I’m on a hunt for the scariest movies of all time! I’ll be looking at films of any era, from any country, and then reviewing them based solely on how terrifying they are.

If you have a suggestion for a horror movie, please let me know on Bluesky.

Please be advised, spoilers may lie ahead!!

Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010)

Director: Paul W. S. Anderson

Starring: Milla Jovovich, Ali Larter

Resident Evil week is a wonderful time here at EZIYODA, where we combine fresh, fascinating opinions with some fun staples, like ranking the safe rooms of a particular game.

Tragically, it is also typified by another tradition that is anything but memorable. I can only put it off for so long, so yes, we must curse ourselves with yet another edition of The All-Time Scariest, and more specifically, the fourth entry in Paul W. S. Anderson’s self-indulgent fapfest.

To be transparent with you, this may well be the shortest entry yet, because there is hardly any meat left on the scarybone to even pontificate on. I hate these movies so much, but thankfully I hate myself just that little bit more, so I’m willing to punish myself yet again.

When we last left our protagonist Alice (Jovovich) in Resident Evil: Extinction, she was going solo yet again as she sought to bring down the Umbrella Corporation. By now, she is a one-woman army in the literal sense, equipped with powers that render her a nigh-unstoppable demigod, as well as a bevy of clones at her disposal.

The action opens at Umbrella’s Tokyo headquarters, which brought me a false sense of optimism as it dawned on me that a run-down post-apocalyptic Japan could make for a great setting. It’s only temporary however, because it’s just a vehicle for Alice to go in with guns blazing and do her thing.

That thing, incidentally, remains insufferable, punctuated by highly unnecessary slow motion close-ups as if we’re supposed to be excited. In the opening fight scene, while I watched our heroine mow down a battalion of Umbrella grunts, I literally muttered, “I hate this so much.”

The appeal of a zombie franchise is that humans are fragile yet courageous, right? In the Andersonverse, Alice is not in danger. She is the danger. But worry not, because Pauly Boy’s got an ace up his sleeve to even the odds.

In a move that was done much, much better against Shigaraki in My Hero Academia, Alice is injected with the t-Virus, stripping her of her supernatural abilities and making her oh so much more compelling.

She links back up with Claire Redfield (Larter) who has been running through the Alaskan wilderness for an indiscernible period of time as the result of a mind control device, and the two head for Los Angeles. By this time, the previously filthy Claire is now squeaky clean and looks immaculate. Did Alice wash her and give her a makeover? That sounds kinda hot, but it doesn’t make a lick of sense.

Again, we’re not talking about scary stuff yet, because there’s just not much scary there to begin with. But at least now I put that Claire shower visual in your head. You’re welcome.

Upon their arrival, they meet a group of survivors holed up in a penitentiary, and at last we enter the crux of the film. Aside from the opening credits, this is the first time we have seen zombies in the fucking zombie movie, thirty minutes into its runtime. If this was because we were setting the scene through storytelling like The Exorcist or hell, even the first Resident Evil, that would be more tolerable.

But no, we had to wait half an hour so that Alice could Alice to the delight of her husband and nobody else. Also, she keeps making video logs and I cannot for the life of me figure out how she is charging her camera.

So what we have here is a Dawn of the Dead-type scenario, with the clock ticking on the safe house before the zombies come flooding in. It’s a solid premise that Romero used to create a horror classic so many years ago — but of course, that’s when it’s done well.

Because of the cartoonish capabilities of the core protagonists, the zombies feel incidental, almost as if the movie could just as easily be about a sinking ship instead of undead ghouls. Even Claire, who is supposed to be a regular human being, is flipping off of walls and doing gonzo shit that defies belief.

It feels entirely out of place against the other expendable survivors, who are pointless participants in the narrative whose deaths feel equally as pointless. Seriously, Alice does not give a fuck as she watches them get picked off one after another.

This disparate separation between the ones who will obviously live and the ones who obviously won’t really cheapens the stakes for either party. Like I keep saying, relatability is what makes horror scary, and it is simply impossible to invest in anyone whatsoever. While I absolutely despised Extinction, it at least made a (poor) attempt at maintaining tension. Beyond some cheap fucking jump scares that didn’t even make me raise an eyebrow, Afterlife is just an action movie with some monsters in it.

As awful as all of that is, Anderson at least had an excuse this time, insomuch the source material had all but left its roots in the dust. The development of this film took place around the time Resident Evil 5 hit store shelves, and it takes a great many cues from that silly, roided up romp through Africa.

I will continue to deride Alice for the rest of my days, but I am totally onboard for the stupid final showdown when her and the Redfield siblings face off against Wesker (Shawn Roberts). Roberts is a revelation in the role, chewing the set so much that you’d think the walls would come crashing down.

So at least Afterlife has that going for it, because otherwise its biggest saving grace is the fact that it’s not Resident Evil: Extinction. Seriously, fuck that movie.

Final Verdict

Even when the Resident Evil films are following blueprints laid down by classic zombie flicks, they fail to maintain the integrity of the medium whatsoever. Afterlife is somehow less scary than its distinctly un-scary predecessors, offering a clear parallel to the similarly action-skewed games of the era.

At the very least, it leans into its stupid in a way that is somehow fitting to those same games, trading in its scream factor with guffaw-inducing schlock. It’s worth watching for Wesker alone, as well as seeing Ali Larter soaking wet. No, I’m not ashamed to admit that.