Between its eight live action movies and four anime films, Resident Evil stands as the most cinematically adapted video game franchise in history. There was even an unrealized entry that had George A. Romero attached to write and direct. The last film came in 2021 with Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, a reboot of sorts for the series. And now, they’re hitting the reset button again with another reboot, this one simply titled Resident Evil.
Resident Evil is about a medical courier named Bryan (Austin Abrams from Euphoria) who, on a dark and snowy night, is given one last priority package to deliver to far-off, remote Raccoon City Hospital. Needing the double-time pay, Bryan takes the bag but soon realizes that this is no ordinary gig. The path to Raccoon City Hospital is populated with mutant monsters who all seem to want to stop Bryan from delivering his parcel.
This imagining of Resident Evil was written and directed by Zach Cregger (Weapons, Barbarian) with some help from co-writer Shay Hatten (who also worked the John Wick franchise). The movie is a seamless and skillful combination of horror, action, and, surprisingly enough, comedy, all within that distinct Zach Cregger mold.
Resident Evil follows video game logic quite nicely. It is clearly an adaptation of a video game, with Bryan needing to find weapons and ammo, upgrade weapons, and defeat increasingly menacing monsters along his point A to point B journey. Lather rinse repeat. And it all takes place within the Umbrella Corporation mythology of the Resident Evil universe.
It also follows horror movie rules quite nicely as well. Cregger uses suspenseful down time, effectively timed jump scares, uncanny monsters, and fluid-splattery visual effects to make sure that Resident Evil is not just another zombie movie stereotype. Granted, the horror tropes are all there, but Cregger manages to make them fresh and fun again. The antagonistic creatures aren’t just eating brains. They’re coming after Bryan by doing everything from vomiting acid in his direction to hurling themselves off of buildings towards him. Death is everywhere around this poor guy.
Which brings us to Cregger’s use of humor. The ludicrous situations into which Bryan is put, coupled with Abrams’ deadpan performance, make Resident Evil nothing short of hilarious. The world is falling apart around poor Bryan, and he becomes every single member of the audience as it happens. His frustration and disbelief at each increasingly ridiculous obstacle are completely relatable. And completely hysterical. Seen through the eyes of Abrams’ Bryan, Resident Evil is a riot.
All of this adds up to a movie that is equal parts Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead and John Carpenter’s The Thing, all while being completely and recognizably a Zach Cregger joint. There are plenty of scares, and even a few dips in action where Cregger tries to humanize his hero while horrifying the audience with gross-out gore, but mostly, Resident Evil is just a plain old fun movie. This is the kind of horror flick that makes fans cheer out loud in the theater.
It’s hard to say if this Resident Evil reboot will stick, and even harder to say if Zach Cregger will be the one to continue with it. But Cregger has already made his thoughts on future castings known (he thinks Bryce Dallas Howard would be a great Lady Dimitrescu from the game franchise). And, with Cregger’s past cinematic accomplishments, if he wants to make another Resident Evil movie, well, everyone should let him.
GRADE: B+
Rating: R for strong bloody violence, language throughout, and gore
Runtime: 1 hour 30 minutes
Release Date: September 18, 2026
