A courier (Austin Abrams) takes a high-priority late-night delivery into Raccoon City — only to discover that a series of mutated humans stand between him and his destination.
“Itchy. Tasty.” These are the iconic last words of a man succumbing to the deadly T-Virus in 1996’s original Resident Evil video game. That is the central conceit of the horror series: a virus that rewrites DNA, stripping its infected of humanity, turning them into horrifying flesh-craving creatures. Yet across seven critically panned film adaptations, the simple premise of the games — bumbling your way through a sticky situation with limited bullets while facing hordes of infected — is yet to be authentically captured on film. Enter actor-turned-horror-filmmaker Zach Cregger, whose take attempts to wipe the slate clean. Gone is the earlier film franchise’s Milla Jovovich’s Alice, the game series’ Leon Kennedy or any prior convoluted lore. Instead, this lands as one of the most video game-y video-game adaptations to ever grace our screens — for better and for worse.
As a director, Cregger is first and foremost an entertainer. His first two films, Barbarian and Weapons, with their Rubik’s Cube structures and shifting perspectives, are impeccably made theme-park rides. Resident Evil represents Cregger in his most no-frills form: an A-to-B, man-on-a-mission movie that doesn’t lean into his box of narrative tricks. This is his midnight movie, stripping things back to setpiece after setpiece, less focused on logic and more on spilling bodily fluids. While there’s no doubt that exploding bodies and pulsating blood bags are going to be a near-perfect pairing with a packed-out cinema and a side of popcorn on a Friday night, some of Cregger’s flourishes are missed.
It’s on an icy road on the outskirts of Raccoon City where Resident Evil really gets its hooks — or tendrils — into you. A persistent uneasiness takes hold as things go from bad to worse. What starts as an accidental roadside encounter swiftly turns into a playful series of terrors. Cregger hits every horror beat he can muster, with some masterful misdirects and scares, foregrounding everything from the creak of a floorboard to the number of bullets left in a gun chamber. It’s rare that a film’s first act so confidently engulfs you in someone’s point of view, with its leering camera, POV shots and outright refusal to lean on cheap scares. When the jolts do come, they hit hard.
The glue holding this all together is Austin Abrams.
Just as Raccoon City swallows up Austin Abrams’ unfortunate courier Bryan, the film begins to somewhat lose its footing. Its second act lacks real direction, leaning heavily into horror-comedy — weighted more to the comedy — while getting a little too meta for its own good. Cregger does such a good job of translating the game’s DNA into movie form — from gun upgrades to Bryan’s growing confidence playing out like a literal video game-esque skill tree — that it’s a shame when the film starts spelling out the joke. When he shouts, “I’m only good at guns in games,” the first of many self-aware smirks, it actively draws too much attention to its gaming roots, when the film was doing so well embracing them. Thankfully the film finds its footing, and a clearer direction, in a final act, which embraces its source material’s campy roots.
The glue holding this all together is Austin Abrams. In him, Cregger has found the bumbling, chaotic De Niro to his Scorsese. Playing Bryan as an even bigger goofball here than his scuzzy character in Weapons, this hapless everyman is the ideal punching bag to the horrors that ensue. Abrams performs it perfectly, knowing exactly how to look hopeless holding a shotgun, traumatised when covered in blood, and hit comedy beats as if improvised.
Which all makes sense for a series like this. Resident Evil as both a video game and film franchise has never left us much substantial to chew on, thematically. The video game’s most iconic moments range from a man punching a boulder, to memorably cheesy dialogue (“That was too close… you were almost a Jill sandwich!”). So it’s not much of a surprise that, as the credits roll, there’s not much to reflect on, save for 90 thoroughly entertaining minutes. Sinking into your seat, scared one moment and giggling the next, is the Resident Evil experience the games have always offered, and the one Cregger has finally managed to capture. Itchy. Tasty. Bloody. Sticky. And all the rest.
More than clears the (fairly low) bar as the best Resident Evil movie yet. While its rollicking first act matches the promise of Weapons or Barbarian, its surprise-free narrative stops it short of ascending those heights. But horror fans will happily gobble up this tight, bloody, 90-minute thrill-ride.
