Chandler Riggs loves Resident Evil enough to stop waiting for someone else to nail a live-action version of one of its most intense moments. The Walking Dead star has written, directed, and starred in BIOHAZARD, a 20-minute short that recreates the iconic garage fight from Resident Evil 7. The film is available to watch now.
Riggs steps into the role of Ethan Winters while fellow Walking Dead alum Jason Douglas takes on Jack Baker, the brutal patriarch of the infected family Ethan runs into.
Greg Nicotero, co-founder of KNB EFX and the man behind The Walking Dead’s makeup effects, handled the special effects. Mary Rachel Quinn, Eugenie Bondurant, Johnathan O’Neil, and Sam Coyles round out the cast.
In an interview with IGN, Riggs said he simply wanted to bring this specific sequence to life on screen. The project also lined up with news of Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil movie, which added a little extra pressure.
“We were in pre-production [on the short] when the article came out that Zack Cregger was going to do his [movie],” explains Riggs. “I was like, ‘Oh man, all right, we got to get ours out first.’ We were trying to beat the clock and get it out about a month ago, but parts just didn’t align that way.”
Riggs has been clear about his bigger goal. He made BIOHAZARD because he wanted to “see a good, true-to-the-game live-action adaptation of Resident Evil.”
Playing Ethan still felt intimidating for him, especially since the short uses a third-person perspective instead of the game’s first-person view. That choice, similar to what Cregger is doing, may not please every hardcore fan.
“We’re trying to do so much else super faithful and true to the game, but this [third person perspective] is a huge aspect that we are breaking from it,” explains Riggs. “But there isn’t really another good way to tell [the story] in a live-action format. I was going back and forth like ‘Okay, could we do first person the whole time?
“Could we avoid getting his face in or anything?’ But the more we went back and forth on it, the more I was like, ‘I mean, if we are going to do this and are going to appeal to a wider audience — more than just the people who played the games — then we’re going to have to break those rules. It was very intimidating. Hopefully people are okay with it.”
BIOHAZARD is Riggs’ personal answer to that long-running wish for a faithful Resident Evil adaptation. It’s short, focused, and already online for anyone who wants to see how the garage fight plays out when real people and practical effects take over.
