Licker (Resident Evil): the Blind, Skinless Hunter of the Police Station

A Licker is a mutated zombie in Resident Evil: a skinless, eyeless creature with an exposed brain, long claws and a long, barbed tongue, which crawls on walls and ceilings and hunts by sound. They first appear in the Raccoon City Police Department in Resident Evil 2, where they became one of the series' best-known monsters. (Resident Evil 2 (1998); Resident Evil 2 (2019))

What is a Licker and where does it come from?#

A Licker is the next stage after a zombie. The t-Virus usually leaves its victims as slow, hungry corpses, but some infected keep changing. Umbrella's notes on the creature describe what they become: skin gone, muscle exposed, eyes lost, the brain swollen and bulging out of the skull, hands and feet grown into long talons, and a tongue that can reach several metres. (Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles; Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles)

The first Lickers turned up in Raccoon City in the second half of 1998, as the virus spread from Umbrella's labs under the city into its streets. (Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles)

How Lickers hunt#

Lickers are blind, and that shapes how they behave. They move on all fours, cling to walls and ceilings, and listen. When they hear something they lunge at it, slashing with their claws or shooting out the tongue to pierce or grab. (Resident Evil 2 (1998); Resident Evil 2 (2019))

The 2019 remake makes the blindness a real mechanic. A note left in the police station warns survivors that the creatures can't see but can hear everything, and that you can slip past if you stay calm. In play, walking slowly keeps you hidden, while running or shooting brings the Licker straight at you. (Resident Evil 2 (2019))

They are tough as well as fast. A Licker can take a lot of handgun fire, and up close it can kill in a couple of hits. (Resident Evil 2 (2019))

Lickers in the Raccoon City police station#

The police station is where Lickers became famous. As the outbreak overran the city in late September 1998, a group of them appeared inside the building and attacked the officers holding out there. The survivors gave them their name because of their tongues. (Resident Evil 2 (2019); Resident Evil Outbreak File #2)

When Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield arrive on the night of 29 September, Lickers are loose in the station. In the 1998 game the first one is glimpsed through a window as it crawls past, then drops from the ceiling in a blood-soaked corridor, a scene many players still remember. More appear in the station and in Umbrella's lab under the city. (Resident Evil 2 (1998))

Lickers also turn up in other parts of the outbreak. The 2020 remake of Resident Evil 3 has them in its later areas, and Resident Evil Survivor puts more on Sheena Island a few weeks later. (Resident Evil 3 (2020); Resident Evil Survivor)

Licker β and the black-market Licker#

After Raccoon City, stories about the Lickers made them famous, and bio-weapon dealers wanted them. In Resident Evil 5, Tricell has built a mass-produced version, the Licker β. A researcher's journal in the game explains that Tricell made it by giving an ordinary Licker the Progenitor virus, which left it larger and stronger, with sharper senses, though the researchers still saw it as a dead end. Chris Redfield and Sheva Alomar fight them in Africa in 2009. (Resident Evil 5)

The CG film Resident Evil: Damnation takes the idea further. Its Lickers are controlled through implanted Las Plagas parasites, and a host carrying the dominant parasite can command them like dogs. (Resident Evil: Damnation)

Lickers in the films#

Lickers have appeared in several of the live-action films, which have their own continuity. A single Licker is the final monster in Resident Evil (2002), attacking the survivors on the train out of the Hive. Resident Evil: Retribution (2012) brings back a much larger version, and in Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021) a Licker kills Chief Irons at the old orphanage and goes for Leon before Lisa Trevor saves him. The films are listed in the Resident Evil films in order, and the 2021 film is covered in Welcome to Raccoon City explained. (Resident Evil; Resident Evil: Retribution; Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City)