October 20, 2025 • 11 mins
Resident Evil is one of the most well-known survival horror video game series of all time, spawning a legion of films. The first movie featured Rain Ocampo, a no-nonsense mercenary who perhaps bit off more than she could chew while investigating Umbrella Corporations facility full of zombies and a murderous AI.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and smitha all come of stuff
I've never told you procure of iHeart Radio, and welcome
to another sub sub sub sub segment, Fictional Women around
the World. I'm excited about this one, but I have
(00:25):
to admit I'm this one's kind of selfish because I
really wanted to talk about Resident Evil. We're still in
our Horror month times, even though we talk about horror
all the time, and I just I was thinking about
Resident Evil. I really haven't talked about it that much
except in our Women in Survival Horror Video Games episode.
(00:47):
I thought, you know what, it's time, let's do it.
It's time. Have you ever seen it? I know you
haven't played the games, but have you ever seen any
of the movies? No? Okay, just a plain note? Is
this the Milla? Yes? Okay, that part, I know, that's
the end. That's fine. They're not very good and no
one would disagree with you. Okay. They're kind of like
(01:12):
one of the you know, the the long held belief
that there's never been a good video game adaptation until recently.
These were a big part of that reason. There are
a lot of them, though, and they are successful. Whether
they're good or not so. I have a long history
with Resident Evil. I played the first game when I
(01:34):
was nine or so, very young, and I snuck into
the first Resident Evil movie, like literally through the back
door with me and my friends because it was rated
R and we weren't old enough. I have played these
games and seen these movies for a decade plus. I
have been in it and the games are phenomenon. The
(01:55):
first one came out in nineteen ninety six. It was
hard as hell. The angles switches were unnerving, and it
kind of set the tone for a long time for
how horror games were because it was so The way
the camera worked was very scary. You couldn't look ahead,
(02:15):
it wasn't in your control. And not only were they
credited with repopularizing the zombie genre, they with Resident Evil four,
which is a really good game that I have talked
about before. When that came out in two thousand and five,
it made the over the shoulder shooter style action game
(02:37):
pretty standard. So some people were like, this is in
a Resident Evil games, this is an action game, but
people love that game anyway. These games try all kinds
of things, some network and some that do not. This
franchise is usually reported as the best selling horror game
franchise ever. The first film came out in two thousand
and two. So yes, I was very young and I
(02:59):
really should not have been there. But while it is
loosely based on the first and second game, the writers
specifically didn't follow the plot of any game because they
thought it would be scarier if none of us knew
what was going to happen. I would say, your mileage
may vary on that. I disagree. I was like, so,
(03:22):
if you don't know the very basic plot of Resident Evil,
it essentially boils down to an a moral slash probably
very evil corporation, the Umbrella Corporation, running secret experiments resulting
in what is called the T virus that led to
the creation of zombies of all types. There's a lot
of corporate espionage, very strange, very strange individuals in power,
(03:45):
but also tales of people trying to to cure cancer
or what have you. It's at the intersection of bioweapons
and potential cure. I believe that the Japanese game is
called Biohazard, and when it comes out, it turns out
at zombies that happened out of this whole thing. Umbrella Corp.
Tries to cover the whole thing up. So that's how
(04:09):
the movie kind of starts, is you realize something's very
wrong here and it gets out and you don't know
what's going on with Mila Jovovic's character Alice, who's definitely
not in the games at all. Neither is the fictional
character of today Rain Ocampo, played by Michelle Rodriguez. She
(04:29):
does not exist in the game. In the movie, the
main character, yes, Alice can't remember anything that happened, but
we as the audience know she's involved because she was
in that opening scene where they were talking about the
T virus. But the T virus gets out and you've
got the Raccoon City RPD, which is where the early
(04:50):
games largely take place. Racoon City, that's where Umbrella is headquartered.
Coer Slash convinced Alice to go with them to investigate
Umbrella's main building and see what going on here, what's
gone wrong. Turns out the building is infected with zombies
and guarded by an AI called the Red Queen, and
she's a little girl, creepy little girl. You know, you
got to have one. Rain was a part of Umbrella's
(05:13):
Special Forces who was in on this mission. She was
very skilled in combat and martmanship. While she was close
to some of her team a JD especially who perished.
He perished in front of her as she tries to
help him. She blamed team member Chad Kaplan for the
deaths of their team, and she said it was his
(05:34):
lack of experience and why was he even here? Is
ruining everything. After their first encounter with the undead who
Rain thought she thought it was a survivor and tried
to help. At first, Rain was the one who got
the headshot, saying quote, she's not standing now. Of course,
(06:00):
the undead rose again and a bit Rain for the
second time, more of the undead attacked her and her team,
and she was bent several times. The Red Queen informs
the whole all the survivors what this means, and Rain
realizes she'll die, but she's like, I'm going to keep
fighting for this team until it's the end. When the
(06:22):
surviving members of the team are on the verge of escaping,
the Red Queen demands that Alice killed Rain to contain
the infection, because while they're close to retrieving the anti virus,
Rain's infection has gone on to long to be cured.
Alice refuses and destroys the screens the Red Queen was
using to communicate with them. Eventually, they get to the
(06:42):
anti virus and Alice gives it to Rain, but not
before Rain makes Alice promise to kill her if she turns,
and for a moment there's kind of a funny moment
where Alice is like, oh, here it is. She's not responding,
I have to kill her, and then Rain is like,
still eyes closed, I'm not dead yet. But then it
(07:03):
turns out she has in fact died, and she does
turn into a zombie. Oh no, yes, yes, And all
of this stuff happens at the same time. So you
got a liquor that attacks, and a liquor is basically
these like really deadly zombies with huge tongues that they
used to kill you, very scary, don't mess with them.
(07:26):
And yeah Rain. Then you got Rain who's like, hey,
I'm a zombie now. One of the survivors shoots her
in the head with her own gun, and her body
falls onto the button to open the doors that then
allows the rest of them and the liquor to escape.
Alice is very, very depressed about Rain's death. She really
(07:48):
wanted to save her, and they were kind of begrudging buddies.
The Umbrella Corporation later cloned Rain as part of test
that they were running about how the virus would would
spread depending on the conditions, in order to sell it
to whoever was willing to pay the most. The clones
had no memories of Rain's life, and there were two
(08:10):
main clone Rains, the Good one and the Bad one. Obviously,
the good one was all about gun control and learning,
and the bad one was very, very very blunt and
worked as part of Umbrella's security. Good Rain was killed
by a liquor and Bad Rain purposefully infected herself with
(08:31):
a parasite to make herself and vulnerable, but then was
eaten by the undead. As it happens. This character was
the tough, skilled, no nonsense one, outwardly closed off but loyal.
She liked to fight. She was ready to fight. While
she was hard to impress and often arrogant and violent.
(08:52):
She changed her mind about people if they inspired her too,
and despite working for Umbrella, when she found out what
they were capable of, she was horrible and she stuck
out with me. I haven't seen this movie in forever
I remember it very well though I don't know why,
but I remember her character very well. And you know,
maybe one day I'll come back and do just women
(09:13):
in Resident Evil, because there's a lot of good ones,
but there's also a lot of Like I know, I
talked about Jill Valentine, I mean, even Alice in this movie,
like the sexualized costumes they're wearing in a zombie apocalypse
like I mean, I guess I can give Alice a pass.
Jill Valentine was kind of a cop though, but I
(09:36):
don't know. But you get introduced to Jill Valentine in
the next movie, and that's when you meet Nemesis. And
Nemesis is one of the scariest villains of all time
in my opinion, not necessarily necessarily in the movie, but
in the game, very scary. If you hear his theme
music on and you know he's around, I would just leave.
I would just go back out the door. I just
(09:56):
came in. Yes, yes, well, thank you for letting me.
This was fun to revisit. I haven't thought about Resident
Evil in a while. You're gonna watch it again now?
Might it might be on my like Halloween list because
I haven't seen it in a while, and I'm pretty
sure it's streaming, so I would love to rewatch it.
(10:19):
It's not very good. If anybody's listening to this, I'm
just gonna tell you it's fun, but don't expect more
than fun. I don't think it's gonna be a life
changing movie. No, none of them are. I am. Back
when I was in college, they used to have this
student deal, you know, and you could go see a
movie for two dollars. So I saw a lot of
movies that I never would have seen if it cost
(10:41):
any more than that. So I saw a lot of
the resident evil movies because of that price. And there's
a lot about three d also happens, I will say,
of course, of course, and a lot of cloning, a
lot of cloning. But anyway, yes, listeners, I would love
to hear from you. If you have any thoughts about this,
any suggestions for characters we should tackle in this franchise,
(11:05):
please let us know. You can email us at Hello
stuff onever told you dot com. You can find us
on Blue Sky at mom Stuff podcast, or on Instagram
and TikTok at stuff one Never told You. We're us
on YouTube and we have new merchandise at Common Bureau
and we have a book you can get wherever you
get your books. Thanks as always to our super produced Christina,
Ourxceptor produce at our contributor Joey. Thank you. Thanks to
(11:25):
you for listening stuff never told you. Instruction of My
Heart Radio. For more podcast from my Heart Radio, you
can check out the Heart Radio. If I have a
podcast orhef you listen to your favorite shows
Hey, this is Annie and smitha all come of stuff
I've never told you procure of iHeart Radio, and welcome
to another sub sub sub sub segment, Fictional Women around
the World. I'm excited about this one, but I have
(00:25):
to admit I'm this one's kind of selfish because I
really wanted to talk about Resident Evil. We're still in
our Horror month times, even though we talk about horror
all the time, and I just I was thinking about
Resident Evil. I really haven't talked about it that much
except in our Women in Survival Horror Video Games episode.
(00:47):
I thought, you know what, it's time, let's do it.
It's time. Have you ever seen it? I know you
haven't played the games, but have you ever seen any
of the movies? No? Okay, just a plain note? Is
this the Milla? Yes? Okay, that part, I know, that's
the end. That's fine. They're not very good and no
one would disagree with you. Okay. They're kind of like
(01:12):
one of the you know, the the long held belief
that there's never been a good video game adaptation until recently.
These were a big part of that reason. There are
a lot of them, though, and they are successful. Whether
they're good or not so. I have a long history
with Resident Evil. I played the first game when I
(01:34):
was nine or so, very young, and I snuck into
the first Resident Evil movie, like literally through the back
door with me and my friends because it was rated
R and we weren't old enough. I have played these
games and seen these movies for a decade plus. I
have been in it and the games are phenomenon. The
(01:55):
first one came out in nineteen ninety six. It was
hard as hell. The angles switches were unnerving, and it
kind of set the tone for a long time for
how horror games were because it was so The way
the camera worked was very scary. You couldn't look ahead,
(02:15):
it wasn't in your control. And not only were they
credited with repopularizing the zombie genre, they with Resident Evil four,
which is a really good game that I have talked
about before. When that came out in two thousand and five,
it made the over the shoulder shooter style action game
(02:37):
pretty standard. So some people were like, this is in
a Resident Evil games, this is an action game, but
people love that game anyway. These games try all kinds
of things, some network and some that do not. This
franchise is usually reported as the best selling horror game
franchise ever. The first film came out in two thousand
and two. So yes, I was very young and I
(02:59):
really should not have been there. But while it is
loosely based on the first and second game, the writers
specifically didn't follow the plot of any game because they
thought it would be scarier if none of us knew
what was going to happen. I would say, your mileage
may vary on that. I disagree. I was like, so,
(03:22):
if you don't know the very basic plot of Resident Evil,
it essentially boils down to an a moral slash probably
very evil corporation, the Umbrella Corporation, running secret experiments resulting
in what is called the T virus that led to
the creation of zombies of all types. There's a lot
of corporate espionage, very strange, very strange individuals in power,
(03:45):
but also tales of people trying to to cure cancer
or what have you. It's at the intersection of bioweapons
and potential cure. I believe that the Japanese game is
called Biohazard, and when it comes out, it turns out
at zombies that happened out of this whole thing. Umbrella Corp.
Tries to cover the whole thing up. So that's how
(04:09):
the movie kind of starts, is you realize something's very
wrong here and it gets out and you don't know
what's going on with Mila Jovovic's character Alice, who's definitely
not in the games at all. Neither is the fictional
character of today Rain Ocampo, played by Michelle Rodriguez. She
(04:29):
does not exist in the game. In the movie, the
main character, yes, Alice can't remember anything that happened, but
we as the audience know she's involved because she was
in that opening scene where they were talking about the
T virus. But the T virus gets out and you've
got the Raccoon City RPD, which is where the early
(04:50):
games largely take place. Racoon City, that's where Umbrella is headquartered.
Coer Slash convinced Alice to go with them to investigate
Umbrella's main building and see what going on here, what's
gone wrong. Turns out the building is infected with zombies
and guarded by an AI called the Red Queen, and
she's a little girl, creepy little girl. You know, you
got to have one. Rain was a part of Umbrella's
(05:13):
Special Forces who was in on this mission. She was
very skilled in combat and martmanship. While she was close
to some of her team a JD especially who perished.
He perished in front of her as she tries to
help him. She blamed team member Chad Kaplan for the
deaths of their team, and she said it was his
(05:34):
lack of experience and why was he even here? Is
ruining everything. After their first encounter with the undead who
Rain thought she thought it was a survivor and tried
to help. At first, Rain was the one who got
the headshot, saying quote, she's not standing now. Of course,
(06:00):
the undead rose again and a bit Rain for the
second time, more of the undead attacked her and her team,
and she was bent several times. The Red Queen informs
the whole all the survivors what this means, and Rain
realizes she'll die, but she's like, I'm going to keep
fighting for this team until it's the end. When the
(06:22):
surviving members of the team are on the verge of escaping,
the Red Queen demands that Alice killed Rain to contain
the infection, because while they're close to retrieving the anti virus,
Rain's infection has gone on to long to be cured.
Alice refuses and destroys the screens the Red Queen was
using to communicate with them. Eventually, they get to the
(06:42):
anti virus and Alice gives it to Rain, but not
before Rain makes Alice promise to kill her if she turns,
and for a moment there's kind of a funny moment
where Alice is like, oh, here it is. She's not responding,
I have to kill her, and then Rain is like,
still eyes closed, I'm not dead yet. But then it
(07:03):
turns out she has in fact died, and she does
turn into a zombie. Oh no, yes, yes, And all
of this stuff happens at the same time. So you
got a liquor that attacks, and a liquor is basically
these like really deadly zombies with huge tongues that they
used to kill you, very scary, don't mess with them.
(07:26):
And yeah Rain. Then you got Rain who's like, hey,
I'm a zombie now. One of the survivors shoots her
in the head with her own gun, and her body
falls onto the button to open the doors that then
allows the rest of them and the liquor to escape.
Alice is very, very depressed about Rain's death. She really
(07:48):
wanted to save her, and they were kind of begrudging buddies.
The Umbrella Corporation later cloned Rain as part of test
that they were running about how the virus would would
spread depending on the conditions, in order to sell it
to whoever was willing to pay the most. The clones
had no memories of Rain's life, and there were two
(08:10):
main clone Rains, the Good one and the Bad one. Obviously,
the good one was all about gun control and learning,
and the bad one was very, very very blunt and
worked as part of Umbrella's security. Good Rain was killed
by a liquor and Bad Rain purposefully infected herself with
(08:31):
a parasite to make herself and vulnerable, but then was
eaten by the undead. As it happens. This character was
the tough, skilled, no nonsense one, outwardly closed off but loyal.
She liked to fight. She was ready to fight. While
she was hard to impress and often arrogant and violent.
(08:52):
She changed her mind about people if they inspired her too,
and despite working for Umbrella, when she found out what
they were capable of, she was horrible and she stuck
out with me. I haven't seen this movie in forever
I remember it very well though I don't know why,
but I remember her character very well. And you know,
maybe one day I'll come back and do just women
(09:13):
in Resident Evil, because there's a lot of good ones,
but there's also a lot of Like I know, I
talked about Jill Valentine, I mean, even Alice in this movie,
like the sexualized costumes they're wearing in a zombie apocalypse
like I mean, I guess I can give Alice a pass.
Jill Valentine was kind of a cop though, but I
(09:36):
don't know. But you get introduced to Jill Valentine in
the next movie, and that's when you meet Nemesis. And
Nemesis is one of the scariest villains of all time
in my opinion, not necessarily necessarily in the movie, but
in the game, very scary. If you hear his theme
music on and you know he's around, I would just leave.
I would just go back out the door. I just
(09:56):
came in. Yes, yes, well, thank you for letting me.
This was fun to revisit. I haven't thought about Resident
Evil in a while. You're gonna watch it again now?
Might it might be on my like Halloween list because
I haven't seen it in a while, and I'm pretty
sure it's streaming, so I would love to rewatch it.
(10:19):
It's not very good. If anybody's listening to this, I'm
just gonna tell you it's fun, but don't expect more
than fun. I don't think it's gonna be a life
changing movie. No, none of them are. I am. Back
when I was in college, they used to have this
student deal, you know, and you could go see a
movie for two dollars. So I saw a lot of
movies that I never would have seen if it cost
(10:41):
any more than that. So I saw a lot of
the resident evil movies because of that price. And there's
a lot about three d also happens, I will say,
of course, of course, and a lot of cloning, a
lot of cloning. But anyway, yes, listeners, I would love
to hear from you. If you have any thoughts about this,
any suggestions for characters we should tackle in this franchise,
(11:05):
please let us know. You can email us at Hello
stuff onever told you dot com. You can find us
on Blue Sky at mom Stuff podcast, or on Instagram
and TikTok at stuff one Never told You. We're us
on YouTube and we have new merchandise at Common Bureau
and we have a book you can get wherever you
get your books. Thanks as always to our super produced Christina,
Ourxceptor produce at our contributor Joey. Thank you. Thanks to
(11:25):
you for listening stuff never told you. Instruction of My
Heart Radio. For more podcast from my Heart Radio, you
can check out the Heart Radio. If I have a
podcast orhef you listen to your favorite shows
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