Zach Cregger’s latest film “Resident Evil” is a genre product packed with enough fun and excitement. Yes, just like its many other predecessors, it surely has lot of gruesome entities to pop up here and there, but it skillfully and humorously handles its familiar materials, and we gladly go along with that during its rather short running time (90 minutes).

As all of you certainly know, the movie is based on Capcom’s Resident Evil video game franchise. While there have already been a bunch of Resident Evil films during last 24 years, none of them was not particularly successful, and the first one, which was made by Paul W.S. Anderson in 2002, incidentally inspired my late mentor/friend Roger Ebert to write one of his most enjoyable negative reviews: “Eventually its tongue is nailed to the floor of a train car and it is dragged behind it on the third rail. I hate it when that happens.”

I have not seen any of the previous Resident Evil flicks, and I am also not so familiar with Capcom’s video game franchise, but it did not take much time for me to get accustomed to the story background and setting of the movie. After all, as your average moviegoer, I have watched a fair share of zombie movies for many years, and some of them are actually not so far from the Resident Evil films in terms of story and character.

The hero of the story is Bryan (Austin Abrams), a young medical courier who accepts another delivery job right after delivering an organ to a local hospital. When we hear where he has to go, we instantly sense a big trouble coming to him, but he agrees to go there anyway mainly because he needs to earn more money, and we soon see him driving his car to that place with something to be delivered by him.

Of course, the mood becomes ominous as he drives his old shabby vehicle along a very snowy road in the middle of night, and then something strange happens. A mysterious figure suddenly appears on the middle of the road, and that is just the beginning of what turns out to be a very long night for Bryan. As he struggles to understand and survive whatever is happening around him, more horrible things come upon him, and it goes without saying that this rather sloppy lad finds himself thrown into more manic and fear along the story.

As its frequently incompetent hero clumsily bounces from one narrative point to another, the movie deftly swings back and forth between horror and comedy. There are a bunch of horrible entities as expected, and most of them wield a lot of tentacles just like those creatures in John Carpenter’s classic SF horror film “The Thing” (1982). In case of one scene featuring a particularly mean dog appearing early in the film, the movie deftly dials up and down the level of tension as Bryan frantically tries to evade it, and we surely get some laugh and surprise from that.

Although it lags a bit when its hero has an obligatory scene where he gets to learn more about what is happening around him, the movie steadily serves effective moments of gory fun. Besides a certain grotesque entity which keeps coming after Bryan along the story, there are several other equally gruesome entities ready to attack him in one way or another, and I was particularly amused by an entity who can vomit something as acidic as the blood of that alien creature in “Alien” (1979).

I must point out that the story is basically a series of video game stages, but the screenplay by Cregger and his co-writer Shay Hatten steadily builds up narrative momentum while occasionally focusing on character development. While we mostly observe Bryan’s ongoing plight from the distance, he gradually comes to us as an ordinary dude desperately struggling in a crisis way over his head, and we come to care about whatever may happen to him in the end. 

It surely helps that the movie is supported well by the considerable talent and presence of Austin Abrams, who played a substantial supporting role in Cregger’s previous film “Weapons” (2025). He is constantly convincing in his character’s fear and panic along the story, and he also ably handles several darkly absurd moments from his hero’s frequent incompetence. You may roll your eyes as watching these moments, but, well, I would also be that incompetent if I suddenly faced a bunch of monsters coming after me.

Although Abrams’ good performance is the main show of the film, it is a bit shame that several other few notable cast members of the film merely come and then go without much impression. Zach Cherry, Kali Reis, and Paul Walter Hauser do as much as possible with their thankless supporting roles, but the movie could have a bit more space for them.

Overall, “Resident Evil” is often fun and entertaining thanks to the commendable efforts from not only Abrams but also Cregger and his crew members including cinematographer Dariusz Wolski, who did a stellar job of filling the screen with a chilly sense of dread. Although it is relatively less impressive than “Weapons”, the movie accomplishes its task as well as intended, and it surely sets an exemplary standard for any future Resident Evil flick to come next.