Even while 2016’s Resident Evil: The Final Chapter was in theaters, it was announced that the series would be getting a film reboot. The newly released Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City delivers on that promise. It takes the franchise from the hyper-action sci-fi series we’re used to and returns it back to its horror roots. The team behind the film also loaded it up with a ton of Resident Evil Easter eggs gamers love to see but that average film goers may have missed.
Warning! There will be spoilers going forward!
In the video game series, gamers had to contend with zombie dogs. They were Dobermans that had been infected with the T-Virus and had become grotesque feral zombie dogs that were hard to fight off. In the film, we see early on that Claire Redfield has come back to Raccoon City by way of hitchhiking. She has caught a ride with a lecherous truck driver who has a Doberman as his riding companion.
A woman wanders out into the road and gets hit by the trucker. They jump out of the truck to figure out what to do only to have the woman disappear while they are arguing. The trucker’s dog jumps out and begins to lick up the blood and goop left behind by the woman. After a few more scenes we see that the dog has become infected and bites its owner. Later the dog ends up chasing down some characters at the police station and by now has started to rot away as it becomes more vicious.
In Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City, while Claire is breaking into her brother’s house she sees the neighbor boy in the window, and he is obviously sick, hinting at one of the more abstract Easter eggs. His hair has become stringy and begun to fall out. The child’s mother walks up to the window and closes the curtains. Before she does, we notice she also seems to be suffering from the same ailment.
Later, Claire looks up to see the mother writing the words “ITCHY TASTY” on the door window in blood. In the original Resident Evil game, you stumble upon The Keeper’s Journal. If you read through it the entries begin to get shorter as the language of the infected person begins to break down. The last entry in the journal simply reads “Itchy. Tasty”.
In the games, a vital item to survive through each level is the trusty First Aid Spray. Gotta keep that health bar up. We don’t get to see anyone in the film pull out an aerosol can of First Aid Spray and heal all their wounds. The Umbrella Corporation wants you to think that it could be possible though.
During the first scene of the film at the Raccoon City Orphanage, a print advertisement showcases the First Aid Spray from Umbrella. The artwork for the item looks just like gamers remember it from the game. It’s too bad we didn’t get a scene of Jill Valentine grabbing a can to help her cuts and scrapes go away.
The set design team did a terrific job in Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City. They got blueprints from the game designers to help create some of the sets in the film to make them as accurate as possible. One big piece that looks identical to the game is the gates leading into the orphanage. The front is covered in colorful artwork to make it seem like a happy magical place, even though what is going on inside is anything but.
In the Resident Evil 2 remake from 2018, they added this design element into the game and the filmmakers took that and put it directly into the movie. When we see the location a large cartoon raccoon and what looks like an oddly colored giraffe adorn the front gates while the colorful lettering let us know we’re at the orphanage.
When we first meet Wesker, Jill Valentine, and the rest of the S.T.A.R.S. team they are at the local diner grabbing some food before they head off to their late shift at the police station. During their conversations, Jill just throws out a general question. How would you like to die? Swallowed whole by a giant snake or eaten by a great white shark?
Game fans will know this refers to different endings of the original game. Depending on the scenario you decide to take the character of Richard Aiken can either end up swallowed by a giant snake or eaten alive by a T-Virus infected great white shark.
Towards the end of the film. Claire and Leon are searching for a hidden passageway from the orphanage to the Spencer Mansion. With the help of the only resident left in the orphanage Lisa Trevor, they find a set of keys. Each key has a different head on them depicting a suit from a deck of playing cards.
If you’re not a gamer, then the keys may seem weird. Why these specific keys are designed like this is never mentioned or even brought up again. Fans of the Resident Evil 2 game will know that in order to get around to different parts of the map you have to find coded keys that are designed like the suits in a deck of cards.
Along with First Aid Spray, herbs are the best way to stay healthy in the original game. You’ll be fighting off a zombie and noticed in the corner of the room is a potted herb plant. You pick it up to keep the adventure going. If you were looking at the background of the mansion during the film, you may have seen some familiar-looking plants. The sprawling set had a lot of cool design things going on. When it came to the plants around the mansion the design team specifically mimicked the look of the herbs.
At the beginning of the movie, we see that the film is set on September 30, 1998. One character ends up getting information sent to him by way of a Palm Pilot. They of course let him know that they had put it in his locker by way of his super new text beeper. Once he grabs it and starts walking around the Spencer mansion we see that it has a map layout of where he needs to go to find the hidden lab. This map looks a lot like the level map you could bring up in the game.
In the Resident Evil 2 game, you were able to unlock a new mode called “The 4th Survivor“. You play an agent named Hunk. In this mode, you tried to escape Raccoon City before its destruction with limited ammo and limited health supplies. His appearance of wearing all black including a black gas mask gave him a very Boba Fett quality. It’s never confirmed that it’s actually Agent Hunk, we do get to see a character in his usual getup.
The Umbrella Corporation begins to lock down Raccoon City after the outbreak starts. In order to keep citizens in the city, guards are located at every exit in town. When Donal Logue’s character of Chief Irons tries to get out of the city he ends up running across one of these guards at one of the stops. He seems very familiar to Resident Evil game fans everywhere, and was likely one of the more exciting Easter eggs.
The character of Wesker is known for being super cool. At least that’s what we’re supposed to take away from the fact that he wears sunglasses all the time in the game. After Wesker is dispatched in the film by Valentine, we thought we were never going to see him sporting those shades at all. When the film is over, we are treated to a post-credits scene where Wesker wakes up in a body bag. While trying to figure out where he is and what is going on the character of Ada Wong appears. She informs him that he died but has been brought back to life. When he says he can’t see she hands him a pair of dark sunglasses. It’s a side effect of the virus. If Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City gets a sequel, we’re guaranteed to see Wesker in his famous sunglasses.
Did you see any other Resident Evil: Raccoon City Easter eggs? Let us know in the comments.