Behind The Scenes Footage From 1996’s Resident Evil Live Action Intro

Friends, back when Resident Evil was released on March 22nd of 1996 I had already gone from being a video store clerk to working at the movie theater of my youth. Being young naturally meant I had a lot more disposable income than I have now – as I was a theater employee it meant I didn’t pay to see any of the 15 to 20 movies a week I had the luxury to watch – so my paychecks went to comics and video games. Which also meant that as a birthday treat to myself I was able to pick up Sony’s PlayStation console – at the time of launch back in September of ’95, the only games that were available to rent that I was interested in were Battle Arena Toshinden, Rayman, and The Raiden Project. A couple of weeks later however is when Resident Evil was released and to my shock the local mom and pop video store actually obtained a copy – being a horror fan I was quick to rent it and bring it over to a friends house to play it. You will have to remember how groundbreaking not only the graphics were on the PlayStation at the time but the addition of live action if grainy footage was amazing. We have to give thanks to NeoGamer – The Video Game Archive for uploading this short behind the scenes footage from 1996’s Resident Evil, plus the rather violent and bloody intro to the game itself.

At my friends house, his entire Family ended up taking a seat to watch me play the game – the Cerebus jump scare through the window got us all. I can vividly recall my friend’s Mother yelling out and I am pretty sure we all jumped about a foot in the air when that dog came through the glass. While my friend’s Family quickly excused themselves after watching me play Resident Evil for a bit – my friend and I kept at it through the night into the early morning. I wish I could say that we somehow managed to beat the game but it wasn’t until I bought my own copy that I finally had the time to complete it – that first night though is definitely a fond memory.

Interestingly enough, thanks to that behind the scenes footage from the game – I found out there is something of a mystery surrounding the young actress who played the live action version of Jill Valentine. While it is known that Charlie Kraslavsky played Chris Redfield, Greg Smith portrayed Barry Burton, Eric Pirius was the villainous Abert Wesker, with the character of Rebecca Chambers being played by an actress named Linda. The actress who portrayed Jill is listed as Inezh… and while there appears to be some guesses on who this actually was there is no concrete proof as of yet.