The premise of the latest "Resident Evil" movie, which was released late last month, may strike Cambridge residents as eerie: In a town called Harvardville (population 100,000), a biotech company called WilPharmaceuticals struggles to contain a deadly virus threatening to escape from its air-locked Level 4 laboratory.

The idea of an infectious organism escaping from the corporate canyons of East Cambridge and transforming the neighborhood into a den of zombies may be far-fetched, but the powerful presence of biotech research laboratories in the city has some residents worried, and city officials are working to make sure the "Resident Evil" scenario does not play out in reality.