An Exciting Stride Forward: ‘Resident Evil’ is Funny and Scary in Equal Measure

By Jackson TOYON

Director Zach Cregger has become one to watch following his previous horror outings – 2022’s “Barbarian” and 2025’s “Weapons” – so I was immediately interested when I heard that he was at the helm of another project. “Resident Evil” has a long and storied reputation when it comes to film adaptations but almost none of it is good – if the critical and audience response is anything to go by. Cregger is himself a huge fan of the game franchise, so his take on a new movie has a healthy amount of public interest and skepticism behind it. I admittedly have never played any of the original Resident Evil video games before this point, so I will approach this film from a more objective filmmaking standpoint and audience perspective rather than as a veteran game player. With that history in mind, what I found in this movie was a happy surprise.

Young medical courier Bryan Hodukavich (Austin Abrams) is having quite the night and he’s kind of a mess. He’s deep in arguments with his pregnant girlfriend about whether they’re going to keep the baby, he was late for his last job and he’s about to finish his shift and head home to continue the argument in person. Accepting a last-minute delivery job for increased pay, he is tasked with delivering a time-sensitive and mysterious green package to Raccoon City General Hospital deep in the mountains. Unbeknownst to him, he’s about to have a hell of a lot more of a night than any courier in history. 

Struggling on an icy road without tire chains, Hodukavich strikes a woman that wanders onto the road and quickly discovers that all is not right in Raccoon City. The woman is some kind of zombie and after his car is disabled he is forced to run to a nearby house in the middle of the wintry countryside to try and call for help. After a couple of lucky zombie kills, it becomes clear that no help is coming for him and he is on his own. He must do whatever he can to survive and deliver his charge, but his troubles are getting more terrifying by the minute.

The biggest treasure of this film is Austin Abrams. He is a remarkably funny everyman for this story and just the perfect amount of amusingly hapless. He is the glue holding this film’s other strong elements together and, with his previous role in “Weapons,” I can’t help but feel that Zach Cregger has found his muse – the same way that Tarantino has Samuel L. Jackson as such a frequent collaborator. Abrams screams, shoots and scrambles his way through the worst night of his life only to end up in increasingly worse situations; it’s a blast to watch and the film is more entertaining for his contribution. The director’s dab hand with horror takes care of the scary elements, and Abrams brings the energy to make the rest of it work as needed.

Cregger was clear from the beginning that he wanted to take a different direction with this film than its predecessors – not adapting the characters and plot from any of the games but instead following an innocent and untrained bystander that isn’t so lucky as a famous hero through the same universe. Video game adaptations disappointingly often tend to end up as action movies that seem almost ashamed of the video game aspects that make the original property so loved. Refreshingly, “Resident Evil” leans in fully and unapologetically embraces the franchise’s video game elements through camerawork and dialogue – successfully giving the viewer the feeling of playing the game as our protagonist rifles through drawers for ammunition.

Though we love Cregger for his original, non-existing IP work, this is an IP film that has verve and integrity and doesn’t fall victim to constant, in-your-face references – something that “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” struggles with heavily. He has produced something that stands on its own two legs and enjoys a unique identity while still displaying his love for the property with small visual Easter eggs. It packs effective horror and levity that powers us through into a tight 90-minute runtime (minus credits), a nice blend that never overstays its welcome and is absolutely worth seeing in a theater. 

Rated R.