Austin Abrams delivers a fantastic and hilarious performance as Brian in Resident Evil. Photo: Sony Pictures.
Any horror video game fan has, at some point, played a Resident Evil game.
It is one of the most commercially successful franchises of all time, with over 30 games in its catalogue dating back to 1997.
However, despite the acclaim and its status as a clear fan favourite, it has never managed to translate its popularity to film or TV.
Paul W. S. Anderson has made a series of movies starring Milla Jovovich, but they’ve never been anything more than low-budget cult classics.
Director Zach Cregger, of Weapons fame, has been tasked with bucking that trend with a fresh, high-budget reboot – and he knocks it out of the park.
Resident Evil centres around Brian (Austin Abrams), a medical courier. After delivering a vital organ to a hospital in Minnesota, he takes on one last job before wrapping up for the night: deliver a package to Raccoon City.
Fans of the early games will understand why that is such a challenge, but everyone else gets a firsthand look at why.
On his way into the city, Brian hits a woman with his car, but upon investigating the body, he quickly learns that something has happened to the evil residents (get it?) of the city.
Two things really work in this film.
First is Abrams’s performance. He is the perfect protagonist for a movie about survival. He has no clue what he’s doing or how he will survive the delivery, and that’s perfect.
Anyone who has played the games, especially the newer ones, understands the feeling of dread and uncertainty that comes with walking down every dark corridor or opening every blood-soaked door.
Abrams personifies this feeling while also being incredibly funny.
For a character that rarely interacts with anyone on his journey, he is genuinely hilarious. He consistently asks himself what the hell is going on and gets little to no answer. It’s honestly no different from how many gamers play the series.
It’s similar to his role in Weapons, which saw him as a homeless man trying to claim a missing-persons bounty, only dialled up.
The next factor is Cregger’s direction. It is clear he gets video games, and he gets Resident Evil.
The shifts between third- and first-person perspectives are ripped straight from the source material. The best example is when Brian uses a shotgun early in the film, and the camera essentially becomes a GoPro.
Cregger’s eye for horror is fantastic, too. He doesn’t rely solely on jump scares to deliver the chills. Instead, he uses lingering shots, slow camera pans and truly gross imagery to build tension. It’s fantastic.
There are a couple of gripes, and they do come in the final act. They aren’t movie-destroying, but they are mildly annoying.
Unfortunately, they relate to the biggest tie-ins to the games. Without spoiling, it centres on Brian’s interactions with survivors in the city.
They just aren’t from the same film. Brian has been through hell for the movie’s first hour and a bit; meanwhile, the people he meets are from a dark comedy.
The ending might also frustrate some, but for me, it perfectly wraps up where the movie was inevitably heading while also tipping their hat to the ending of one of the best games in the series.
Resident Evil continues 2026’s generational run of horror movies and adds another feather to Cregger’s growing filmography.
If Cregger stays committed to making these movies and the film hits its $80 million opening-weekend prediction (its budget is also $80 million), we’ll definitely be seeing more from the Resident Evil franchise.
Resident Evil is now showing in cinemas across the country.
