Zach Cregger's Resident Evil Review: Relentless Survival

Director Zach Cregger delivers a stripped-back, relentless survival horror experience with his new film Resident Evil. The movie, reviewed by FilmStories, runs for a hectic 90 minutes and focuses on an ordinary man's nightmarish journey rather than the franchise's established lore.

Cregger, known for Weapons and Barbarian, sidesteps three decades of videogame backstory, characters like Leon Kennedy, and previous film incarnations. His core concept is to replicate the panicked emotion of playing a survival horror game: the sweaty palms, the frantic camera swings, and the jolts of terror. While there are nods to Raccoon City and the Umbrella Corporation, this Resident Evil is its own detached story.

An Unlikely Protagonist

The film's twist is its protagonist, Bryan, played by Austin Abrams. Unlike the expert heroes of the games or Mila Jovovich's Alice, Bryan is essentially a bit rubbish. He behaves like a player who isn't adept with the controls. Bryan is a scruffy medical courier with a thankless gig economy job. One wintry night, while delivering an organ to a hospital and dealing with news of his partner's pregnancy, he accepts a double-pay job to deliver another cold storage bag to Raccoon City within the hour.

Thus begins a hazard-filled journey from point A to point B. The plot is lean: just Bryan, mostly alone, using his meagre skills to survive an unfolding outbreak. Abrams' performance makes Bryan's haplessness appealing. The character, whose gun experience is limited to videogames, struggles to find the safety catch. One character detail notes he wears a woolly hat with pictures of sheep knitted into it.

Style and Influences

The film is deliberately funny, with Bryan's good-natured eagerness leading to Sam Raimi-esque mayhem. When events turn nasty, Cregger evokes genre maestros like George A. Romero, John Carpenter, and Bryan Yuzna. Cinematographer Darius Khondji makes the most of horror scenarios, particularly in early nocturnal scenes lit only by a mobile phone, which are described as genuinely cinematic and visible.

Cregger and Khondji repeatedly use POV shots reminiscent of first-person shooter iron sights, adding to the suspense. The camerawork is fluent, moving from low angles on tiptoeing feet to over-the-shoulder glimpses. Structurally, this film is an about-face from Cregger's multi-perspective Weapons and Barbarian. Resident Evil is lean almost to a fault, showing only what Bryan sees and knows.

Pacing and Final Act

For the first hour, the momentum, Cregger's technical skill, and Abrams' performance drive the film like a miniature Mad Max: Fury Road. However, in the third act, the sense of one damn thing after another begins to tell. As CGI gore and threats pummel the screen, the earlier tension ebbs.

Co-writer Shay Hatten, who previously penned Ballerina, brings a videogame-indebted taste for outrageous action. The review notes that this can sometimes threaten to break suspension of disbelief, and mileage may vary on the gaudy final stretch. Yet, the sense is that Cregger aimed to deliver a simple, entertaining popcorn movie that laughs and gasps without bogging down in franchise lore or heavy themes.

Underlying Sentiments

The film is not completely empty-headed. It contains a sentiment about the fear of change and how pointless that fear is when the world alters us regardless. Beneath the over-the-top splatter and Bryan's puppyish anxiety sits a glint of icy harshness. The review concludes that while it may not be a horror classic, it is easily one of the best videogame adaptations ever. Resident Evil is in UK cinemas from the 18th September.