George A. Romero's Resident Evil

The existence of a documentary presupposes a couple of things: 1) There is a subject and a story to go with it 2) There is an audience for that subject and story Unmade movies are a natural fit for a documentary. A documentary about the unmade adaptation of the most successful horror video game franchise into a movie from one of horror's most iconic directors seems like a natural fit for a documentary. Key word here is "seems". I am no fan of Jodorowsky's Dune -- it is a shameless, simpering hagiography of a man with untenable ideas that are treated as unrealized gospel truths -- but that had something behind it: Jodorowsky had gotten a fair bit down the road. Locations were scouted, casting was well underway, and pre-production was beginning. There was enough there to get an idea of what Jodorowski had planned, and therefore enough for a documentary. Romero's work on a Resident Evil movie, on the other hand, never got past initial script drafts that were pitched to Constantin Pictures, the production company that held the rights. By the documentary's admission, Romero's total time spent working on the script was about a month. And, I can't stress this enough, ALL HE EVER DID WAS WRITE INITIAL SCRIPT DRAFTS. No casting. No scouting locations. No special effects design. It's all just reams of paper and the fantasy of what might've been. This documentary is TWO. HOURS. LONG. How do the documentarians fill the time? More padding than an NFL locker room. The first twenty (20) minutes is spent recapping the career of George Romero from Night Of The Living Dead up to the late 90's. Because surely the people who would be interested in a documentary about an unmade George Romero film wouldn't be familiar with George Romero's career. Horror fans aren't known for being enthusiastic and dedicated fans that consume content from their favorite creators with omnivorous abandon. The second twenty (20) minutes is spent recapping the history of the Resident Evil franchise, from the Japanese-only Famicom game that inspired it (Sweet Home) up to Resident Evil 2. Because surely the people who would be interested in a documentary about an unmade Resident Evil movie wouldn't be familiar with the games. Video game fans aren't known for being enthusiastic and dedicated fans that consume content from their favorite franchises with omnivorous abandon. Interspersed in here are stupid, D-grade "recreations" of actors going through a field and a mansion, similar to the live action cut scenes from the original Resident Evil. Lots of talking heads with tenuous-at-best connections to Romero or RE talking about how the deal came to be, and how it fell apart, often repeating each other's points. At least twenty (20) minutes of listening to a podcast of someone describing Romero's scripts, played over static shots of old-timey radios, bookshelves, and pictures of scripts that say RESIDENT EVIL on them. I cannot stress this enough that it is AT LEAST TWENTY MINUTES. There is nothing pertinent happening on screen. There isn't even a face to put with the voice. Just listening to someone summarize a script. The last twenty (20) minutes are people being sad about George Romero dying. Everybody has to tell their story of where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. And in case you don't feel like you're leaving on a down note, plenty of talk about Romero being bitter about recognition he felt he deserved. Because he wasn't recognized as the man who invented an entire horror subgenre. No, that wasn't good enough. Look, I'm not mad at the makers of this for loving Romero. I'm a horror fan. I've seen all his movies. I recognize the man's contributions. But the Renfield-like adoration of this man seen in this movie (someone actually says they saw people come to a movie set to "kiss the ring") is not enough to sustain a two hour documentary, and neither is him writing for a month. It's an infographic. It's a 10 minute YouTube video. It's #9 on a ScreenRant list of 10 Movies You Won't Believe Almost Got Made. But it is not a two hour documentary, and based on the amount of fluff and stuffing this has, it seems like the documentarians knew that. Of course, that begs the question: if they knew this story didn't have the framework to support a documentary of this length, why make it? I don't know. All I know is you can save yourself a lot of time by just reading an article on it if you're interested in the subject. There's nothing here of note that demands your attention.