Zach Cregger is at the top of his game.
After BARBARIAN and WEAPONS, that might sound like an obvious statement, but RESIDENT EVIL confirms it. This is a director who understands horror on a craft level. He understands space. He understands silence. He understands how your eyes scan a frame when you know something bad might be hiding in the corner.
Most importantly, he understands you do not need to drop BOOGA BOOGA hand grenades every 10 seconds to scare people.
RESIDENT EVIL is directed by Cregger, who co-wrote the screenplay with Shay Hatten. Austin Abrams stars as Bryan, a medical courier who finds himself trapped in a terrifying, action-packed fight for survival when one horrifying night collapses into chaos. The cast also includes Zach Cherry, Kali Reis, Johnno Wilson, and Paul Walter Hauser.
Spoiler-free story breakdown: Bryan is just trying to do his job. He is not a soldier. He is not a superhero. He is not the chosen one. He is a guy with a delivery, a brutal night ahead of him, and a growing realization that whatever is happening around him is far bigger, nastier, and more dangerous than he can possibly understand. The movie follows him through a survival-horror nightmare where every hallway, room, shadow, and sound feels like it could be the last bad decision he ever makes.
That simplicity is one of the movie’s biggest strengths.
This is a RESIDENT EVIL movie, but it works because it is not trying to be a video game movie in the clunky, “look, here’s a thing you recognize” way. You could walk into this with zero knowledge of the games, Raccoon City, Umbrella, or the larger franchise mythology and still have a blast. Cregger takes the bones of survival horror and builds a movie first.
That matters.
Too many video game adaptations feel like they are either apologizing for the source material or worshipping it so loudly that they forget to be actual movies. RESIDENT EVIL threads the needle. Fans will recognize the DNA, but the film does not require homework. It does not pause every few minutes to point at itself. It just moves.
And at the center of all of it is Austin Abrams.
Abrams is the heartbeat of the movie. It is hard to carry a film when so much of it is just you reacting, surviving, problem-solving, panicking, hurting, and pushing forward. This is basically the zombie equivalent of CAST AWAY, and Abrams shines. He gives Bryan the exact right balance of fear, confusion, dry humor, and exhausted determination.
Also, has anyone had his ass kicked more on screen over the last year or so than Austin Abrams? Between WEAPONS, RESIDENT EVIL, and the soon-to-come WHALEFALL, the man is building a resume of premium cinematic suffering. Respect.
What I loved most is how Cregger stages fear. Like James Wan at his best, he knows the scare is not just the jump. It is where your eyes go before the jump. It is the negative space. It is the shape in the dark that might be nothing. It is the thing half-visible in the corner while your brain is screaming, “Did I see that?” That is A+ craftsmanship.
Cregger understands how your eyes work and somehow transfers that sensation to the screen. That is not easy. A lot of horror directors can make you jump. Far fewer can make you afraid to keep looking.
This movie does that.
It is tense, gross, funny in the right places, and genuinely scary. It also continues something I have loved about horror over the last 10 to 15 years: we are living in a golden age of the genre. Horror has been weird, bold, personal, nasty, beautiful, heartbreaking, and wildly inventive. RESIDENT EVIL belongs in that conversation, because it takes something familiar and finds a way to make it feel alive again.
Or undead again, I guess.
Will this make as much money as WEAPONS? Probably not. But for me, it is the better film. It is tighter. Cleaner. Scarier. More rewatchable. And it proves Cregger is not just a guy who made a couple of great horror movies. He is one of the filmmakers defining what horror looks and feels like right now.
I loved this.
Grade: A
I will see it again in a heartbeat. And the second time, I may even keep my eyes open more.
Listen to me discuss this today on the KVNU For the People Movie Show live at 5PM, or check back later to listen to the podcast. You can also watch the trailer below.
