Resident Evil (2026)

Permanent Residents

Resident Evil (2026)
Directed by Zach Cregger
Germany/United States/Czech Republic/Canada
Australia/New Zealand/France 2026
Columbia Pictures

So yet another new version of Resident Evil hits our screens, an adaptation (of sorts) of the successful series of video games which have been going since the 1990s. So this is, what, the 8th Resident Evil movie (counting only the live actions films and not the animated features... I need to see those, perhaps) and it’s also the second reboot, so to speak, since the last movie in the franchise, also a reboot, failed to gain any traction. 

So this one is the next film from the writer/director Zach Cregger, who had the huge horror hit Weapons last year (reviewed here). He’s apparently adapted another of his stand alone scripts into a Resident Evil movie, after getting the green light to be part of the franchise and, yeah, it kinda shows, in some ways, that it’s a rewrite of something else... but not to the detriment of the franchise, for sure. I’ve not had much experience of the video games but I know the movies and... well, none of the main characters seem to be in this. Not a problem though. 

I will say up front that I almost didn’t bother with this one because... surprise, surprise... the trailer put me off. Again. Does anybody in Hollywood know how to cut a trailer anymore. All I’ve seen for the last year are bad trailers which made me question whether I wanted to trek out for the movies or not. Better marketing people are definitely needed here.

Anyhow, I saw it and I’ll tell you now, I was rather pleasantly surprised. Even though I kind of hated the main character. He’s played by Austin Abrams who plays him quite similarly (as written, I would guess) to the horrible, drop-out character he played in Weapons so, yeah, I’m bringing baggage with me but, I at least overcame that hurdle. The actor does what he does well and, even though the character is not somebody I would want to hang out with, he does make things believable for the audience. 

Okay, so the film itself is not the action movie that the previous films were. It’s actually got a few elements in it which make it much closer to the experience of an audience member playing a video game and, I couldn’t quite work out if I liked this approach or not. But, it’s certainly effective so, what we have is a character who has absolutely no idea what is happening in Racoon City and its surrounding areas and, yup, we stay just with this character through the entire movie. Like you would if you were playing a game. It even switches to first person view in a couple of shots but... don’t remember that happening in the game I played (or tried to play, I was useless at the copy of Resident Evil 2 which was bundled with my old Playstation), to be honest. 

So he, and the audience, has no idea of what’s going on and... bullets are almost as much of a problem here as they were, quite deliberately, in the original game. I remember never having enough bullets when playing and you’d be forced to sneak around zombies (or actually organisms much more complex in this movie) and be constantly looking for more ammunition. Same thing here... the central character is always checking his shells and bullets and worrying about how he’s going to solve his next problem.

And the creatures in this are impressive. They are all mutations of some kind and make for some very surreal and grotesque encounters throughout the movie... bringing many a surprise and unexpected dilemma to challenge the protagonist as he goes to try and deliver his medical supplies (that’s the basic plot of the movie, by the way... a medical courier is trying to deliver something to the hospital in Racoon City but, by the time he gets there, things have already gone pear shaped).

Now, the director is not above resorting to many a horror movie cliché in this... so you get scenes of flickering lights meant to reveal and conceal, to keep the audience on edge. I even heard the old reliable ‘put a blatant heartbeat tempo’ on the score to ramp things up. So, yeah, it’s an exercise in jump scares too and... I can’t blame him for trying. Those don’t always work but the sheer inventiveness and gory creativity between each creature encountered more than makes up for this and sometimes work better as a jump scare in themselves. 

And I’m not sure I want to say much more abut Resident Evil (2026)... it’s not a film you are expecting if you only know the other seven movies but, it’s pretty effective and does feel much more like you’re being thrust into a ‘survival horror’ environment than those earlier movies too. It’s doing something right and I had a pretty good time with this one, I would say. I’ll definitely be picking this one up on Blu Ray when it comes out.