Resident Evil (Zach Cregger, 2026)

I should be clear up front, I'm not a super fan of the Resident Evil game franchise. I'm a very casual gamer. I enjoy video games, but very rarely do they inspire the depth or intensity of interest/obsession in me that movies, reading and music have. I've played a few of the Resident Evil games, and I enjoy the experience of playing them. Since my first experience with them on Playstation 2, I've never gone to these games looking for a compelling, interesting and emotionally impactful storyline though. The tone of the stories and the characters, especially the villians, have always been a little too close to the lesser, cheap fifties science fiction for my taste. The draw has always been the experience of the gameplay and the inventiveness of the creature creation.

Zach Cregger announced himself as a talent in horror filmmaking in 2022, with the release of Barbarian. It was a relatively low budget, odd amalgamation of horror sub genres, and all in all well made, if not quite bringing home the impact of its story. As a cinematic experience in horror, it worked though. It was suspense, provided surprises, tension and scares. It's a well made film, that doesn't quite make it beyond being very good, and into the territory of excellence many of the genres films have been reaching in the last decade or better.

He followed it with Weapons, which was a certified box office smash, and reflected lessons learned from Barbarian. It delivers a suspenseful, twisting, escalating experience, with characters that feel fully fleshed out, and manages to make its story impactful in ways Barbarian missed. It was also nominated for a number of different critics awards, as well as bringing Amy Madigan an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Gladys, the antagonist. It's an extremely well made film, and one of the best horror films released in 2025.

When Cregger was tapped to resurrect the Resident Evil franchise on screen, it wasn't terribly surprising, given his previous success. The question was, what direction was he going to take it after the long running action horror franchise that had starred Milla Jovovich, all of which had been directed by her husband, Paul W.S. Anderson? Those films embraced the over the top nature of the game series storytelling, and added in the kind of fantasy action aspect that achieved some popularity in the nineties with films like Underworld. There's an aspect of fun to them, but none of them are particularly good. They make for good Saturday afternoon, rainy day viewing or with a crowd of friends who are going to enjoy having a laugh at their more absurd aspects and choices. Other than some bringing in characters from the game series, including some of the more iconic creatures, they had a very different intent than the games.

What Cregger has done, is decide to jettison the desire to attempt to recreate, repeat or create some new variation on the storylines from any of the games, and focus solely on bringing the most enjoyable and successful parts of the gameplay experience to a movie. He overwhelmingly succeeds. He understands the draw of the games is the suspense, the feeling that scares could be waiting around any corner, brought on by nightmarish body horrors across a variety of different environments.

Part of how he achieves this, and part of why it's so successful is that this is a mission driven story. Bryan, the protagonist we're following throughout, is a medical courier, of the variety who brings organs awaiting transplant from where they've been harvested, to where they will be transplanted. He's an average young guy in his twenties, and in this, it sets this Resident Evil apart from all of the incarnations we've seen on the big screen, and most of the storylines from the games. There is nothing extraordinary about this protagonist. He has no training or extraordinary abilities to help him prepare for the experience the ninety minute run time is going to subject him to.

The beauty of this decision, is that the overwhelming majority of the audience playing the game (and I'd bet for this film) are not police, special forces, highly trained operatives in corporate espionage or the like. What this does, is enable Cregger as co-writer and director, Hatten as co-writer, and Abrams as lead to create the felt experience that has made the game franchise one of the best selling, longest running in video game history. Bryan is out of his depth, and in a constant state of denial or shock about the horrors he's witnessing. This is how the audience for the game, and for the film, would react if confronted with the various and sundry horrors Cregger finds a number of creative ways to put on the screen.

It's worth noting, this has always been one of the greatest strengths of the Resident Evil games. Whatever one might say about the plainly corny, overwrought aspects of their storytelling, the creature design and conception has always been outstanding. Cregger somehow manages to meet that very high bar, by presenting the audience with a line of truly nightmarish images, and creatures that are admirable for the imagination on display in exploring the aspects of body horror that are signature to the series.

This is a tight ninety minute film. I grow tired, and a bit frustrated with the focus on run time in so much of the criticism and commentary about horror films. Personally, I'd much rather filmmakers adjust the run time of the film to be able to achieve the most impact for the story the film is telling. Sometimes that means a longer story. Sometimes that means shorter. In this case, because of the intent of the film, to be a series of cascading nightmares a character is effectively running through, this ninety minute run time serves it extremely well, and the pacing is tuned to perfection. There is enough here for the audience to care about Bryan, to care about his goal, to add to the stakes as the film progresses, without ever losing the sense of being propulsive and maintaining an underlying tension that doesn't let up after each set piece.

Beyond all of that, Resident Evil looks great. The cinematography of each sequences is conceived in a way to bring the maximum impact to it. As with some of the most memorable horror in movies, there are points when there is a real visual beauty to the way they are lit, the compositions, the saturation of the colors, and there's a broad spectrum to the different environments and how they look. Cregger clearly understands there is a vein of discomfort to be tapped in making the grotesque beautiful, and some of these set pieces and shots are gorgeous in their execution of it.

Then there's Austin Abrams. It is extremely rare for a single actor to have to carry a movie to the degree Abrams has to carry Resident Evil. The only other characters who recur in the film have no lines. They never speak. There are no traditional supporting characters. Abrams is in basically every frame of this film, and is for all intents and purposes alone in carrying the story, projecting the emotional tone and so on. There are moments when he is very funny, and it is how well he inhabits and projects that sense of being a very ordinary, average person being confronted with mind bending, terrifying and grotesque events that makes the movie work. This is the Austin Abrams show, and he is extremely entertaining.

All of this comes together to create a movie that is the epitome of a shock filled thrill ride. There is the variety of great horror film, the kind that stands out because of just how effective it is punches you in the gut or tears out and stomps on your heart. This is an exercise in horror as visual spectacle and break neck, grab you by the hair sprint through one surprising, grotesquerie as wonder and comedically timed new shock after another. What Zach Cregger and company prove with Resident Evil, is that this intent can also make a genuinely great horror film too.

I want to touch on one last thing. As details of Cregger's Resident Evil started to come out, the most dedicated and vocal of the game fandom were loud about their disappointments and their desires, not least of which was Cregger's decision not to include any of the more popular characters. There's been a steady thrum of negative projection about this movie. What Cregger has done, is created what is likely to be regarded as one of the best video game to movie adaptations so far. He did that, despite not catering specifically to the most obsessive and vocal of the fandom. He didn't try to retell or create a variation of stories from any of the games. He thought about what in Resident Evil would translate best to an experience in a movie. Maybe its time other filmmakers, studios, and the movie press stop focusing so much on what the loudest loudmouths in any fandom are complaining about.

Finally... if you are interested in this movie at all, I cannot urge strongly enough that you see it in theaters. Everything about this movie will benefit from the combination of the big screen, as a communal experience, with a theater quality sound system. I have no doubt the experience of watching will be significantly impacted if you're watching it with your phone in your hand, and pause and restart it as you please. It is designed to be experienced in a sitting, on a big screen, with a crowd, and loud.