After writing and directing Barbarian and Weapons, Zach Cregger has outdone himself again with Resident Evil. This action-packed horror movie stars Austin Abrams as Bryan, a medical courier who makes a delivery to Raccoon City to make some extra money. He soon finds himself fighting for his life when he enters the city in the middle of a zombie outbreak.
After Hollywood made multiple attempts to adapt Resident Evil for film, Cregger took a unique approach to bringing the games back to theaters. While the film features an original story, it is a marvelously made tale of an everyman taking on the zombie apocalypse. Overall, Cregger does the fan-favorite franchise justice on the big screen, sending audiences on a hilarious, horrifying, and heart-pounding rollercoaster.
Resident Evil is a true video game movie
Hollywood has long struggled to adapt video games, especially the Resident Evil franchise. More recent hits like The Last of Us proved that games can be taken seriously while honoring the source material. With Resident Evil, Cregger achieves both while injecting his own dose of comedy into his action-horror blockbuster, cheekily referencing its roots while subverting classic gaming tropes.
Resident Evil‘s story is simple but meticulously crafted, with each scene setting up a challenge for Bryan to overcome as he travels to Raccoon City General Hospital. Whether it’s zombies, stairs, electrified fences, or padlocked doors, each obstacle in this gory gauntlet ramps up both tension and humor.
Resident Evil ultimately presents one massive video game level, capturing the spirit of the source material while keeping fans entertained. It even features multiple first-person shooter camera shots, making it look and feel even more like a video game turned into a movie. Whether or not you’re a fan of the games, Resident Evil will have you plugged in throughout its 95-minute runtime.
Austin Abrams shines as Bryan
Resident Evil surprised many by steering clear of any major heroes from the games like Leon Kennedy, Jill Valentine, or Chris Redfield. Though many previous Resident Evil movies followed an original hero in Alice, Cregger does something far more interesting with his film’s original hero, Bryan.
Instead of an overpowered, uber-cool action hero, Resident Evil depicts its new protagonist as a bumbling, boyish buffoon similar to Ash from the Evil Dead franchise. Though much of the film focuses on Bryan, Abrams carries it on his shoulders with a charming, goofy, endearing performance.
As Bryan tries to make his way to his destination, he makes mistakes at almost every turn. It seems like he could die at any moment, whether it be from zombies or his own foolishness. He’s essentially a noob video gamer who gets thrown into the actual game, moving forward through trial and error. Bryan isn’t the hero some fans may have wanted, but he is still a relatable and engaging protagonist.
Though Bryan serves as a stand-in for the audience, he is much more than that. At the heart of this zombie action movie is Bryan’s journey to adulthood as he overcomes his fear of change and becoming a father, much like another acclaimed video game film: Exit 8.
After learning his girlfriend Michelle is pregnant with his child, he slowly grows while facing all sorts of overwhelming horrors, with infected children and babies evoking his fears of parenthood. Audiences may want more from the character following the film’s shocking conclusion, but that only highlights just how compelling and horrifying his story truly is.
The film is a bloody, bonkers blockbuster
Cregger proved that he is a master of terror and suspense in Barbarian and Weapons. In both films, he unleashed some truly odd, terrifying monsters in small-town America. With Resident Evil, he turns an entire city into a hellish labyrinth, with death lurking in every corner.
Staying true to the games, the movie doesn’t just deliver traditional zombies. It unleashes grotesque, jaw-dropping body horror with monsters that look straight out of John Carpenter’s The Thing. From a tentacled dog to a giant bald man with rats in his stomach to the bunch of zombies fused together, this movie is a monstrous machine running on pure nightmare fuel, giving viewers hardly any time to relax.
All in all, Zach Cregger helped bring the Resident Evil film franchise back from the dead. After audiences endured several lackluster adaptations, this new movie brought everything back to basics with a simple but thrilling story about a regular guy taking on hordes of zombies. With Cregger cranking the comedy and carnage up to 11, Resident Evil is monster-movie madness at its best.
Resident Evil premieres in theaters on September 18.
