Zach Cregger’s “Resident Evil” Isn’t Really a “Resident Evil” Movie – Review

Yeah. I said what I said in the title of this review. The latest Resident Evil live-action movie from director Zach Cregger isn’t really a Resident Evil movie. It functioned more as a body horror flick, using the iconic RE name for easy marketing.

WARNING: This review of Resident Evil includes major spoilers. Proceed with caution!

Before some of you take out your pitchforks and come at me, let me say my piece real quick. Even though I think that Cregger’s Resident Evil doesn’t really work as a movie in the long-running RE IP, that doesn’t mean that the film itself doesn’t have redeeming moments. However, the fact that the RE name was slapped on as the movie’s title means I have to look at it as an IP-linked Hollywood product instead of a standalone original offering from director/co-writter Cregger.

So, yeah, using the IP-related metric, I wouldn’t recommend the new Resident Evil movie to fans of the OG RE video games. And I can’t believe that I’m saying this, but the Milla Jovovich-led movies were more RE than what Cregger has created. Heck! 2021’s Welcome to Raccoon City was a mess, but at the end of the day, it was still more RE than whatever this is.

I can’t help but think that the producers used Resident Evil in the title of Cregger’s script to help with marketing. Because if you really analyzed Cregger’s film, it can easily be any run-of-the-mill zombie or body horror monster movie by simply taking away a couple of RE-linked settings. The Umbrella lab could have been any zombie outbreak lab. Raccoon City could have been any other zombie-infested city. And I’m pretty sure that the entire movie didn’t say “T-virus” even once. Sigh!

Even the so-called zombies in the movie didn’t really give off RE vibes. For me, the zombies worked a lot better as some kind of alien parasite wreaking havoc on Earth, especially due to the abundance of tendrils and how they operated. Think about The Thing. And that’s not what RE is supposed to be.

And while the RE video games are camp, the humor works without taking away from the seriousness of the overall story. In contrast, Cregger’s script featured a whole lot of comedy that quickly came across as humor for the sake of humor, with no concern about how certain jokes and moments of levity could take away from the emotional impact the paper-thin plot finally managed to achieve in the approximate 1 hour 25 minute runtime.

Yeah, I say paper-thin, because there’s really nothing going on in the new Resident Evil movie. Focusing on a normal citizen experiencing the horrors of a zombie outbreak without connecting him to the bigger Umbrella-run picture would be treated as a short story (at best) in the RE franchise. It would very likely be told via journal entries the player would collect during their gameplay as Chris, Jill, Claire, or any of the other main RE characters.

Cregger deliberately excluding his lead character’s connection to Umbrella or the RE lore immediately left him without much to work with, plot-wise. And it showed in the movie, with Cregger being forced to take Bryan (Austin Abrams) from one set piece to the next to keep the movie going instead of it having much of a narrative thread to hold it together.

Even the recent Resident Evil 9 video game had the sense to connect new character Grace to the RE lore via the Resident Evil Outbreak spin-off title because again, the (rather convoluted) lore of RE is what makes the IP Resident Evil and prevents it from being just another zombie outbreak survival adventure that is a dime a dozen across various media.

Now that I have gotten those opinions out of the way, let’s talk about this movie as its own product. Which, technically, I shouldn’t favor this movie in such a manner, because again, it marketed itself as a Resident Evil flick, but oh well.

Even though he made some very poor decisions, with one such decision getting him infected, I did like Austin Abrams as Bryan. He delivered what he was supposed to. I mean, the fact that I was annoyed as heck by Bryan after he kept making poor decisions one after the other highlighted how skilled Abrams was as an actor.

Bryan continuing his mission to deliver the package to the Umbrella lab in Raccoon City made sense after everything he had been through. He had nothing to lose after the infection began spreading through his body. And the chance of getting an antidote would keep such a person going. He had a pregnant girlfriend to return to.

I liked the excessive amount of gore and blood used. However, I have to say that the movie leaned a bit too heavily into the horror-comedy aspect near the end, with the gore and blood taking a turn toward being more of a spoof instead of holding any emotional weight the deaths could have had. The use of gore and blood also felt a bit too gimmicky in certain instances, especially during the sequence where the zombies fell at Bryan from a bunch of buildings. Like, why were they all up there to begin with? And why were the Raccoon City streets free from the undead? Hmmm.

The winter setting allowed Cregger to feature some very cool visuals, especially during the beginning of the movie where Bryan’s trying to survive his first zombie encounter involving a woman. I liked how the headlights of the car were used to create shadows. The camera’s POV sticking with Bryan also helped with visual storytelling. We only saw what Bryan saw. The scene where Bryan watched Kali Reis’ Maxine walk out of sight while trying to shoot down zombies was a good example of such visual storytelling.

Again, Cregger’s RE has engaging moments, especially visual ones. But it’s not really what it’s being marketed to be.

Another thing I enjoyed about RE was the short runtime. The paper-thin plot was quite evident. So, yeah, to Cregger and his team for being aware they needed to pack it up ASAP.

All in all, Cregger’s Resident Evil isn’t a Resident Evil movie. But if you are into sitting through a horror-comedy about a normal dude trying to survive a body horror nightmare, I think you will appreciate this movie.

Cregger’s Resident Evil was released in North America on September 18, 2026. Along with Abrams and Reis, the cast also includes Zach Cherry, Paul Walter Hauser, Andrea Miltnerová, and more.

Did you watch the new Resident Evil movie? What did you think of it?

Let us know.

Author: Farid-ul-Haq

Farid has a Double Masters in Psychology and Biotechnology as well as an M.Phil in Molecular Genetics. He is the author of numerous books including Missing in Somerville, and The Game Master of Somerville. He gives us insight into comics, books, TV shows, anime/manga, video games, and movies.

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