel more akin to the mutated dogs from Resident Evil 4, known as the Colmillos, and the teeth feel like they were borrowed from the mutated dogs in Resident Evil 5, known as the Adjule. Because there is no one specific creature taken directly from any of the games, a hybrid creature seems the most likely.
Resident Evil hits theaters on September 18. For more, check out our Resident Evil review, or, check out our guide to all the upcoming movies you should know about.
