Resident Evil: Death Island is the latest CG direct-to-video movie in this long-running game franchise. The movie takes place in 2015 when another terrorist decides to start infecting the populace. Leon, Claire, Jill, Rebecca, and Chris all get tangled up in a plot revolving around Alcatraz.
That’s right, the once famous prison island is now being overrun by zombies and only these five heroes can save the day. The plot is straightforward without many mysteries left lingering but fans will surely get a kick out of the nods to the series in Resident Evil: Death Island. Let’s not delay the inevitable and cite some of the best Easter Eggs and facts in the movie.
WARNING! Spoilers ahead.
8 Jill And Leon
There are a lot of scenes in sewers in the series. Resident Evil 2 might be the most iconic setting overall. In Alcatraz, Jill falls into a sewer and has to fight zombies off with a knife. This thing is so powerful that it might as well be a lightsaber.
Knives have never been that useful in the series, so this inclusion may be a joke for the fans as if to say, “Knives are only good in the movies.” That’s not the fun fact or Easter Egg though. In the sewers, Jill meets Leon for the first time which is huge since they are such giant players in the franchise.
7 Dr. Taylor’s Mention Of Harvardville
Dr. Taylor escapes from Dylan and Maria early on in the movie. He hides himself in a cupboard before he is eventually found by Chris and the others. When Claire brings up TerraSave, Dr. Taylor remembers where he knows Claire from. He declares her a terrorist because she was involved in the Harvardville incident.
This is a reference to the movie, Resident Evil: Degeneration, which is where TerraSave was first introduced. The aforementioned incident involved a bio attack at the Harvardville Airport.
6 The Clothing Choices
The outfits of the main characters change a lot throughout the series. Chris' outfit looks like the one from Resident Evil 6. Claire’s red jacket looks like the one from Resident Evil: Revelations 2. Jill’s design is the most puzzling because it looks like her model was lifted directly from the remake of Resident Evil 3: Nemesis.
Her face is a match along with her short hair and outfit. In Resident Evil 4, her hair was long and blonde, so it’s an odd choice to use the remake of Resident Evil 3: Nemesis as a character reference. One final link to the fifth game could be Maria’s outfit as it looks like a pink version of what Jill wore.
5 Music Cues
This series doesn’t have as many iconic music tracks that link every game together unlike Final Fantasy, as one example. The only exception to this is the Safe Room music. If viewers listen real closely, they can hear what sounds like notes from this song throughout Resident Evil: Death Island.
The first time it can clearly be heard is after the bike chase involving Maria and a determined Leon. After she gets away, Leon looks after her, and the notes sort of pop up.
4 The Beach Calls Back To Resident Evil: Revelations
There is one major beach scene in this franchise and it’s from Resident Evil: Revelations. This game was a big deal at the time because it gave players the ability to control Jill again for the first time since Resident Evil 3: Nemesis.
The span between those two games was 13 years, and now fans have been waiting to play her again for another 11 years. History aside, Resident Evil: Revelations has an early scene wherein Jill has to scan infected lifeforms on a beach for the BSAA. In Resident Evil: Death Island, Claire is called out to investigate an infected whale.
3 Ingrid Hunnigan Appears As A Voice
Ingrid Hunnigan, as Ned from Spider-Man: Homecoming puts it, is the girl in the chair. She is introduced in Resident Evil 4 as Leon’s contact to help guide him on his mission to rescue the President’s daughter, Ashley.
She hasn’t had a huge role in the series except for a disembodied voice, but fans still dig her. Agent Hunnigan appears very briefly in the movie while talking to Rebecca. The two of them share information about the bio incident at Alcatraz along with how Leon is involved in all of this.
2 The Sea Creature Could Be A Neptune
When Chris and the others are sailing to Alcatraz, a giant monster can be seen in the water. The movie never gives viewers a great closeup of the beast before Dylan fuses with it but it could be a Neptune. A Neptune was a short-lived creature in the games, primarily in Resident Evil and Resident Evil Outbreak.
They were genetically enhanced sharks that were bred to kill. Since Lickers also appear in the movie, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine the designers wanting to add another nod to a long-forgotten monster from the Resident Evil series.
1 The Plasma Rifle
Jill’s design is not the only callback to the remake of Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. The climax of the movie shows Jill, Leon, Claire, Rebecca, and Chris all fighting the mutated Dylan. It’s an epic fight wherein they are practically throwing everything but the kitchen sink at this creature.
Eventually, Jill finds a plasma rifle that has to charge up before it can be used. In the remake of Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, this is how Jill can defeat the mutated version of Nemesis except that weapon was specifically a railgun.