Resident evil afterlife analysis

We open to a pattern of blinking lights, seen from the sky. It could be a distant constellation – but in fact it’s a city, specifically Tokyo. As we get closer, the neon-lit streets are full of people; it’s raining hard and, to the thumping drum-beat (the music is by trendy-sounding ), the camera slo-o-owly pans up a young woman’s legs, finally revealing the woman herself. She looks pale and. A harried Japanese salaryman walks towards her – and she suddenly attacks him, sinking her teeth into his flesh. The camera moves up and away with the street still in view, the city lights, then Japan itself turns to a city of flesh eating zombies.

The woman whose legs we just ogled being presumably Patient Zero in the zombie epidemic. It didn’t need to be there, of course, since Afterlife is the fourth instalment so Resident Evil fans know all about the back-story, but the whole scene is irresistibly cool and of course that’s the point. Afterlife is a very fetishised film, lingering over its visuals.