It took twenty-four years, eight live-action movies, countless gallons of fake blood, and more than a few cinematic misfires, but somebody has finally figured out how to make a Resident Evil movie. About damn time. Zach Cregger doesn’t approach the material like sacred video-game scripture, nor does he treat it as an excuse to simply throw zombies, guns, and Umbrella logos at the screen. Instead, he understands something the previous films never quite managed to grasp: Resident Evil is about atmosphere. It is about walking into a room you absolutely know you shouldn’t enter and opening the damn door anyway. Cregger takes that feeling and builds an entire movie around it, delivering a nasty, funny, beautifully constructed 90-minute nightmare that finally feels worthy of the name.
The smartest decision is making Bryan an ordinary guy. Austin Abrams plays the medical courier who wanders into this particular corner of hell, and there is no superhero swagger to him, no convenient transformation into an unstoppable zombie-killing machine. Abrams gives us fear, confusion, exhaustion, and just enough humor to make Bryan feel like somebody who might actually exist outside the movie. Cregger surrounds him with Zach Cherry, Kali Reis, and Paul Walter Hauser, and the ensemble understands exactly what kind of movie they are making. Nobody winks at the material. Nobody tries to rise above it. Even when things become increasingly insane—and they certainly do—the performances keep everything grounded in something recognizably human.
And then there is the filmmaking. Holy hell, this thing looks good. Working with cinematographer Dariusz Wolski, Cregger uses darkness instead of simply photographing it, filling the frame with empty spaces, distant movement, shadows, snow, sickly interiors, and corners you desperately want the camera to stop investigating. The camera itself becomes part of the experience, sometimes stalking Bryan and sometimes trapping us right beside him. There are visual echoes of the games without the movie becoming a two-hour Easter-egg hunt: over-the-shoulder compositions, first-person perspectives, dwindling resources, locked spaces, and the constant sensation that something terrible is waiting just outside the frame. This is not a filmmaker imitating a video game. This is a filmmaker translating the experience of playing one into cinematic language.
Most importantly, Resident Evil is scary again. Not relentlessly grim. Not self-important. Scary. Cregger knows exactly when to tighten the screws and when to release them, allowing humor to creep into the picture without puncturing the dread. When the violence arrives, it is wet, ugly, excessive, and frequently glorious, but the gore isn't doing all the heavy lifting. Sound, editing, camera placement, lighting, and patience matter just as much. There is confidence behind every choice, the kind that allows Cregger to occasionally hold back when practically every modern horror movie seems determined to show us everything. And when he finally does show us everything, well, buckle up. This is Resident Evil. Things are supposed to get disgusting.
Everything works. The performances work. The direction works. The camera works. The atmosphere works. The scares, gore, humor, pacing, and wonderfully grotesque creatures work. More than that, though, Cregger has finally discovered how to make Resident Evil feel like Resident Evil without simply recreating something we've already played. After decades of movies that ranged from entertaining nonsense to frustrating missed opportunities, somebody finally understood that the games weren't memorable simply because they had zombies in them. They were memorable because of how they made us feel while moving through the darkness, wondering what was behind the next door. Zach Cregger remembers that feeling.
About damn time.
MPAA Rating: R.
Runtime: 94 mins
Director: Zach Cregger
Writer: Zach Cregger
Cast: Austin Abrams; Zach Cherry; Kali Reis
Genre: Horror
Tagline:
Memorable Movie Quote: "It's over, pal. It was over the minute I met you."
Distributor: Sony
Official Site:
Release Date: September 18, 2026
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date:
Synopsis: A hapless courier is tasked with delivering a package to a remote hospital. He soon finds himself caught in the middle of an outbreak and must fight through hordes of mutated creatures to survive.
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