10 Horror Movies That Should've Scrapped Their Opening Scene
6. Resident Evil: Apocalypse
It's rarely a good sign when a horror sequel opens with a "previously on..." montage, as it suggests the filmmakers have near-zero confidence in the audience's ability to remember what happened in the previous movie.
Case in point, we have Resident Evil: Apocalypse, the second entry into Paul W.S. Anderson's video game adaptation franchise, which begins with an utterly listless scene where protagonist Alice (Milla Jovovich) dispassionately rattles off a few paragraphs summarising the events of the first film.
If the first Resident Evil were completely forgettable or there were a huge gap between movies it might be forgivable, but seriously - Apocalypse came out just two years later.
This needless summary has strong "our movie is contractually obligated to be over 90 minutes long" vibes, given that Apocalypse is only 93 minutes in total.
The scene also gets further dinged for introducing Alice's oft-repeated franchise one-liner, "My name is Alice," which is surely one of the all-time great examples of filmmakers desperately trying (and failing) to make cinematic fetch happen.