Resident Evil film review: A bloody good time
Zach Cregger gives the long-running videogame adaptation a nerve-shredding first act, plenty of splatter and a nervous star turn from Austin Abrams
‘I’m out here in the snow, running round, being chased by crazy ass monster people,’ grumbles Austin Abrams’ hapless medical courier Bryan in the eighth iteration of the video-game-to-movie franchise, summing up the film in a sentence. Working from an original story, the director of Barbarian and the wildly successful Weapons, Zach Cregger, takes on this done-to-death series with characteristic aplomb.
Contemplating the prospect of fatherhood after taking a call from his pregnant partner, Bryan is packed off to Raccoon City General in possession of a highly classified cool bag. However, his attempt to deliver it is derailed when he hits a woman with his car. From thereon in, Bryan is plunged into a nightmare in which he’s forced to take on an assortment of aggressive hybrids (tentacles and multi-limbed beasts feature heavily), as he makes his way from the countryside to the city.
Cregger really knows how to do suspense and nothing tops the film’s agonisingly tense first act, as a bewildered Bryan finds his feet as an action hero on the outskirts of the city, before things descend enjoyably (though much less frighteningly) into something more effects-driven, one of a number of aspects that feels true to the game. Supporting players pop up to offer exposition (including the likes of Kali Reis, Zach Cherry and Paul Walter Hauser), but this is predominately a one-man show and Abrams brings just the right amount of nervous energy, delivering an endearingly scrappy turn playing an ordinary joe, whose only experience of guns is as a gamer.
Apart from cursory mentions of the Umbrella Corporation and the overarching quest for a cure, this is an almost completely stripped bare story featuring very little downtime, and it’s all the better for keeping things intensely immersive. Such simplicity gives it a one-and-done feel; it certainly would be sad to see one of the most influential figures in horror get stuck doing sequels. Cregger’s deliciously deranged humour and taste for sensational splatter is in decent supply, with the director taking inspiration from the mighty Evil Dead II, and playing wickedly on his protagonist’s emotional predicament. It’s bloody good fun.
Resident Evil is in cinemas from Friday 18 September.