RESIDENT EVIL (2026)

Well, 2 out of 3 ain’t bad, I guess….? Right….?

After the critical, commercial and audience success of both Barbarian and last year’s Weapons, writer+director Zach Cregger takes a crack at the long maligned Resident Evil film franchise, which has had 7 entries since 2002, some good, some bad, some ugly - choosing to take the IP in a completely different direction than any of its predecessors.

So keeping with that schtick of the Resident Evil franchise, taking a good, bad and ugly approach to dissecting this movie feels.... appropriate.

The film revolves around Bryan (Austin Abrams), a fast talking, kind of dimwitted medical courier ready for his shift to be over so he can make his way home to speak with his girlfriend about her pregnancy news. After delivering what he believes to be his last of the day, he's offered a job that'll pay double if he makes his way to Racoon City.

The Good: I like Cregger as a director, as I find his knack for tension building as well as bringing out the best in his leads is his sweet spot. Both Julia Garner and Josh Brolin were excellent in Weapons but let's not forget, this man directed Amy Madigan to an Academy Award just earlier this year. Same can be said here for Abrams, as this is a one-man show for the entirety of the film. It doesn't work if he doesn't work.

Cregger is excellent as a set-up and character development man, essentially writing absolute 10 out of 10 first acts for all three of his movies, this very much included.  The first 30 minutes of Resident Evil are fantastic - suspenseful, fun, engaging and features three bang-on jump scares that really work.

But this leads me to the bad, as Resident Evil loses its way the minute the second act kicks off. The introduction of Paul Walter Hauser was great.... at first.... but then turns it into two man comedy slop within the confines of a GMC Yukon. It just doesn't work - not even the easter eggs for us OG Resident Evil fans.

Nothing feels scary or intense after this point. It sucks out the intensity and horror energy of the film and made me feel like I was watching an ultra violent, vulgar episode of an improv show, with Abrams basically saying 'fuck' every other word and having a running joke featuring locks and disbelief for the remainder of the movie. Barbarian suffered this fate as well, in which the jokes don't land and in turn, it draws away from how great the first acts are in both of Cregger's film.

There is a way to have comedy integrate itself into your horror film without it leeching the menace out of the whole thing — but it requires the jokes to come from the horror rather than interrupt it. Evil Dead II is a farce and still relentless, because the gag and the threat are the same object; Ash getting beaten up by his own hand isn't a break from the tension, it is the tension. Get Out is funny in a way that tightens the screws instead of loosening them. What Cregger does in both films is different: he builds something genuinely frightening and then steps outside of it to let two actors riff, and the moment you feel the movie enjoying itself more than it's scaring you, the spell breaks. You can't put it back. The second half of Resident Evil isn't a horror film with jokes in it — it's a comedy that occasionally remembers to kill someone.

Which leads me lastly to the ugly, because this is not a Resident Evil film. This is a subgenre outbreak movie that has no ties to the franchise besides two name drops - The Umbrella Corporation and Racoon City. I have lived through 24 years of a mixed bag of films, which at least paid respect to its source material. But this felt like a total betrayal to what came before it and what this IP means to true fans.

I will be in minority here and proud of that as this film is about to scorch the box office and rotten tomatoes audience score this weekend. That first act and Abrams are the only saving grace of this unbalanced, unfunny and rarely scary film. Resident Evil thought it was finding its savior in Zach Cregger but instead we took ten steps backwards in storytelling for two bucks forward for this once dead franchise.