I arrived more than an hour early to The Lighthouse Cinema in Dublin, where the Irish premiere of Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil was being held. Choosing to pass the time in the cafe, I looked idly around. The light is low here; low enough to cast the faces of my fellow cafe-goers in shadowy hues. I feel like I’ve sat down in a Patricia Hurl painting, surrounded by melting figures with indiscernible features. There is a young couple sitting on a couch opposite me. I keep accidentally locking eyes with one of them. The young man’s eyes are two dark pools and his mouth, slightly agape at any given moment, is like the slit of an open, seeping wound. I recognise that my attendance to the premiere of the film in question – Resident Evil – has a large hand in the suddenly disconcerting slant of the world, but the low light and soft monochrome of the walls does more heavy lifting for the general atmosphere of the theatre than I had previously considered.
Sitting down in the screen, I think about previous Resident Evil adaptations and the repetitive struggles that they each faced. Paul W.S. Anderson’s series started strong, exploring an original story in the Resident Evil world before becoming hindered by the choice to tie that story to the original IP. From the second film in that franchise onwards, the story was consistently weakened by the introduction of game characters and storylines, to the point that the series no longer became an adaptation of the games at all, but rather the slimy afterbirth of an almost perfect child that is the first film. Then, in 2021, we were delivered Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, directed by Johannes Roberts. This film amalgamated the events of the first three games, resulting in a pale copy that could barely convincingly or compellingly quote the original source material.
It was at this point that I began to grow nervous about what I was about to watch. Perhaps bringing Resident Evil to the screen was a sisyphean task, and no matter what any director chose to do with it, the boulder would always come crashing back down that hill, squashing us all to paste in its descent.
The lights dimmed, and it became quite clear very early in the film that I shouldn’t have been worried at all.
Zach Cregger, who has given us such exemplary projects such as Barbarian (2022) and Weapons (2025), is operating on a completely different level with Resident Evil. Here, his direction is stylish and self-assured, and thrums with a tight constraint that pushes its principle actors into standout performances. Where before, with Barbarian, we were meeting a refreshing new horror director working with a unique style, Cregger has come to Raccoon City with an impressive cinematic arsenal at his disposal, and it makes for a miracle of a viewing experience.
Resident Evil is a gory and unforgiving original story in a beloved horror universe, that holds nothing back in its violence and horror. We follow medical courier Bryan as he’s tasked with delivering a mysterious package to a hospital in Raccoon City, where a devastating plague has destroyed the city and its people. What begins as an ordinary night for Bryan quickly spirals into a journey into the heart of hell when he discovers that a strange affliction has gripped the people he stumbles across, leading him into a governmental conspiracy with which he suddenly plays a key part.
Austin Abrams as Bryan is a tonic in a film-scape full of bland, rehashed horror protagonists. He’s not your archetypal hunk, who punches his way through boulders or lays waste to a Spanish village. He’s not a sexy superpowered clone who never misses a shot and always has an iconic quip. He’s your everyman, thrown unceremoniously into an impossible situation. It is in his floundering and his anxious disposition that Abrams expertly performs that offers us a very welcome beam of realism in a nonsensical situation. His spoken commentary throughout the film is often at the heart of many of the best comedic moments, a choice that is always hilarious – and often endearing – which carves out a pleasing reprieve from the dark, oppressive visuals and nauseating creature design. In fact, Bryan’s impeccable comedic timing, as well as the general strength of the script, does incredible work to uplift the project, giving us a truly terrifying screen experience that never takes itself too seriously.
Because it shouldn’t take itself too seriously. A lesser film might have spent more time trying to convince us that we had to be scared because the subject matter should be scary. It’s flesh eating zombies and otherworldly monsters ripped straight out a John Carpenter flick, shouldn’t we be scared? But where Cregger’s Resident Evil succeeds is its understanding that we, as a modern audience, have seen this kind of story many times before. There’s no shortage of zombie films out there, and Cregger, through an expertly crafted story, tells us that this is not what Resident Evil is. Instead, Cregger provides us with a film that makes as much room for humour and enjoyment as it does for fear. In a way, this is not a film at all – it’s an escape room; a situation that has the capacity to both thrill and entertain you, as well as petrify you completely.
The choice to prioritise the body-horror monsters over the typical zombie proves itself as an indispensable departure from previous Resident Evil screen projects, namely the Paul W.S. Anderson films that often opted for anthropomorphic villains over the iconic Resident Evil infected. Cregger doesn’t go as far to include a virus-infected Great White Shark, as the player encounters in the first game, but he makes an altogether solid effort to capture the dynamic scope of infected villains that often feature in the universe.
It is this, coupled with the over-the-shoulder and first-person point of view shots that help transport the viewer into the world of the games, a point with which Cregger has previously stated was deeply important to him when approaching this project. Cinematography such as this is an entirely creative choice that’s successful in capturing the spirit of recent Resident Evil gaming projects without being too heavy handed in the delivery of their translation. In fact, one major strength of the film is its power to give the Resident Evil fan just enough of the world’s lore and iconic impression to be pleased, while also delivering a fully original horror experience that could stand apart from the games entirely. This, as we have seen previously, is no easy feat, but Cregger tackles it head on, and what we are left with upon leaving the cinema is not only the knowledge that we’ve watched a great film, but that perhaps we might just have been witness to one of the best video game adaptations of recent times.
Resident Evil is released in cinemas on September 18th.
