The camera lingers on an empty doorway. We gaze into the darkness beyond, anticipating the horrors that lurk within, before a monstrous threat emerges. No, this isn’t Barbarian (2022). It’s not Weapons (2025) either. This is Resident Evil (2026) — not to be confused with Resident Evil (2002) or any other media with the same name.
Zach Cregger is one of the most-cited examples of the sketch-comedy-to-horror pipeline in contemporary filmmaking, with Jordan Peele having popularized the label. Cregger was a founding member of The Whitest Kids U’ Know and starred in several sitcoms; he then made his solo directorial debut with Barbarian, a low-budget success. He made further buzz when his script for Weapons was so popular that Peele fired his managers after losing the bidding war over the rights to produce the film. It went on to become a critical and commercial hit, eventually winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Amy Madigan’s iconic performance as the villain, Aunt Gladys.
Prior to the release of Weapons, Cregger was announced as the director for the Resident Evil reboot, an arduous task considering the amount of baggage the franchise carried by this point: 13 mainline video games and seven critically-derided movies that have nonetheless grossed over $1.2 billion collectively. There’s also the common trend of video game film adaptations that cater towards rabid fanbases demanding lore accuracy and Easter Eggs rather than developing a functional story. Recent examples include The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023), Five Nights at Freddy’s (2023), A Minecraft Movie (2025) — the list goes on. So when Cregger made it clear that he was creating an original story set in the Resident Evil universe, it was inevitable that a subsection of gamers would get upset. And that’s okay; not everything is for everyone. But this movie is for me.
Resident Evil (2026) quickly establishes the inciting incident and emotional conflict of its protagonist, Bryan, who is portrayed by Austin Abrams in his second collaboration with Cregger following Weapons. Bryan is a medical courier (self-described as a glorified Postmates driver) who receives the assignment of delivering a top-priority package to Raccoon City General Hospital. He is also in the middle of a tough conversation after his unseen girlfriend reveals her pregnancy, to which he responds with nothing more than “It’s your body, your choice.” This sets up Bryan’s passive, indecisive nature that will soon be challenged.
In true video game fashion, the entire movie can be summarized as a series of levels where Bryan must gather items for his inventory, learn how to use weapons and defeat various types of mutated creatures ranging from an amalgam of human body parts and tentacles to the dog from The Thing (1982). It’s a refreshing, grounded narrative structure as the audience must figure out what to do alongside Bryan.
While countless other horror films feature characters who are irritatingly unintelligent, Bryan is stupid in a realistic manner as he reacts to these absurd scenarios with a mixture of high-pitched shrieks and curse words. He doesn’t know how to use a gun (remarking that it’s much different in real life than in video games), which makes it exponentially more satisfying when he manages to kill the zombie-adjacent beasts he encounters. He is never a badass like Milla Jovovich in the other films of the series; he’s an everyman thrust into the first night of a zombie apocalypse. In any other context, Bryan would be an NPC (non-player character). But here, Cregger and Abrams give him an exciting relatability, further enhanced by clever cinematography that deploys point-of-view shots at all the right moments.
Resident Evil is an authentic horror-comedy as Cregger and co-writer Shay Hatten efficiently walk the tightrope between the two genres. There are many moments that evoke laughs and nervous chuckles, but they never undermine the tension because the humor often stems from Bryan’s physical actions and reactions instead of written jokes. Abrams does deliver some uproarious lines, though they feel more like improvised profanities rather than intended one-liners (regardless of how they actually ended up in the film).
For instance, as shown in the trailer, Bryan hits a woman with his car very early on in the film. When he checks on her, the viewer can easily deduce that she will turn out to be less than friendly. Yet Bryan brings her into his car anyway, waving away any red flags as the result of shock from the collision. Thus, there is the suspense of waiting for the woman to attack, but also the comedy from Bryan’s complete ignorance.
As Bryan progresses from snowy mountain roads to abandoned houses to the streets of Raccoon City, brief appearances from character actors like Paul Walter Houser and Zach Cherry flesh out the world in scenes that more closely invoke the iconography of the games. Bryan eventually learns the vague cause of the outbreak and the role he must play in dealing with the infected hordes. Although the screenplay attempts to map his change from weak to assertive onto his aforementioned relationship issues, his arc is not quite fully fleshed out. A climactic moment that should feel earned instead feels arbitrarily initiated by a random reminder to Bryan that he has a girlfriend.
Despite this shortcoming and a bold conclusion to the 95-minute runtime that I am still chewing on, Resident Evil is a triumphant model of what can be achieved when a filmmaker is allowed to take a long-running IP in a fresh direction. Cregger is three-for-three and shows no signs of slowing down.
Colton Sears is a member of the Class of 2028 in the Nolan School of Hotel Administration. He is a staff writer for the Arts & Culture department and can be reached at cds284@cornell.edu.
