Resident Evil(2026)

This is a movie that seems impossible to have missed one way or the other. At first, it was being mocked and expected to fail by almost everybody ever since it was announced, and even while those voices got louder and louder, I continued to say, “give it a chance, let him cook.” Then the week leading up to its release, all of the reviews pulled a 180 and were speaking very highly of it. And afterwards, ever since the film went to theaters last weekend, all of the word of mouth from moviegoers and critics alike have all been impressed. So, I just want to get this out of the way quickly – I fucking told you so… again.

“Resident Evil” is a film that is loosely based on the Japanese Video Game Series (known in Asia as “Biohazard”) written and directed by Zach Cregger (‘Weapons’, ‘Barbarian’). It’s a standalone film that doesn’t attempt to mimic the stories within the games itself, but instead serving as an experience of a random NPC you’d find while playing one of them. It tells the story of Bryan (played by Austin Abrams), a medical courier who picks up a last-minute, very important, delivery to be made to Raccoon City General Hospital. Operating as a sort of UberEats-styled delivery boy, he grabs his medical bag and heads down some very snowy streets towards town where a genetic breakout has already begun. On his path of getting from Point A to Point B, he comes across zombies, locked doors, a large multitude of monsters, and a deadly secret harbored by a pharmaceutical company at the heart of the city called Umbrella Corps.

Instead of operating like an adaptation of the video games, Cregger instead intended for this to operate more like the raw experience you’d get while playing one of the games. It has a focus on survival horror around an everyday-man who doesn’t even know how to operate a firearm correctly. It has an ingenious way of giving you the gamer experience by having us try to move along the path only to be forced into side quests just to progress. We’re updating our inventory of weapons at specific places. We have to keep track of our ammo at all times. Things like this that seem so obvious but always miss the mark (just look at this year’s “Return to Silent Hill” as a counter-reference.)

The film is filled to the brim with intense sequences of tension, effective jump scares, creative monster designs, fantastic set pieces, super accomplished practical & CG effects, and an awful lot of humor. It’s a film that’s aware of how absurd it is, punctuated by 60% of the script literally just being Bryan saying some form of “what the fuck is that?” and often shrieking in a high-pitched tone. The ending has proven to be very divisive, and I cant really fault or blame anyone for feeling unsatisfied with it, but when you view at as a video game story around essentially an NPC, I personally thought it felt like an appropriate choice to make. Either way though, the ride to that point is undeniably fun. And the monsters are not what you’d expect – instead of being a zombie-apocalypse sort of film like we usually get from previous films & series from this franchise, it instead features beings more akin to The Las Plagas from ‘Resident Evil 4’ – and even then there are quite some liberties being taken.

Even those who aren’t familiar with the game series will have a blast here – it may actually work better for you, to be honest. Since it isn’t rooted in fan service or deeply accurate lore, it instead just works like fanfiction set within the universe and abides by the stylistic formula. But don’t worry if you’re going in blind to this one, it does completely explain what’s going on by the halfway point. For fans of the series there’s a plentiful amount of Easter Eggs and moments that will make you laugh and say “oh yeah, I know exactly what he’s going through” while there’s still bold swings happening to keep you on your toes.

I absolutely loved this film, and I’m already planning to go back to theaters again this weekend to revisit it. With the film already making over $100M in the box office over the last 5 days, I think it’s safe to say that the hype has ended up serving this film well in the long run. And I couldn’t be happier for it.

5/5

“Resident Evil” is currently playing in theaters.

‘Til Next Time,
Mike Cleopatra

The Gruesome Gazette

Your source for everything horror

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