18 'Resident Evil' Easter Eggs You Might Have Missed

Bryan's courier bag matches the green hue of the medkit in the first Resident Evil game (1996), and it’s stylistically similar to the med-bag Rebecca Chambers carries in Resident Evil Zero. Participating theaters are selling a replica of the courier bag as a novelty popcorn bucket.

These are canonically T-Virus zombies, but their design borrows heavily from other zombie types in the franchise. The most evident inspiration is the Las Plagas Infected from Resident Evil 4 (2005), owing to the parasitic tentacles that grow from their necks. The same is true for the dogs, which seem most directly inspired by the Los Colmillos from the same game. In interviews, Zach Cregger has confirmed that Resident Evil 4 is his favorite title of the franchise.

Bryan hides out on a family farm, and the barn he runs to looks like the Ganados barn in Resident Evil 4, where you gather supplies after the opening village fight. It even has a loft and ladder inside with the exact same placement as in the game.

The barn has some 'blink-and-you'll-miss-them' healing items. When Bryan is looking for a way out of the barn, two cans of First Aid Spray are sitting on a box near the hale bays. In the games, First Aid Spray is a prized item; one spray will restore all of your health. It's too bad Bryan doesn't know that.

At a couple of points in the farmhouse, the camera shifts to Bryan’s perspective, and we see him slowly open doors to pitch-dark rooms. This is similar to the load screens in the original Resident Evil, which also build tension by making the player peer into the dark.

Bryan misses at least two Green Herb health pickups in the movie. The first is on the shelf in the farmhouse's kitchen, while he's leaving a voicemail to Michelle; it even has the same pot design as it does in the games. And the second is in the backseat of a car, which you can spot in the blocked traffic tunnel.

In the farmhouse, Bryan also finds a safe room with a typewriter inside. This is the franchise's signature Save mechanism. In the earlier games, you had to insert an ink ribbon to use the typewriter. Later games eliminated the ink ribbon, which made saving your progress a lot more forgiving

In classic Resident Evil fashion, Bryan must rummage through multiple drawers to find shotgun ammo. He eventually finds shells in a drawer nowhere near the actual gun itself, which tracks with video game logic.

Bryan's progress is constantly held up by padlocked doors. The games are infamous for this; you have to locate exotic keys, cranks, or puzzle pieces, often with exotic symbols on them, to unlock the correspondingly marked doors. You can't shoot them off (as Bryan tries to), and you can't ram through them (as Bryan also tries to). Only the key will do.

As in the games, the corrupt Umbrella Corporation is behind the T-Virus—an accidental side-product of attempting to manufacture biological weapons. Bryan runs into Paul, an Umbrella corporate guy, and Maxine, an Umbrella security guard, during his run through Raccoon City.

Throughout the movie, Cregger switches between different perspectives: the over-the-shoulder perspective of third-person shooters (like Resident Evil 5), the POV perspective of first-person shooters (like Resident Evil 7), and the cinematic perspective of the QTE sequences (like Leon's boulder run in Resident Evil 4).

During the boulder-inspired street sequence, you can see a storefront sign for "Leon S. Kennedy Guns and Ammo." Leon is a main character in Resident Evil lore, and he takes the lead role in Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 4, and Resident Evil 9, among others.

The large man in the sewer is inspired by the antagonist in Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian: a massive, dead-eyed, pitiless man known as The Judge. Like the sewer man, he is bald, with no discernible body hair.

Although not based on any pre-existing Resident Evil monster, the amalgamation of bodies that pursues Bryan throughout the movie is inspired by the massive monsters introduced in Resident Evil 2 (Mr. X) and Resident Evil 3 (Nemesis). They constantly pursue you throughout the game, never giving you a moment's peace even when all other threats have subsided.

At the end of the movie, Bryan records his final words to Michelle on his phone. It's similar to the many collectibles—in the form of letters, medical documents, and video cassettes—that survivors leave behind in the video games. You're meant to realize that Bryan is making one of these collectibles, which may be picked up and listened to—out of context—at some point afterward, whether by Leon, Jill, or Ada.

At the end of the movie, Bryan grows a massive eye on his shoulder, which makes him visually similar to the G-Virus-mutated William Birkin from Resident Evil 2. Again, Cregger is playing fast and loose with the games' most iconic images, mixing them to create a unique body horror of his own.