Everything I Need to Know about the Zombie Apocalypse I Learned from “Resident Evil”

With the next installment of the Resident Evil franchise opening on September 14, Screen Gems asked us to let our listeners and readers know about how they can enter a contest for a chance to win a Zombie Survival Pack.

That got us thinking: how can Resident Evil help us help ourselves when the zombies come knocking? You know what happens when you get geeks thinking…

So Meghan came up with a list of handy tips for us!

Everything I need to know about the zombie apocalypse I learned by watching Resident Evil

Big corporations will manufacture zombies. It’s not alien, supernatural, or an accident. It’s not just humans vs. zombies, but humans vs. zombies vs. Wall Street. When will the government step in and regulate the manufacture of zombies by big businesses? The main villain throughout the series is the Umbrella Corporation who purposefully began reanimating dead tissue to create bio-weapons like the Licker at the end of Resident Evil, creating Nemesis and experimenting on Alice in Resident Evil: Apocalypse, and trying to domesticate the zombies in Resident Evil: Extinction.

The government doesn’t want to deal with a zombie outbreak. They will just let private corporations like Umbrella quarantine a town, destroy it with a tactical nuclear strike, and then cover it up. (Resident Evil: Apocalypse)

The Zombie Virus will jump species and not be limited to just humans. Be prepared to fight zombie dogs, crows, and hippopotami. Both Resident Evil: Apocalypse and Extinction all contained zombie Dobermans. The opening narration to Extinction implied the T-virus killed every living thing, leaving the entire world a barren wasteland/desert. I suppose this means zombie plants? Extinction also had a sequence where Claire Redfield’s caravan is swarmed by zombie crows.

Survival means becoming a hoarder. Obviously you can never have enough guns and ammunition. Hoarding vehicles and gasoline, while difficult and requiring upkeep, proves useful. Vehicles make effective impromptu weapons, like Alice exploding the motorcycle, or LJ going “GTA” on the Raccoon City zombies in Apocalypse. A convoy of vehicles provides mobile community, shelter, and protection in Extinction. And, your post-apocalyptic community is going to need all the canned food it can get.

Guns and assorted weapons will only get you so far, so get some secret agent training. You’ll have the ability to fight your way out of a horde of zombies without getting infected, like Alice in Resident Evil (especially the scenes underground when they get totally swarmed). Or you can go hand to hand with a super zombie, like Nemesis at the end of Apocalypse.

Be aware of your surroundings, everything can become a weapon. There are lots of zombies to kill and lots of ways to kill them. Alice drags a bio-weapon underneath a train in Resident Evil. Jill uses the gas from cafeteria stoves to blow up zombie dogs in Apocalypse.

Lots of really slick, but fairly impractical, technology will be easily available. Umbrella can clone a woman indefinitely, but not create a more sustainable food source for themselves while they hide underground (Extinction). Seriously, clone a carrot or something while you wait out the zombie apocalypse. Nor can they create a stable anti-virus (according to the Red Queen AI in Resident Evil, it has to be administered within a short window after infection, like hours or something).

No matter how long you fight zombies with a person, no matter how many times they have to put down a turned friend, people will always hide their infection if they can… and then they will bite you. LJ, after years of fighting zombies, still hides the fact he’s been bitten, then proceeds to close people up in small spaces with him until he turns and almost kills a friend. (Extinction)

If you travel with kids, you will probably die trying to save those kids. A number of characters die saving Angela in Apocalypse. Betty sacrifices herself so a bus of people (lots of them children) have a chance to run from the zombie crows.

Things can always get worse than a mere apocalypse. There are at least three more levels of zombie hell worse than an apocalypse (an Extinction, an Afterlife, and a Retribution).

You can’t win against zombies. All you can do is try to survive. You either try and wait them out, like Umbrella waiting underground or the caravan traveling for an isolated part of Alaska, or you let an army of half-zombie super clones lead an assault on those responsible for the state of the world. (Extinction)

The only sure fire way to survive is for your DNA to bond with the zombie virus. Alice… that chick is never going to die and she has superpowers.

That’s what the Slice of SciFi crew came up with, mostly Meghan. Got any comments, or any Resident Evil tips to add? Leave a comment, or call in a voicemail!

Oh, and that Screen Gems contest info: For your chance to win a Resident Evil Zombie Survival Pack, including hand sanitizer and a Resident Evil t-shirt contest concluded, winners now have a better chance at survival!