Time for a quick word association game: raccoon, umbrella, green herb, unholy abomination from your deepest nightmares. If you thought of the Resident Evil series (or Biohazard if you’re reading this from Japan), then congrats, you’re my people! If not, you probably knew where I was going with this anyway, since you know which review you clicked on and are currently reading.
As this year marks the 30th anniversary of the iconic survival horror series, it’s the perfect time to reboot the cinematic side of Resident Evil. Rather than rehash the familiar events of the zombie apocalypse explored in the games, director Zach Cregger decided to tell an original story that is still tangentially related to them, setting it alongside the events of Resident Evil 2. Many fans of the games were understandably upset and disappointed by the absence of everyone’s favourite knife-parrying, pun-dishing himbo Leon Kennedy or iconic enemies like the Lickers. However, those fans should be reminded that Milla Jovovich’s character, Alice, the protagonist of the 2000s film series, has never appeared in the games either. So, not only is Cregger’s decision in keeping with historic cinematic precedent, but it also works really well.
Austin Abrams stars as Bryan, a medical courier who takes a high-paying, late-night job to transport a package to Raccoon City rather than go home to his girlfriend and discuss the difficult topic of her newly discovered pregnancy. While traversing the icy mountain roads to Raccoon City, Bryan hits a woman with his car, and his night only gets more harrowing and horrifying from there.
This has nothing to do with the review at all. Still, I find it funny that, alongside Resident Evil, there is currently another film in theatres about a medical courier on a job that goes very wrong: Runner, not to be confused with the unrelated Amazon Prime film The Runner, which was released just one week prior.
Anyway, back to the review.
My roots with the Resident Evil series run deep, all the way back to watching my uncle and cousins play the games on the original PlayStation in the ‘90s, being absolutely terrified, and asking them to play Dino Crisis instead. Even the box art gave me nightmares. I remember couch co-op sessions with my brother on Resident Evil 5, one of the first M-rated games our parents got for us, and cackling whenever we refused to revive the other person or when the villainous Albert Wesker goofily declared, “Ah, there you are!” The point is, I’m no stranger to the series, so skeptics and series purists can trust me when I say Cregger nailed it.
For those in the know, there are plenty of Easter eggs like green herbs, a typewriter and way too many padlocks, and though I would have loved a cameo appearance by the Redfield siblings or Jill Valentine, there is at least a brief reference to Leon Kennedy. Cregger has clearly played a video game and effectively recreates some of that experience in the film, from weapon progression and shimmying along ledges to opening every available drawer, cabinet and box in a desperate search for ammo. Relax, fellow gamers, Cregger is one of us.
Starting with a brand-new protagonist is an especially good choice by Cregger, as it helps reset the world of Resident Evil for a reboot. As a character not established in the broader lore, Bryan is free from the weight of legacy and expectation, and both Cregger and Abrams are free to explore the world as they see fit. We, like Bryan, are dropped into the situation with zero context for Raccoon City and the scope of the impending outbreak. Cregger writes Bryan closer to the average audience member than to the highly trained badasses that are the typical protagonists in Resident Evil. It’s interesting to see how Bryan’s normal human behaviour clashes with video game logic. The result is a tense, disquieting and surprisingly funny film.
Cregger’s writing pairs perfectly with Abrams’ acting. It’s a very similar performance to Abrams’ previous collaboration with Cregger as James in Weapons, except not strung out on drugs. It’s fun hearing him mutter under his breath about the absurdity of his whole situation or balk at the sheer number of lockpicks obstructing his path. He’s just a guy trying to do his job, stay alive, and get back to his loved ones. Unlike other horror protagonists who stumble from one wrong move to the next, Abrams has Bryan process the weight of his decisions and feel the consequences of his actions. He’s not making dumb choices unthinkingly, but doing what he and many of us would think is best given the circumstances, which makes him an easy stand-in for audiences and all the more compelling to watch.
My favourite part of the film is how well-crafted and intentional the whole experience is. From the fun and varied camera angles and first-person perspectives to the effective use of darkness and light to build fear and tension to the fantastic soundtrack and terrifying sound effects hinting at monstrosities hiding just off-screen, Cregger and his team have crafted a very calculated narrative where you see and hear exactly what they want you to see and hear exactly when they want you to see and hear it. Those who have read my horror reviews before know that I typically despise frequent jump scares and regard them as a low-effort technique to force a scream out of the audience. However, in Resident Evil, Cregger uses the technique very effectively, earning his frights both in scenes where he has built up to them and in scenes where the scare is completely unexpected.
My critiques of the film are a bit spoilery, so if you’d rather not know, this is why I’ve saved them to the end.
*SPOILER ALERT*
The first of my two main gripes about Resident Evil is that its finale feels too rushed. After Bryan gets bitten, it feels like Cregger either forgot about it or didn’t know how to incorporate that detail until the finale, when the infection suddenly takes over, and he rapidly transforms into a hulking monstrosity of tentacles and teeth. We really don’t see how the virus is affecting him aside from Bryan occasionally shaking his arm or commenting how much it hurts. Instead, it would have been more effective to gradually reveal his physical transformation and hint at how his mental state is also deteriorating. Where does Bryan end and the virus begin?
I also just wanted more from the film. Cregger and Abrams deliver a perfectly enjoyable experience overall, but I couldn’t help walking out of the theatre with the feel of “that’s it?” Sure, you had a supporting cast featuring the talents of Paul Walter Hauser, Zach Cherry, and Kali Reis, among others, who all deliver fantastic performances. However, their appearances are too brief for us to care about or digest. As fantastically disgusting and horrifying as the main corpse pile, human-tentacle amalgamation monster is, it’s just there. Not that we need an explanation for why the monster is, but why and how is this specific nightmare spawn tracking Bryan, where there are presumably many other tasty and vulnerable humans in the massive city to assimilate? How were they able to outrun it in the car, but suddenly it’s not only ahead of them in the city but waiting to spring a trap on Bryan and company? Why is this thing immune to bullets, but falling is its weakness?
As a series that most people probably associate with zombies, I wanted more zombies. We get a few scenes where Bryan stumbles his way through a one-vs-one encounter with the undead, but I wanted more of that. Four scenes could be considered encounters with zombie hordes, but we never see Bryan actually fight his way out of one. He’s either running away, someone else kills them, or Bryan is just seeing them shuffle about in the hospital lobby from afar. Sure, the scenes Cregger gives us are high quality, but what’s to stop him from also delivering quantity?
By and large, Zach Cregger’s foray into the world of Resident Evil is plenty of fun, with its highs outweighing its lows. The highs are a relatable and engaging performance from Austin Abrams, spectacular sound and camera work, and writing that balances horror and humour. The lows are a finale that rushes to its conclusion and a film that, overall, felt like it could have delivered more in its supporting characters, main monster, and the zombie outbreak concept. However, these faults are relatively minor, especially if you view the film as a flawed but fun first step into what is hopefully a new series of Resident Evil films with Cregger at the helm.
So as the 2026 spooky season starts, this is one film you should be dying to see. (Insert Leon S. Kennedy voice here.)
Leave a comment