Resident Evil [2026]
“You're hiring a glorified Postmates driver to hand you the cure… Are you fucking dumb?”
In baseball, 3 strikes means you’re out… Which is bad. In bowling, 3 strikes is a turkey… Which is good. Sports are weird, movies are weird, this intro to a movie review is weird. So, what does this have to do with Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil… Well, not much, except that he’s directed two other movies [Barbarian and Weapons], neither of which I cared for very much [even though I thought they both had respectable parts and and the vision behind them was commendable]. So, in that way, Resident Evil was my old-ball-game tune for Mr. Cregger, because I was pretty over his stuff if this didn’t work… Turns out, however, I absolutely loved this movie, so it’s also kind of my turkey. While my closer connection to Silent Hill still coerces me to rank that as my #1… There’s a world holing hands with this one where Zach Cregger of Whitest Kids U'Know has released not only one of the best horror movies of 2026… But one of, maybe even the, greatest videogame adaptations of all time.
On a quick and easy delivery run for some fast cash, Bryan bites off more than he can chew when a visit to the small town of Racoon City goes horribly, horribly awry.
There’s a uh… There’s a LOT of moves based on video games out there… And I don’t think it takes a film degree, an unnecessarily dense spreadsheet about your watch history, or even a passing amount of experience to determine that they’re mostly… Well… Really terrible. Some of the most memorable of them create their own unique stories using known characters: Super Mario Bros. and Doom, for instance, are oft remembered for being nightmarish messes [which they are… Despite my love for Super Mario Bros.], but they are still remembered… While things like Lara Croft: Tome Raider, Assassin’s Creed, and Uncharted aren’t even bad enough to be fun. While the rare gem exists — the aforementioned Silent Hill gets WAY more heat than it deserves [and the sequels don’t get enough], and the 2002 Resident Evil is actually mostly solid — there’s some sort of magic that film just can’t quite conjure when it comes to transmogrifying the interactive entertainment of videogames.
Part of that challenge [I think] comes from taking characters you know and love out of a situation in which the audience has agency over them — even in linear games there’s still a certain connection to playing as someone — and changing all of that to be effectively one giant cutscene… Something capital-G gamers famously tune out from when they’re too obstructive to gameplay. The soul of whatever universe players are used to inhabiting just isn’t quite there, and filmmakers seem unable [or uninterested] in figuring out what it is about the gaming experience that connects us to our screens in such intense and emotional ways. It’s a helluva feat, and even the less offensive adaptations, like Sonic the Hedgehog, still make many bizarre and disconnected creative decisions when it comes to recreating these worlds for the silver screen. So, what makes Cregger’s approach to this muddied pond of mediocre movies different? Well… Besides almost everything… It’s spirit. It’s care. It’s respect. Respect not only for the source material — of which he shows an enormous amount of reverence for, and of which there just is an enormous amount — but for the audience, their intelligence, their time, and the craft of not only adapting something beloved, but of cinema itself.
Where many adaptations go wrong [similar to biopics and satires] is that they forget that the purpose of making a film isn’t to point to shiny, known entities and go “Look, it’s that thing you like” thirty-seven times before rolling credits… It’s to tell a story. To engross the audience in a journey, a message, a feat, or an excursion that they likely [hopefully, in this case] would never otherwise experience. While Resident Evil is certainly outlandish and raucously funny almost start to finish… It never forgets what it wants to be, or that its purpose is to bring us along with it. Cregger has managed to take exactly what playing a videogame feels like, and put it in front of a live-studio-audience who all get to tap along, even though their controllers aren’t anywhere close to being plugged in… And he manages it with a flare that is both incredibly engrossing for longtime fans of the series with its subtle calls to numerous Resident Evil tropes and constants [the ongoing bit about padlocks had me laughing out loud because I knew exactly what was going on], but also doesn’t spotlight or alienate casual moviegoers that won’t even know what a t-Virus is or why church bells make much of the gaming community ask about bingo. It’s… Kind of a masterpiece.
Anybody order a kidney or liver, whatever this is? Anybody? It seems like it's kinda
important!
The film opens with a shot so clearly directed to feel like the opening cutscene of a game transitioning into player control/ tutorial that it’s incredibly obvious from the outset that there’s something different about Resident Evil. Bryan, our protagonist, says and does things that feel entirely human, while also obviously moving the plot forward in a way that absolutely works for a film, but is also very clearly the player’s interpretation of whatever scripted, robotic nonsense an NCP just said in-game. Don’t get the impression that conversations between characters are strange or alien here, they’re not. They’re tightly written and very digestible, but there are times where either Bryan reacts to something in exactly the way a player would, or someone has a conversation with him in just a casual enough way that it’s totally clear what Cregger was doing here; And that’s putting the audience not into the shoes of a hero, but into our own. Bryan is funny… But also terrified. He’s well meaning… But also absolutely driven by survival. He often sees what will get him to the next step… But lacks the exact skills, or is made maladroit by fear or circumstance, so that he acts rashly… Getting himself into a worse or difficult situation. The movie is violent without being grotesque, often crossing lines many other films would shy away from, but it never feels like anything is done simply for shock value. In a word, Resident Evil is a frightfully genuine films.
The score by brothers Ryan and Hays Holladay [Weapons] is simply captivating. It’s off-putting and creepy when it wants to be, lulling when you don’t want it to be, and electrifying in all the right ways. With its horns, breathy vocalizations, and digital warbles, it feels like something straight out of one of the 30-something titles within the game franchise, while also feeling entirely unlike anything therein at all. Cinematographer Dariusz Wolski [Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, The Crow, The Martian] frames almost every instant of this film in a way that’s simultaneously far too limiting for comfort, and way too encompassing to feel like you have any sense of control over the ever reaching shadows around you. Even if the framing of shots wasn’t so intentional and rudely terrifying, the motion of the camera itself at once emulates the best of the 1st and 3rd-person horror-shooter genres, while also making you feel like you’re being dragged by some sort of horrendous rope along a path you want nothing more than to escape from. Couple these masterfully crafted elements with not only Cregger’s writing, but that of Shay Hatten [John Wick: Chapter 3 and 4], and Resident Evil is a tremendously effective marathon of laughs, screams, scares, and gasps for the entirety its incredibly concise 97-minute runtime.
As with anything though, it can’t all be sunshine and rainbows. I have a lot of praise for this film, but there are some things that had my hackles up here and there…
I’ve mentioned more than once that this film is funny… And it is. For the most part, Resident Evil uses its humor in ways that most directors wish they could master [looking at you Peele], but there are times it goes a little far. While I can understand the purpose [and even appreciate the execution] of many of the jokes and bits along the way, I do wish there were a couple fewer. Just a touch more seriousness and just a little more weight to certain aspects of the plot would have gone a long way for both my investment and emotional engagement. Likewise, the film has so many ideas that I wish it went back to the drawing board and erased just a few before setting out. It isn’t that any of the ideas are bad — they’re actually all, every single one, excellent — it’s just that there’s so many that very few of them get to shine or really develop. Nearly every scene has an entity, an event, a monster, a laugh, or an obstacle that [though logical or interesting or fun] will almost certainly never show up again or matter later. It’s hard to criticize these things too much because [outside of one plot point that is truly meaningless] each and every one of them is executed to near perfection but, similar to the jokes and gags, a little more development and a little less variety would have really gone a long way here. But… that’s kinda it? I could complain about the mostly-par visual effects I guess… But I don’t care about those in this situation. Yes, they were imperfect… But they were perfect for what the film needed of them so… Who cares?
The TLDR of this review is that I’m just so so impressed with this not only as a film, not only as a horror, and not only as a videogame adaptation, but as all of those things and more. I’ve had a weird relationship with Zach Cregger’s previous two films. I saw and appreciated a lot of his vision, but really didn’t gel with much of his execution, and I’m so so glad that I gave him another shot here. It’s a shame that he says he won’t be making any more franchise films, because I desperately want another shot at the Resident Evil universe from his and his perspective alone… But this will just have to do.
In a year where Backrooms has dominated the strange and liminal spaces between what is and shouldn’t be, Obsession has literally changed the face of small-budget horror directing [and may even rock some pretty large boats come the big awards shows], and Resident Evil Requiem released to universal 9’s and 10’s across all gaming platforms, it is immensely impressive to see a franchise piece within a universe absolutely wrought with awful films [especially one featuring 0 named characters] to stand this tall, this proud, and this wholly unique amongst them. I will be singing this film’s praises for a long time to come, and it’ll likely be one of the only things I make an effort to see more than once in theaters. Though not perfect, Zach Cregger has hit it absolutely out of the park with this one, and I think you should put on your best shambling shoes, your warmest hat, and remember not to talk to the strange strangers you meet out in the blustery bluffs of the Arklay mountains [and definitely don’t try to pet their dogs], while you muster your courage for this most masterful take on the mother of all survival horror, Resident Evil.
