‘Resident Evil’ Review: Zach Cregger Gives a Fatigued Franchise an Exhilarating Shot in the Arm

It seemed a step backward when it was announced that Zach Cregger’s next film would be a reboot of the Resident Evil film franchise. The writer-director had created two of the most audacious and original horror films of the last decade with Barbarian and Weapons, so to retreat to established IP, especially something as unrewarding as these video game adaptations have been, felt disappointing.

Not to worry, however, as the talented filmmaker has completely rejuvenated the series, leaving the six original films and the misbegotten reboot attempt Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City in the dust.

Resident Evil

The Bottom Line This is how it's done.

Release date: Friday, September 18
Cast: Austin Abrams, Zach Cherry, Kali Reis, Paul Walter Hauser, Will Merrick
Director: Zach Cregger
Screenwriters: Zach Cregger, Shay Hatten
Rated R, 1 hour 30 minutes

Forgoing the characters seen in the games and the previous films (a decision that caused some consternation among longtime fans), Cregger very much makes the film his own while displaying his obvious affinity for the source material. He’s crafted a propulsive, simultaneously terrifying and hilarious thrill ride that showcases both his cinematic chops and perverse sense of humor. There are plenty of jump scares, to be sure, but also hilarious moments that play like deadpan one-liners rendered in visual terms.

Numerous supporting players are in the mix, but lead actor Austin Abrams (who previously worked with Cregger on Weapons) practically delivers a one-man show as Bryan, a medical courier with girlfriend problems who impulsively takes a last-minute assignment on a snowy winter night. He agrees to deliver an urgent package, presumably containing a human organ, to a hospital in Raccoon City, a task that anyone familiar with the franchise will know is not going to go well.

The first calamity occurs on a remote road when his car hits a woman who inexplicably wanders in front of him. The well-meaning Bryan puts the badly injured, bloody woman into his car, not making too much of the fact that her body is stuck in a weirdly contorted position and she seems catatonic. Needless to say, things don’t go as planned, especially when he’s stopped by a policeman who puts the woman in his squad car and agrees to escort him to the hospital.

It’s but the beginning of a series of misadventures in disparate locales that have the episodic structure of so many video games. Having to abandon his car, Bryan finds himself at a seemingly deserted farmhouse, where he’s nearly killed by a vicious guard dog and the woman who lives there. In the process, they reveal themselves to be monsters, sporting tentacles and gaping jaws filled with sharp teeth.

Yes, it turns out that some sort of infection is turning people into zombie-like beasts in Raccoon City, including a crying little girl in a motor home whom Bryan also attempts to help only to get bitten by her for his troubles. Cregger and co-screenwriter Shay Hatten (John Wick Chapter 4) make a running gag out of Bryan’s attempts to aid people that go nearly fatally awry, as well as his ineptitude with guns and extremely bad luck trying to shoot off padlocks.

Making his way into the city, Bryan is given a ride by Carl (a very funny Paul Walter Hauser), an Umbrella Academy scientist, and Maxine (a fierce Kali Reis, of True Detective: Night Country), his driver and armed escort, who provide the necessary backstory and inform Bryan that what he’s really carrying is the desperately needed antidote to the infection that’s swiftly sweeping the area. When Maxine disappears after exiting the vehicle to dispatch some zombies, Bryan attempts to go after her and winds up in a sewer, where he has a horrific encounter with a morbidly obese man whose stomach suddenly erupts to reveal yet another nasty surprise.

The film, which feels refreshingly fat-free at a breathless 90 minutes, features one compelling sequence after another, especially one in which Bryan has to dodge a gauntlet of exploding bodies as zombies throw themselves from tall buildings directly into his path. When he finally succeeds in reaching the hospital, it results in a Homerian odyssey to the building’s top floor, a terrifying maternity ward scene that could have been painted by Hieronymus Bosch, and an over-the-top climax of deliriously operatic proportions.

Through it all, we fully identify with the hapless Bryan, whose constant mutterings of such things as “What is this shit now?” and “What the fuck was that about?” prove thoroughly relatable. Every once in a while, Cregger shifts to a first-person perspective so we see the action through the character’s eyes exactly as we would if we were playing the games. Abrams’ shaggy appeal as the everyman hero who somehow manages to overcome every obstacle thrown in his way, including the most monstrous creatures Cregger and his talented creative team could devise, is a key factor in the film’s success.

Filled with baroque gore and wildly imaginative set pieces delivered at a feverish pace, Resident Evil transcends its simplistic premise with the sort of cinematic wit and flair for which the filmmaker has been justly acclaimed.