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: Retribution (2012)

Director: Paul W. S. Anderson

Starring: Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez

What would Resident Evil week be without yet another Paul W. S. Anderson movie recap? A lot more enjoyable, I’m inclined to think, but I’m a sucker for tradition and a glutton for punishment. So let’s rip the fucking band-aid off once more.

Resident Evil: Retribution picks up right where Resident Evil: Afterlife left off, with good old Alice (Jovovich) under attack from an Umbrella squadron. With a mind-controlled Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory) heading up the onslaught, Alice is overwhelmed and taken to Umbrella HQ.

Here, she is imprisoned and tortured, wearing what appears to be two oversized napkins for the sole purpose of having Alice almost naked again (Anderson, you sly dog, you). A security breach allows her to escape her cell, where she meets up with a rescue squad commanded remotely by none other than Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts).

Apparently, Wesker has recognised that the fate of humanity rests in Alice’s hands, and so he has sent in a small unit of elite soldiers to extract her from Umbrella’s underwater compound. Included amongst them are Ada Wong (Li Bingbing), Leon Kennedy (Johann Urb) and Barry Burton (Kevin Durand), which means that more of your favourite Resident Evil heroes now get to enjoy being dragged into Alice’s all-encompassing gravitational pull.

I can just picture Anderson pulling each actor in close as he gave them directions like, “remember, your life is not as important as saving Alice, so make sure this comes across in your performance” or “every now and then, your character should suddenly think of Alice, and that inspires them to fight on against impossible odds”.

In order to liven up the proceedings (as well as cram in lots of sponsorship opportunities for brands like GameStop, Pepsi, and Rockstar energy drink), Alice’s escape route takes her through various simulations of the zombie outbreak. Each location has a new threat; New York City contains the hulking Executioners from the previous film, while Moscow is swarming with artillery-toting Las Plagas minions.

There’s lots of bullets, yeah! And explosions, boom! And you get to see Li Bingbing’s legs sometimes, wow! But is any of it scary? No, of course it isn’t. There’s one moment in particular where the camera pans around dynamically while Alice and Ada fend off the aforementioned Executioners. Neither of them looks rattled in the slightest, which is a helpful indicator of how we should feel as viewers — that is to say, completely unperturbed.

I must give credit for one scene, however. Following the opening assault sequence, we are placed in a peaceful suburban atmosphere, where Alice seems to be living happily alongside Carlos (Oded Fehr) and their daughter, Becky Chambers (Aryana Engineer).

The levity is short-lived, as Carlos is set upon by zombies, and Alice and Becky desperately try to escape from their clutches. It’s the closest this series has had to a proper jump scare since the first movie, and the portrayal of a zombie outbreak is plenty compelling. It only lasts 10 minutes, and we later learn that it is one of the many simulations that Umbrella have put together using clones, but damn if it wasn’t the most interesting part of this movie.

Speaking of clones, their presence allows for a plot convenient re-emergence of several characters from prior films, including James Shade (Colin Salmon) and Rain Ocampo (Rodriguez) — who you may remember as the Umbrella strike team from the first flick. Rodriguez even pulls double duty as an innocent citizen trapped in one of the simulations, meaning that her streak of dying in movies is bolstered by perishing not once, but twice!

Really, this movie is about cramming in as much familiar stuff as possible. Lickers are back, and they look much, much better than they did in 2002. One even briefly abducts Becky in order to manufacture additional tension, as well as a completely unearned replication of Aliens’ final act.

Despite the danger of the situation, you can be sure that everyone will remain completely glib and tongue-in-cheek at all times. In other words, this is just another stupid action movie that does absolutely nothing to justify its existence.

It might seem rote by now to assign zero paws to these films, but I’ll be damned if they don’t earn it. They’re just not scary at all, and not particularly interesting either unless you like watching a lot of pretty colours and shapes whiz about.

With that being said, I will confess that the casting for the proper Resident Evil characters is pretty fucking good, and seeing Barry pull out his trusty magnum was the perfect dose of fanservice.

Tragically, however, he did not declare that he had THIS, which feels like a missed opportunity in my book.

Final Verdict

The most impressive thing about Resident Evil: Retribution is how it manages to be overly busy while somehow achieving very little. It is mostly a vehicle for Alice to Alice all over the world within the space of an hour and a half, setting things up for the final showdown (and mercifully, the last movie in this godforsaken series).

That one little taste of the Raccoon City outbreak is such a tease, because it shows that this team is potentially capable of putting together a halfway decent zombie flick if they ever elected to do so. As always, they choose anything but, so another zero paws they shall receive.