Resident Evil (2026) Review
Resident Evil leaves its heroes behind as Zach Cregger follows a medical courier through a catastrophic night on the fringes of the Raccoon City incident.
Resident Evil. Credit: TriStar Picutres / Constantin Film / Davis Films / Columbia Pictures / Sony Pictures
There has been much whining among the fanbase because Zach Cregger decided he didn’t want to make his Resident Evil film a lore-heavy slog. These “fans” should be ashamed, and if they say the movie is bad after actually seeing it, they are wrong. As a fan, it’s not every day you get a generational talent making a movie based on one of your favorite video games. Fans should have been ecstatic. I won’t mourn Cregger’s decision to avoid another franchise. I’ll celebrate that he gave us the best film in this floundering series and a fantastic horror thriller that ranks among the best video game adaptations ever made.
Austin Abrams plays Bryan, a medical courier who experiences the worst night of his life for our pure cinematic enjoyment. Exasperated at the end of his day after delivering an organ, he gets an offer he can’t refuse: a delivery that pays double and an excuse to avoid going home to argue with his girlfriend about her pregnancy. The job is to deliver an emergency package to Raccoon City General Hospital. How could he possibly know Umbrella Corporation’s latest experiment has broken containment and he’s driving straight into a zombie outbreak?
Resident Evil is full of loving nods to the games: locks and keys with matching symbols, flashlight-lit paths through dense foliage, a shotgun mounted on the wall followed by a frantic search through every drawer for ammo, increasingly terrifying zombie mutations, including heads that explode into tentacles, and locations reminiscent of those found throughout the series. None of these details detract from the movie’s momentum; they’re simply things that might make fans smile. Cregger avoids getting too deep into the larger lore. This movie is about a poor schmuck experiencing the Raccoon City outbreak far away from Jill Valentine, Chris Redfield, Leon Kennedy, Claire Redfield, and the rest. Bryan will never meet villains like Albert Wesker or William Birkin. The MacGuffin he carries is given some narrative importance, but the movie is about him desperately trying to survive, not stopping Umbrella or saving the world.
Resident Evil. Credit: TriStar Picutres / Constantin Film / Davis Films / Columbia Pictures / Sony Pictures
The movie is full of memorable horror sequences, with its strongest stretch coming in the first half as Bryan witnesses the outbreak escalating, beginning in the countryside and then along the roads into the city. Cregger uses jump scares sparingly and makes them count, but he’s even better at drawing out anticipation. From the farmhouse where he has taken shelter, Bryan spots the first undead woman he encountered running toward him in the distance. He desperately tries to load his shotgun, then listens as her pounding footsteps move through the house and up the stairs. I love how Cregger escalates the scene: it begins with a tiny figure in the distance but the horror and tension grow exponentially with every frame and every sound.
The games typically have two types of protagonists. The first—your Chris Redfields and Leon Kennedys—fit the hyper-competent action-hero supercop mold. Then there’s Ethan Winters, an everyman thrown into zombie hell. Bryan resembles the latter, only played for deliberate comic effect. That’s rare for a series that often seems unintentionally funny because it treats goofy material with complete seriousness. The movie is hilarious, but Cregger isn’t ridiculing the games. His love for the material comes through in how completely he preserves the feeling of playing them, even through the eyes of a hapless goofball who makes mistakes.
Abrams’s performance carries the movie and is the reason the comedy works so well. He spends most of the film by himself but never in silence, often talking to himself and reacting with baffled sincerity to the horrific situations he finds himself in. He highlights the absurdity of just how badly his day is going without making any of it less frightening. The comedy provides a perfect release from the tension Cregger keeps ratcheting up. Abrams isn’t carrying all the comedy on his shoulders; the direction and editing make several of the gags viciously funny.
Resident Evil. Credit: TriStar Picutres / Constantin Film / Davis Films / Columbia Pictures / Sony Pictures
Bryan is perfectly complemented by the few Umbrella employees we see. Paul Walter Hauser’s executive and Zach Cherry’s scientist, along with his bumbling colleagues, paint a picture of startling incompetence among the custodians of these bioweapons. Umbrella’s motivations in the games have always been greed and outright evildoing, but there must have been plenty of fumbling for things to get as bad as they always do. Kali Reis makes a brief appearance as an Umbrella security officer who actually knows what she’s doing, but it’s the fools who really run the show, a point Cregger makes clear through her limited screen time.
The movie’s creatures are very cool, and some are genuinely terrifying. Creature design and effects come from Legacy Effects and Shane Mahan, a Stan Winston Studio veteran who has had a hand in many creature classics since the mid-1980s. Cregger used practical effects whenever possible, including a 2,000-pound puppet for a key monster and human-sized bags of blood to simulate zombies leaping from rooftops and hitting the pavement during a major action sequence. The physical weight comes through onscreen because the VFX augment the practical effects instead of replacing them.
Cregger also gives Bryan’s ordeal thematic weight. He’s said that he put his own fear and apprehension about having children into the movie, and that anxiety is everywhere. Bryan avoids discussing his partner’s pregnancy while monstrous new life literally tries to devour him. The metaphor reaches its peak when Bryan has to walk through an infected maternity ward. It’s not subtle, but externalizing Bryan’s fears ties the horror to his character and makes the movie a personal auteur statement.
Resident Evil. Credit: TriStar Picutres / Constantin Film / Davis Films / Columbia Pictures / Sony Pictures
Zach Cregger is one of the most exciting writer-directors working in horror today, and he’s three-for-three with Resident Evil after Barbarian and Weapons. Cregger has said this will be his only franchise movie, preferring to write whatever he wants instead of worrying about satisfying someone else’s IP. His next original picture, the sci-fi film The Flood, already gives us something to look forward to. In the meantime, enjoy Resident Evil, preferably with a crowd, because the franchise is unlikely to get another movie this good.
Resident Evil
Resident Evil is viciously funny, genuinely frightening, and one of the best video game adaptations ever made.
Resident Evil leaves its heroes behind as Zach Cregger follows a medical courier through a catastrophic night on the fringes of the Raccoon City incident.