The Subtle Terror Of Resident Evil’s Iconic 'Turning Around Zombie'
Most of the zombies you encounter in the Resident Evil series are anonymous cannon fodder. Nameless, shambling corpses that exist solely to give you something to shoot at—or run away from if you're low on ammo. But one in particular, from the original PlayStation game, has not only been named by series' creator Shinji Mikami, but has its own page on the Resident Evil wiki too. It's probably the most famous zombie in the series, and for many players, the first one that ever came hungrily lunging for their sweet, delicious brains.
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Resident Evil's dingy, isolated Spencer Mansion is home to all manner of creepy, dangerous creatures, including undead dogs, giant spiders, killer plants, and bipedal reptiles that can slice your head off in one fatal swoop. But it's the classic George Romero zombies that are the real stars. The corridors of the mansion echo eerily with the sound of their lurching and groaning. They're slow, but fixed cameras mean it's easy to dash around a corner, get ambushed by one, and lose a significant chunk of health when it chows down on your flesh.
Your introduction to these former humans comes early in the game, in a moment that is both iconic and strikingly subtle. You turn a corner that has been purposefully obscured by one of those claustrophobic camera angles, and the game switches to a pre-rendered cutscene that was state of the art in 1996. A humanoid figure, cloaked in shadow, is hunched over, acting strangely. Suddenly, a pool of blood appears below it and it turns its head to face you, revealing a rotting chalk-white face, a bloody mouth, and cold, dead eyes.
Shinji Mikami later christened this otherwise
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