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Resident Evil (2026)
SEPTEMBER 25, 2026
GENRE: MAD SCIENTIST, MONSTER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)
Despite buying both a Playstation and Playstation 2 specifically to play Resident Evil games (the first one and Code Veronica, respectively), I can't say I am a die-hard devotee of the franchise. At this point there are as many entries that I haven't played as those I have (and that's just the mainline series; if we include spinoffs I'm essentially a n00b), and while the OG character names are familiar enough to me, if you show me a picture of Grace or Ethan I wouldn't be able to recognize them. I've fallen off, in other words, so perhaps to the hardcore fans it won't mean much that I enjoyed Zach Cregger's Resident Evil and found the lack of game tie-ins to be refreshing, not a flaw.
In fact, it seems to me that the least interesting RE movie to date was 2021's Welcome to Raccoon City, which essentially told a Cliff's Notes version of the story of the first two games. Granted it was a pandemic release, but even if it was released nowadays I don't think it would do particularly well at the box office - it was telling a story that we not already knew, but LIVED to a degree. These games are all about the experience of playing them; the story itself is a mix between generic mad science stuff and bland action heroics, revolving around monsters that don't seem dictated by any sense of rules or consistency to tie themselves to. Not saying it as a complaint, but that's what makes the games fun - YOU'RE the one who has to turn a corner and hope there isn't a giant spider or one of those damn dogs ready to jump out at you. The most skilled horror filmmaker in the world can't give that same sort of thrill, so if they're also copying the beats of a story you already know? That's why such attempts rarely work out.
So what Cregger and Shay Hatten did with their script was the right call, I think. Instead of bringing in Leon or Claire or whoever, they create a new character named Bryan (damn, so close!), played by Austin Abrams, himself not someone audiences have much in the way of preconceived notions. He's the sort of guy you might have to rescue in one of the games (and who would then die a cut-scene later) instead of an action hero, but the plot is very game-y, as the movie focuses on him and what amounts to a practically realtime 90 minute fetch quest. Bryan is a hospital courier, delivering organs around for people who are about to go into surgery, and he accepts a late night, overtime pay job to deliver something to a hospital in Raccoon City. Not long into his journey he accidentally hits a woman (clearly - to us anyway - a zombie) and from there things just get worse and crazier, as he runs from location to location, collecting weapons to defend himself while encountering bigger and more disgusting monsters. So it's basically the experience of any game in the series, but happening to someone we don't have any preconceived notions of or nostalgia for their actions in this or that entry.
Instead, Cregger and his team pepper the movie with little nods to the games' iconography, but in a way that will never feel distracting to a non-gamer. A couple of bottles of health spray can be seen in a corner of one room, Bryan needs a key with a diamond shape on it, and (yes!) he finds a shotgun mounted on a wall but the ammo is found elsewhere for no reason. These in-joke references made me smile (OK, the health spray made me full on cackle, because it's a silly enough concept in a video game without seeing it in a live action "real" setting, though to be fair it's not used), but had I never played a single entry in the series, I can't imagine any scenario where I would feel like I was being left behind by the story because of my ignorance. Even the Paul WS Anderson movies, which sort of split the difference between this movie's "newcomers welcome" approach and Raccoon City's attempt at bringing the games to live action, often felt like they were bringing in game characters just for the sake of making an audience cheer, which would understandably be annoying to the less astute audience members. This? It could be the first pop culture thing you've ever experienced in your life and you'd be able to follow (and hopefully enjoy) just as easily as the nerdy dork dressed as Barry Burton next to you.
It helps that Bryan is the sort of hero we don't see often in horror: a guy a lot of us can identify with. He's average in every way, he does some stupid things in a panic but he's also a genuinely good guy (when he hits the zombie woman, he stops to help instead of hoping no one saw), and knows he's in way over his head. It's like a cross between Ash from earlier Evil Dead adventures and your standard dork character from a Friday the 13th; like imagine Crispin Glover's character from Final Chapter going through the relatively simple plot of the first game and you'll have a basic idea of how it plays out. The script gives him a little bit of backstory/pathos via a phone call with his girlfriend letting us know she's pregnant and he's not sure if he wants to be a father (very similar to Exit 8, another surprisingly good video game movie from this year), but for the most part he just spends the entire movie running, shooting, swearing, and scrambling.
Which is to say that I'm not sure if it's the sort of movie that will lend itself to repeat viewings (at least, not focused ones; it'll make for great background noise at a Halloween party or something), for the same reason it's often not all that fun to replay a game unless you're allowed to make different choices that change the outcome. Again, it's all about that experience and discovery, as opposed to an engaging story, and that's hard to replicate with repetition. While Umbrella is briefly mentioned, there isn't much in the way of a narrative here - Bryan just has to make his way through the monsters to get to the hospital and give them the Macguffin. Even a ticking clock element barely factors into things until the closing minutes, and since our hero/only real character rarely encounters any living people along the way, some of the suspense you'd get from the games is absent. YOU, playing the game, could fail at any moment, but Bryan will get to the 90 minute mark, because there's no one else to pick up the story from there. It's not a crippling flaw or anything, but it did kind of keep me at a bit of a distance from it.
As for the creatures, they're pretty great! Like the games, zombies aren't really a major factor after a while, as big disgusting monsters and mutant dogs take over. I don't know if any of them are taken directly from one of the games, but they certainly feel like they belong in that world, particularly a disgusting hybrid human/monster that factors into the movie's climax. Carpenter's The Thing seems to have influenced some of the designs, and for the most part they look really good to boot, so if you're a fan of seeing monsters, the movie certainly delivers on that front. The score is quite good too; it's got a little bit of Carpenter to it as well, but Carter Burwell and Thomas Newman kind of came to mind too? It's a nice blend at any rate.
Long story short I'm glad it's doing well, both for Cregger's sake and for the landscape of video game movies, because I'd like to see this type of approach more often. I understand wanting to see a Leon movie or whatever, but there's simply no way to make everyone happy if you go that route, because half the audience will hate who they cast, and others will whine about how it should have been Chris, or whatever. But we all got to go into the theater with a blank slate for Bryan the organ courier, and take that ride together. If you didn't like it, that's OK! But at least you're not liking it for reasons that have nothing to do with your 30 year old memory of trying to take down the Tyrant with only four shells and a useless red herb at your disposal. Here's hoping they can figure that out next time they want to try to do Silent Hill or (if they ever do it at all) Bloodborne.
What say you?
PLEASE, GO ON...
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