Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil delivers a scary, bloody and surprisingly funny ride that mostly gets away with its bold choices, raves Sreeju Sudhakaran.
IMAGE: Austin Abrams in Resident Evil.
Key Points
- Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil movie, despite not featuring established game characters, is praised for its blend of genuine scares and humour, making it a standout adaptation.
- The film introduces an ordinary medical courier, Bryan, as the protagonist, offering a fresh perspective on survival horror without the ‘plot armour’ of familiar characters.
- The movie maintains a taut, thrilling pace over 94 minutes, with nerve-wracking sequences and effective jump scares that avoid cheap thrills.
Look, I have only played two Resident Evil games in my life: Resident Evil 5 (which I enjoyed, but many on the Internet call it one of the weaker entries) and Resident Evil 4 Remake (easily one of my favourite games ever).
So I won’t claim to be a huge Resident Evil fanboy, not that it actually matters much when watching Zach Cregger’s new movie based on the popular video game franchise.
I am aware that many RE fans are unhappy that Cregger is not exactly being faithful to the franchise by ignoring its established characters.
I hear you out, but this is Cregger we are talking about. He is one of the most solid voices in the horror genre these days, the man who gave us the incredibly wicked Barbarian and Weapons.
Also, while I have only played two games, I have watched most of the Resident Evil movies. This one towers above them all like a monstrous Albert Wesker and obliterates them completely. No crumbs left.
A Fun Blend of Scares and Laughs
Cregger’s Resident Evil is scary when it wants to be, but even more interestingly, it is genuinely funny. In fact, it could be his funniest work to date.
This blend of scares and laughs works so well because this isn’t exactly a horror comedy. The nervous giggles come purely from the lead character’s relatable reactions to all the messed-up shite he witnesses during the most effed-up night of his life.
Then there is the matter of Cregger’s choice of lead.
Bryan is just a medical courier given one additional drop for the night with the promise of extra pay, tasked with delivering a mysterious consignment to the General Hospital in Raccoon City. What he doesn’t know is that on that very night, an outbreak of the infamous T-virus has infected the people residing in and around Raccoon City.
Now he has to run the race of his life to deliver the consignment with no option to turn back, dropping plenty of ‘What the f**k?’s as the things trying to kill him get progressively more bizarre and icky.
A Fresh Protagonist for Real Stakes
I understand that Cregger’s choice to use a completely new protagonist hasn’t gone down well with loyal RE fans. But from his perspective, it is a pretty smart choice.
Using an already familiar protagonist like Jill Valentine or Leon Kennedy brings a certain plot armour to the character. Even if you tweak the script to make them ordinary, you would then be heavily criticised by those exact same fans for changing their game personas. That was one of the major fan criticisms for the previous Resident Evil movie, Welcome To Raccoon City (among its many other flaws).
I believe Cregger really loved the space for horror that Resident Evil as a franchise provided, and he simply wanted to see what happens when you insert a very ordinary guy into the mix. Someone who doesn’t even know how to fire a gun and whose closest experience with violence is, well, video games.
Bryan is the exact kind of character you expect to see killed in the prologue of a horror movie just to establish the stakes. Instead, he is forced to become a survivalist and a scavenger, enduring several terrifying levels of horror before reaching his endgame.
That is exactly what makes this Resident Evil movie so gripping.
Austin Abrams slips so effortlessly into the role that his everyman nature makes the stakes feel incredibly real, while his reactions to the weird shit constantly evolving around him feel entirely genuine.
Cregger doesn’t bother to establish his character from the get-go. Instead, he drops his man straight into the main plot, letting us learn a bit more about him on the fly through sparse telephone conversations with his pissed-off fiancée.
Plenty To Be Scared And Entertained
What this no-time-to-spare approach accomplishes is a tautly edited (Joe Murphy) 94-minute thrilling experience that pushes you right into the terrifying reality of what Raccoon City is turning out to be.
The first two acts are simply nerve-wracking. Bryan’s first encounter with an infected, the entire sequence at a farmhouse, and the tense traipsing through a tight tunnel are just pure, unadulterated horror. I was trying hard not to watch the film through my fingers, as it was far too tense in quite a few places.
There are jump scares as well, but not the kind that play for cheap thrills. You just don’t know how or when they will land. Cregger also clearly realises why laughter is an important aspect of horror.
You know those nervous giggles that hit right after you react to a scary scene? The director just turned that into his movie’s USP. The humour here isn’t just MCU wisecracks. For the lead character, it comes from a place of genuine confusion and fear.
And yet, there are a couple of places where I felt the comedy could have been pulled back a bit. There is a car scene between Bryan and an Umbrella Corp scientist (Paul Walter Hauser) that, while funny, stretches their back-and-forth a bit much given the tense situation they are in. It feels as if they are not taking the immediate threat seriously enough.
Similarly, in the climax, which I feel is the weakest for a Zach Cregger movie, there is a bit too much inclination towards comedy despite all the gore and twisted body horror going on around them.
But these are quite forgivable flaws for what is otherwise a very gripping, scary and highly entertaining outing from the director.
Callbacks And Creature Designs
For the RE game fans, while you may not get your preferred lead, there are plenty of other interesting callbacks to the franchise: a typewriter in a closed room, a shotgun placed on a wall, its rounds sitting in a green box, and of course, the franchise’s most annoying threat apart from the infected: padlocks!
Even the progression of the movie reflects the games. It begins with the protagonist experiencing intangible horror in the abandonment of a cold, lonely night before moving into action-horror territory when he reaches Raccoon City proper.
While I won’t say the movie becomes weaker here, the intention clearly shifts to getting more WTF reactions from the audience by dropping plenty of squishy, gory moments during incredibly shot action scenes, while embracing its videogame vibe harder. That said, the sequence in the elevator shaft and Bryan waddling his way through an infested maternity ward are absolute heart-in-your-mouth moments.
The visuals (cinematography by Dariusz Wolski) go from the stillness of isolated snowcapped landscapes, whose dark expanses could be hiding the next jump-scare, to gory body explosions dropping gallons of flesh and blood.
But my favourite visual is Bryan’s car driving through the dark night, bordered by tall pine trees, with the headlights serving as the only source of light. It is both a foreboding and captivating moment.
A special shoutout is also due for the sound design and the intensifying score by composer duo Ryan and Hays Holladay.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention the creatures. The infected are given some very grisly designs that will stay in your mind for a while. Yes, many of them are direct callbacks to the undead from the games, but there are some striking original designs too, featuring enough body contortions and icky flesh fusings to make John Carpenter proud. If you loved Carpenter’s The Thing, you will definitely enjoy some very grisly mutations in here.
Resident Evil Review Rediff Rating:
