Resident Evil is the new take on Capcom’s survival horror franchise from Zach Cregger, the writer-director behind Barbarian and Weapons, co-written with Shay Hatten. It opened on September 18 and broke franchise records with a $60 million opening weekend, according to Variety.
The critical response has been just as striking: 96% on Rotten Tomatoes and 91% from Fandango audiences, making it by some distance the best-received Resident Evil film ever made — and one of the best-reviewed video game adaptations of any kind.
Our verdict: after eight previous attempts, somebody finally made a Resident Evil movie that feels like Resident Evil. It just did it by not adapting anything at all.
It Feels Like Playing the Games
The film never retells a game’s plot, but it’s saturated in how the games feel. Reviewers who know the series well kept noticing the same thing: Cregger translates game mechanics into filmmaking.
Bryan finds a gun, and then has to search drawer after drawer for bullets. Anyone who’s played the games will recognise it instantly.
POV shots down the barrel of a gun that evoke the series’ first-person entries.
Opening doors onto crowded rooms and scanning for items, exactly as you would with a controller in hand.
A green herb, a typewriter, ammo counting, and plenty more for eagle-eyed fans to spot.
It also plays out in something close to real time, one continuous bad night — which gives it a relentless momentum that fits the games’ structure far better than any sprawling blockbuster version ever could.
Austin Abrams Carries It
Funny, Then Horrifying, Then Funny Again
Cregger came up in sketch comedy, and between Barbarian and Weapons he’s proven unusually good at swinging between laughter and terror without either undercutting the other. Resident Evil is his most confident balancing act yet.
The comedy isn’t parody. It’s situational — the absurdity of an ordinary person trying to handle something impossible — and it gives the audience a breath between some genuinely grotesque creature sequences. Reviewers noted that even a theatre full of people who clearly didn’t play the games were laughing at the jokes and jumping at the scares in equal measure.
The Few Complaints
Is It “Really” Resident Evil?
Some fans have argued that a Resident Evil film without its famous characters isn’t truly Resident Evil. Reviewers who know the series best mostly disagree, and they make a good case.
The games themselves reinvent the series constantly. Resident Evil 7 moved into a farmhouse with a family that owes more to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre than to Raccoon City. Village introduced a towering vampire aristocrat. Every time, some fans asked what it had to do with Resident Evil — and every time, the answer was everything that mattered: the dread, the scarce resources, the body horror, the Umbrella Corporation’s institutional incompetence.
Cregger’s film keeps all of that. As one critic put it, it’s like the best Star Wars side stories — a small, personal adventure set somewhere in the corner of a huge universe. The legendary heroes are presumably out there somewhere. This just isn’t their night.
The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly
| The Good | The Bad | The Ugly |
|---|---|---|
| It Finally Feels Like the GamesHunting drawers for ammo, POV shots down a gun barrel, scanning rooms for useful items, and a string of Easter eggs. It translates how Resident Evil plays, not just how it looks. | One Clumsy Exposition SceneA mid-film car sequence where the character explaining things shares the lead’s sense of humour, so the two cancel each other out. The pacing recovers immediately after. | A Deeply Divisive EndingBold, deliberate, and the single biggest talking point about the film. Some find it brilliant; others call it the most frustrating ending they’ve seen. Go in prepared. |
| Austin AbramsGenuine, funny, frightened and physical — doing many of his own stunts. Every reviewer names him as the film’s greatest asset. | A Little Goofy Near the EndThe comedy is well judged for most of the runtime, but some felt it tipped too far in the final act. Defenders point out the games have always had a camp streak. | Occasional Hokey CGIThe practical creature work is outstanding, which makes the few moments where digital effects take over stand out more than they should. |
| A Gamer’s Logic, Brutally CorrectedBryan shoots padlocks and rams gates like a video game character — and reality refuses to cooperate. It’s the film’s smartest joke and its best source of tension. | Not the Story Some Fans WantedNo Leon, Chris, Claire or Jill, and no adaptation of any game’s plot. If that’s what you need, this won’t be it. | Gross, Unflinching GoreRated R and very much earning it. Practical creature effects that hold on shots instead of cutting away. Great for fans, very much not for the squeamish. |
| Tight and RelentlessNinety-seven minutes, near real-time, no padding. It doesn’t overstay its welcome for a second. | — | — |
The Verdict
It took eight films and more than two decades, but Resident Evil finally has a movie worthy of the name — and the reason is almost counterintuitive. Zach Cregger didn’t try to adapt the games. He tried to capture what it feels like to play them.
By putting an ordinary courier at the centre instead of a trained hero, he found the franchise’s most interesting perspective: the person who would never survive a Resident Evil game, trapped inside one anyway. Every locked gate, every drawer without ammo, every door you shouldn’t open lands harder because the man opening it has no idea what he’s doing — and neither, in that moment, would you.
Austin Abrams is superb, the creature work is some of the best practical horror of the year, and Cregger’s balance of comedy and terror has never been sharper. The film isn’t flawless — a clumsy exposition scene, a slightly goofy final stretch, and an ending that will genuinely divide people — but none of it undoes what came before.
The honest read: whether you’ve played every game or none of them, see this on the biggest, loudest screen you can. It works for fans, it works for newcomers, and it’s the rare video game movie that makes you want to go back and play the games again.
Just stay away from the internet until you’ve seen that ending.
For more reviews, check out our full reviews section.
