Zach Cregger‘s Resident Evil emphasized practical effects when bringing its monsters to life on screen, courtesy of Legacy Effects and SFX legend Shane Mahan (Godzilla: King of the Monsters, The Shape of Water, Underwater). Mahan breaks down some of those effects in an exclusive new clip from the film’s Digital release.
Austin Abrams (Whalefall, Weapons) stars in the film as Bryan, a medical courier who unwittingly finds himself in a non-stop race for survival as one fateful, horrifying night collapses around him in chaos.
That means no shortage of mutated dogs, people, and even babies to put Bryan through the wringer.
Watch below as Mahan reveals the practical effects wizardry that went into creating “The Puker” and the bloody mutant baby that Bryan encounters near the top of Raccoon City General Hospital. Both are largely practical, but the SFX artist and supervisor explains how his team worked cross-departmentally with VFX to capture all the monstrous carnage. The clip is part of the larger “Flesh and Bone: Designing the Monsters” featurette on Resident Evil‘s home release.
“For people who don’t know, this is the guy who did Aliens and Terminator II and so many of the creatures that we’ve grown up loving; Shane has had his hands in, so it was a real thrill to have him go all in on this movie,” Cregger previously told Bloody Disgusting of Mahan’s involvement in his film. The filmmaker, who co-wrote the script with Shay Hatten (John Wick: Chapters 3 & 4), also revealed that Legacy Effects built a 2,000 lbs creature that required four people to operate for the film’s sewer scene.
The new chapter in the iconic survival horror franchise is available to watch at home now. Resident Evil will head to 4K USD, Blu-ray & DVD on December 29.
