George A. Romero's Resident Evil(2025)(Review)

Believe it or not, we were almost able to exist in the universe where legendary director George A. Romero directed the original ‘Resident Evil’ film. It’s been the stuff of legend ever since the internet was in its infancy, but over the last few years more and more details have been released as to what could have been, and what happened. What we have here is essentially a fan-made documentary, created by Brandon Salisbury, that details this wild ride of a story from start to finish.

Operating as a documentary that is half-focused on George A. Romero himself, and half-focused on the Resident Evil franchise (known as the ‘Biohazard’ franchise in Japan), this film features small live-action vignettes, multiple interviews with Capcom employees, fans, assistants to Romero, and more. It begins by covering Romero’s contribution to zombie-lore as a whole, all the way up to Resident Evil admitting it went from a typical haunted house setup to incorporate zombies because it felt so fresh during the 90s. And in the time between the first game and it’s sequel’s release, film studio Constantin films bought the rights to make the film with someone else entirely hired to write the script. But as time went on, Romero was hired to direct a live-action trailer for ‘Resident Evil 2’ in 1998 – which you can watch here:

With a rather high budget, he impressed everybody with the quality of the trailer which felt very much in his vain, but properly honored what Resident Evil was establishing. They then came to him regarding writing and directing the first live action movie – and his script has finally been dug up and shared online, so people can read what he had intended. But of course, Romero did not have good fortune when working with major film studios, and this basically became another victim to negotiations. The reasons it wasn’t progressed are extremely heart-breaking to hear, because the truth is what we learn through this documentary is how dark, gory, and proper scary this film could have been.

It’s a rather good documentary that covers a lot of ground and concludes by discussing his legacy after death, the George A. Romero Foundation, and so on. It’s very touching and motivational, but still angers me to know what we missed out on. If you’re already in the know about the details with this project, you’re more than likely not going to learn much here. But if you’re like me – someone whose a massive fan of both entities titled, and only have the basics of ideas with this situation – then I do believe you’ll make out with a sense of awe.

I find it hard to rate documentaries because the merits are totally different than a traditional film, but if I had to, I’d give this:

3.5/5

“George A. Romero’s ‘Resident Evil'” is currently available to rent/purchase on VOD services such as Vudu, Apple TV, and Amazon Prime.

‘Til Next Time,
Mike Cleopatra