Zach Cregger is known for his original horror films such as 2022’s Barbarian and 2025’s critically acclaimed Weapons. Resident Evil (2026) is his first movie attached to a larger property, and a smash hit at that. With a 96% from critics and a 90% from general audiences on Rotten Tomatoes, not to mention the $60 million made from its domestic opening, it is the highest rated film based on the Resident Evil franchise (there are seven others—none of them are good), and the most successful. While the movie contains a good handful of tasteful references, its success as a Resident Evil movie is in how much it understands the traits that make the franchise so iconic.
Starting as a game tasked to reuse elements from director Shinji Mikami’s Japan exclusive movie tie-in horror game Sweet Home, it eventually transformed into Capcom’s 1996 PlayStation classic: Biohazard (Resident Evil everywhere else). The first game has you take the role of Chris Redfield or Jill Valentine, as you and other members of the elite task force S.T.A.R.S. are sent to investigate a helicopter crash on the outskirts of Raccoon City. Suddenly, out of the darkness, packs of seemingly rabid dogs send the team straight into a mansion nearby the crash site. Being trapped inside the suspicious mansion leads the team to split up and search for clues, but what they find is much worse. Humans and dogs with a zombie-like infection are scattered about the mansion, and you don’t have enough bullets to weaken them, nor enough matches to burn their reviving corpses.
This is the true terror of the Resident Evil franchise: the gameplay loop. With limited space for inventory, sparse sources of ammo and healing items, as well as being unable to aim, shoot, and move at the same time, every choice matters. Do you have enough ammo to make it to the next safe room? Can you move around the zombies fast enough? Maybe I can use some ammo here, or will I need it later? That is what the game is about: the push and pull of what you think is right versus what you think the game might need you to use.
The story of Resident Evil is more ham-and-cheese horror than skin-crawlingly-creepy horror, but its main antagonist, the Umbrella Corporation, always keeps records around each location that conveniently expounds on the horrors of their human experimentation projects that caused the events of the game. That juxtaposition of the imagined horror read on text versus the campy voice acting is part of the charm.
Over time, the games have replaced ham-and-cheese horror with ham-and-cheese action horror, specifically with the iconic fourth game in the franchise. Playing as the once-scared rookie from Resident Evil 2, Leon Kennedy is now a one-liner-slinging badass. He says what he is thinking no matter how stupid it sounds. It’s his charisma (and general proficiency at killing zombies and zombie bugs and zombie army generals and zombie giants in a variety of buildings, villages, factories, boats, and castles) that has earned him every single one of his quips. He looks into the pit of horrors and asks where the bathroom is.
For 5 and 6, the games would lean further into the action vibes, and while they still had limited inventory space, it became more about how crazy the set pieces were. Until Resident Evil 7 brought the horror into the first person for the first time. A game surrounded by many of the most iconic horror tropes, it brought the horror back into the franchise when it was thought to be missing.
While Resident Evil 8 became more of a mix of that newly injected horror and that familiar action camp, Resident Evil 9 would be the most ambitious game of the franchise. Now the game is split into two different styles you play sequentially. In a nutshell, you play through a horror oriented level full of puzzles and dangerous enemies as FBI agent Grace Ashcroft, and then you play as the returning Leon Kennedy, who destroys the fear and anxiety that Grace faces with his arsenal of weapons and catchphrases.
As such, there is some aspect of every era of Resident Evil in Cregger’s movie, the first thing being the main character. Bryan Hodukavich (played by Austin Abrams) is a skittish scaredy cat who is too nice, indecisive, and incapable to be the main character of a Resident Evil story. And that’s the point. In an interview with PlayStation Blog, Cregger explains that he “is…like an avatar for me, or what I expect the average video game player would react if they were thrust into the game themselves…he’s just a normal guy. He’s not particularly good at combat in any way, shape, or form. He’s athletic, but he’s not an athlete; he’s just a guy. He’s just a good natured, hapless dude who gets sucked into a nightmare.” The player behind the controller is always part of the story one way or another, depending on the choices they make to affect the ending. But the player is not like Leon Kennedy or Jill Valentine, no one is.
Bryan’s indecisiveness and general ineptitude makes him struggle with keeping his own inventory. He searches the house he gets trapped in for bullets, ends up shooting at his own car, and many other fumbles that would seem like he’s messing around with the controls, not realizing that he is actually experiencing the horror we see behind the screen.
I’d hate to spoil the movie for those who haven’t seen it, but just know that the movie has two halves to it: the horror-suspense and the horror-action. Bryan starts by being thrown into a hopeless situation that he haplessly makes his way through, as the action and stakes rise higher and higher. It is a shockingly tense ride, and while the humor released a few knots, my guts stayed strung together until the end of this horrific roller coaster ride.
