Compared to most Resident Evil films, which act more like loose interpretations of the source material across all existing genres, Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City is decidedly loyal to the video game franchise. Main characters like Chris and Claire Redfield, Jill Valentine and Leon S. Kennedy follow through the eponymous – and obsessively recreated – city in the Midwest. It also bursts with Easter eggs at every turn. And one in particular will confuse anyone who hasn’t touched the games.
After returning to Raccoon City and visiting her brother Chris’ house in the middle of the night, Claire Redfield has an extremely creepy encounter with a deranged neighbor whose hair has either fallen out or forcibly torn from its roots. At some point, Claire and the woman make eye contact through a rain-soaked window pane. The woman scribbles the phrase “itchy delicious” someoneBlood on the dividing glass:
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Image: Sony Pictures Entertainment
Taken by itself, the tit comes a little from the left field. But fans of resident Evil, the 1996 video game that started the multimedia franchise, recalls the phrase in a different light.
In the original game, while exploring the Spencer Mansion, players may stumble into a small bedroom on the ground floor of the west wing, where they will find a journal on a desk. The pages describe a 10-day period in the life of the Keeper, an employee of the Umbrella Corporation who is tasked with looking after various animals before experimenting. An accident in the basement lab is mentioned on the pages, after which the Guardian describes (in rather nauseating detail) the various symptoms he develops from the incident. His sanity is rapidly deteriorating, culminating in the last two entries which read:
- Fever gone, but itchy. Hungry and eat dog food. Itchy itchy Scott came. Ugly face killed him like that. Delicious.
- Itchy. Delicious.
The kicker? Once you finish reading the file, the Guardian breaks himself out of the nearby closet in full zombie form in a desperate attempt to satisfy his hunger.
“Itchy Yummy” has become something of a callsign for the Resident Evil fandom, indicating that they are “in the know” when it comes to the deeper cuts in franchise lore. But in its original form, the diary provided a vivid glimpse into what was going on around Spencer Mansion. The context can be different in Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon Citybut the intent is the same: to show up close how a mind deteriorates under the effects of the T-Virus.
