Wait a minute. The Walking Dead kid himself made a RESIDENT EVIL movie? Yep, you read that right. Chandler Riggs, best known to horror fans for playing Carl Grimes on AMC’s THE WALKING DEAD, has written, directed and starred in a 20-minute RESIDENT EVIL short film titled BIOHAZARD. The longtime fan of Capcom’s survival horror franchise has brought one of the most memorable sequences from RESIDENT EVIL 7: BIOHAZARD to live action, and the short is available to watch now.
Riggs takes on the role of Ethan Winters, the unfortunate soul who finds himself trapped in a nightmare after searching for his missing wife. The short recreates the game’s infamous garage confrontation with Jack Baker, played by fellow THE WALKING DEAD alum Jason Douglas. Jack is the patriarch of the infected Baker family, and if you’ve played the game, you already know that getting stuck in a room with this guy is not exactly an ideal situation.
The project also reunites Riggs with Greg Nicotero, the legendary makeup and special effects artist who helped bring THE WALKING DEAD’s undead hordes to life. Nicotero, co-founder of KNB EFX, provided the special effects for BIOHAZARD, helping bring the game’s grotesque world into a live-action setting. Mary Rachel Quinn, Eugenie Bondurant, Johnathan O’Neil and Sam Coyles round out the cast.
WATCH “BIOHAZARD” BELOW
Riggs didn’t set out to make a feature-length blockbuster. Instead, he wanted to bring a specific moment from RESIDENT EVIL 7 to the screen and give fans a taste of what a faithful live-action adaptation could look like. The timing is pretty interesting, too, as production on BIOHAZARD was already underway when news broke that Zach Cregger, director of BARBARIAN and WEAPONS, was tackling his own RESIDENT EVIL movie.
Riggs told IGN that the announcement caught the team during pre-production, prompting them to try to finish their short before Cregger’s project moved further along. The two productions obviously operate on very different scales, but it’s fascinating to see a passionate fan project arrive during another major chapter for the franchise.
Of course, adapting a video game into a live-action film comes with its own set of challenges. RESIDENT EVIL 7 is famously played from a first-person perspective, placing players directly in Ethan’s shoes. BIOHAZARD shifts to a third-person perspective, allowing audiences to see Riggs as Ethan rather than experiencing the entire story through his eyes. Riggs acknowledged that this was a significant departure from the source material, but one he felt was necessary to make the story work in live action.
You be the judge of the film, but we think he did an excellent job, all in under 30 minutes. That fits our attention span perfectly.