Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil balances horror and comedy equally

Developed over time first seen 2 months ago

The Verge · 2 months ago

Zach Cregger’s new Resident Evil film returns to the games’ survival-horror foundations while balancing frightening set-pieces with deliberately awkward comedy. It centres on Bryan, an inexperienced medical courier drawn into danger on a winter journey towards Raccoon City, and suggests that video-game adaptations can respect their source material without losing their identity as films.

Bryan’s encounters with infected people and grotesquely mutating creatures are designed to be both disturbing and absurd, with humour often intensifying the tension rather than undermining it. By giving limited weapons and ammunition to an ordinary, panicked civilian instead of trained agents, Cregger and co-writer Shay Hatten recreate the vulnerability of playing Resident Evil for the first time; the film works as a self-contained story while leaving room for a wider franchise.

Sources: 4
Outlets: 4
Left · Centre · Right: 0 · 0 · 0

In short

Cregger’s Resident Evil combines scares and comedy effectively.
An ordinary courier faces mutated creatures with scarce resources.
The film honours the games while working as a standalone story.

How this story developed

2 months ago The Verge's assessment was reaffirmed with added detail noting that Bryan's arc specifically evokes the sensation of playing a Resident Evil game for the first time, reinforcing the earlier verdict that the film's suspenseful indoor scenes are its standout achievement.
2 months ago The Verge published Zach Cregger's Resident Evil film review, praising its equal balance of comedy and horror through the invented courier character Bryan, played by Austin Abrams, as he journeys into Raccoon City and matures from a fumbling amateur into a sharper survivor across the film's tense indoor sequences.

16 Sep, 20:02PC Gamer 'The best videogame movie' ever? The first reviews of Zach Cregger's Resident Evil adaptation are absolutely glowing
16 Sep, 21:20Destructoid Resident Evil director Zach Cregger is now accepting your apologies as it becomes the highest-rated video game adaptation ever
17 Sep, 04:03Collider 7 Horror Films to Prepare You for Zach Cregger's Resident Evil
19 Sep, 19:32The Verge Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil balances horror and comedy equally

Full account

A new screen adaptation of Resident Evil, directed by Zach Cregger and made by Weapons director's team, is being pitched as a fresh start for one of gaming's most enduring horror franchises. It follows in the footsteps of Paul W.S. Anderson's 2002 film, which launched a commercially successful series but was frequently criticised by devotees of Capcom's games for straying so far from the source material. Cregger's take is reported to pull back towards the games' core ideas, trading the sprawling mythology of the earlier films for a leaner story, while still finding room for grim comic touches alongside its scares.

Rather than leaning on established characters from the games, the new film is said to build its story around Bryan, played by Austin Abrams, a medical courier invented specifically for this adaptation. Bryan sets out on a hazardous winter drive to Raccoon City after being offered a lucrative last-minute job, carrying cargo whose true nature he does not fully understand. His journey is described as calm at first, hampered mainly by poor weather and patchy phone signal, until he strikes a dazed woman with his car and stops to help her, only to discover that something is badly wrong with her.

Accounts of the film emphasise how closely its scares and its jokes are intertwined. The infected creatures Bryan encounters are said to be genuinely unsettling, with some of their mutated forms compared to the strange, shape-shifting designs found in games such as Katamari Damacy and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Yet the horror is repeatedly undercut by absurdist humour, such as Bryan's oddly detached fascination with the transformations he witnesses even as he is in mortal danger. This tonal mix is credited with keeping tension high while also making the character relatable, as he is depicted evolving from a naive, wide-eyed everyman into someone with sharper survival instincts as the ordeal continues.

Early reaction to the film appears to be strongly positive, with one account going so far as to suggest it could mark the start of a stronger creative era for Resident Evil on screen while still functioning as a satisfying standalone story. A separate headline points to a wider wave of glowing early reviews, with some commentators reportedly floating the idea that this could be the best video game film adaptation yet. However, detailed reasoning behind that particular claim was not available in the material reviewed here, so it is not possible to say precisely which aspects of the film other critics found most impressive, beyond the general sense of enthusiasm.

Where outlets differ

From the full account, which is AI-written from the sources:

One source offers a detailed, first-hand account of plot, tone and characters, praising the blend of horror and comedy and the strength of the new courier character Bryan; the other source is represented only by a headline suggesting the film may be the best video game movie ever, without any substantive review text to support or elaborate on that claim.

Because of this gap, direct points of disagreement between outlets cannot be confirmed — the material suggests broad critical consensus that the film is unusually strong, but only one outlet's specific reasoning was available to draw on.

Explained simply

Zach Cregger is a director best known for horror films that blend genuine scares with dark comedy, and this new Resident Evil film is his attempt to bring that mix to the long-running video game franchise created by Capcom. Resident Evil films have existed since 2002, when Paul W.S. Anderson launched a series that ran for several instalments but was often criticised by fans of the games for straying too far from the source material. This new version is being reviewed as a fresh, stripped-back take rather than a continuation of Anderson's films.

Rather than following established Resident Evil characters, the film centres on Bryan, a medical courier created specifically for this movie and played by Austin Abrams. He is an ordinary civilian, not a trained agent, who ends up driving into Raccoon City, the fictional town at the heart of the series, during a viral outbreak that turns infected people into monstrous creatures.

The story's significance lies in how it handles tone: instead of using comedy as light relief between scares, the film is reported to treat humour and horror as equally important, using Bryan's fear and inexperience to make the danger feel more grounded and unpredictable than in earlier films built around hardened special agents.

Coverage · 4 sources

Entertainment Film Gaming Horror

Read the full article at the source →

Originally published by The Verge as “Resident Evil is a comedy first and a thrilling nightmare second”.

Share: Email Bluesky X Facebook WhatsApp Reddit