Review By Tim Robins
Tasked with delivering a package to a remote hospital, a courier gets trapped in a sudden outbreak and must fight mutated creatures to survive… Tim Robins was dragged to see Zach Creeger’s new “Resident Evil” film, but it turns out the experience wasn’t as traumatic as expected…
A friend persuaded me to see the new Resident Evil movie. Bah! Personally, I’d have preferred to see Shaun the Sheep and the Beast of Mossy Bottom. I’ve never played Resident Evil video games. My only recollection of the many, many films is of a woman kicking a zombie dog in the face and various characters being sliced and diced by a laser.
This was the first Resident Evil movie I’d seen in the cinema. I’m happy I did. The film is directed and co-written by Zach Cregger (with Shay Hatten) who wowed us only last year with Weapons (2025, reviewed here); his quirky, disturbing tale of black magic in smalltown America. The director’s latest film certainly has some of his, by now, signature moves, but also seems to have captured the essence of playing the Japanese survival horror game also known as Biohazard.
Reading about Resident Evil, one thing you’ll learn is that the game has a committed core of long suffering fans who have developed precise requirements that even this film has failed to meet. In terms of adaptations for the cinema, the franchise was rebooted in 2021 with Resident Evil: Welcome to Racoon City, which also didn’t go down well. I guess it should be pointed out that, despite negative reviews, the films have all made oodles of money, as I am sure this one will.
With visual call backs to Weapons, Cregger’s Resident Evil is a wonderfully atmospheric tale of survival in a landscape where the population of Raccoon City (the fictional industrial city in the American Midwest and central setting for the game) and its environs are being overrun by a here unnamed virus. It’s turning people into nightmarish mutants or “Cronenbergs”, as Rick and Morty would have it. Once upon a time, the film would have been categorised as “body horror”, but that analysis really belongs to The Eighties. Since then, an evaluation of body building as “aesthetics”, has contributed to an appreciation of grotesque excess and a pleasure in the body as an absurd cartoon.
Resident Evil is set elsewhere and when, during events of the Resident Evil 2 game, so isn’t a reboot of the film series continuity, perhaps. No lesser guide to video games than the The Radio Times reports, that, in a roundtable interview reported by Screen Rant, “Cregger said that he thinks the new movie takes place “maybe on the periphery of the events of Resident Evil 2, where Raccoon City is having its big night.” (I’d fact check this, but every time I try to look at a page on Screen Rant, it crashes my computer).
Characters who aren’t in the film are the games’ long list of established cast. So, no Clair Redfield or Leon S Kennedy, both playable characters in the game. Alice is also absent. Alice? Who the F is Alice? Alice was a protagonist created especially for the movies. It was she who kicked a dog in the face. Alice may be gone but we do get a dog.
The new film follows Bryan Hodukavich, a hapless courier of transplant organs who is given the day’s last medical package to deliver to Raccoon City’s, snow bound, medical centre. Hodukavich just wants the money, so lies when he is asked if his car is suitably equipped to drive on the ice. Spoiler alert: It isn’t.
A distracting row over Hodukavich’s mobile phone with his pregnant girlfriend leads to an accident on an icy road, followed by police involvement, a chase to an isolated farmhouse, and onwards to the heart of Raccoon City. There will be deaths. There will also be un-deaths, even if some of these are reborn as horribly changed mutants.
Hodukavich is played by Austin Abrams, who has had a supporting role in Cregger’s Weapons as James, a hapless, homeless drug addict. But I expect the actor will be most recognisable from his appearances in TV shows, including MTV’s The Inbetweeners, The Walking Dead, as ‘Dash’ in the comedy series, Dash and Lily, and Ethan Daley in the psychological teen drama series, Euphoria. So it is fair to say the actor is up for a laugh, and Resident Evil delivers plenty of grim humour born from the character’s frustration with apparently indestructible padlocks and the director’s eye for jump scares. You’ll gasp, then giggle in exactly that order.
For gamers turned YouTube film critics (hello J Colte and Cody Leach) a lot of the new film’s appeal is the way it evokes the feeling of playing the games. Apparently, previous adaptations for film have treated the games as material to be turned into action movies, rather than suspenseful horror.
Of course, the games’ characters have their own fan following. Even gamer film critics, have ended their reviews wistfully with scenarios for the next movie that would include these in further, scary situations. I’ve got to say, in terms of physical appearance, the game’s characters look like uncanny valley, CGI no-marks – although I’m assured their biographies make them utterly riviting.
What the new film has in its favour is a filmic eye for its characters. Particularly funny is a chubby Umbrella Company man who stands in for games’ cuts to NPCs (Non Player Characters) whose main function is to infodump on the player. In this case, the role is wonderfully cast to type, a chubby, resolutely not action minded type – although, amusingly the character, Paul, is played by American actor and sometime professional wrestler Paul Hauser (Mole Man in Fantastic Four: First Steps, 2025).
To-all-intents and purposes Paul info-dumps on the audience as much as to Hodukavich who is sitting in the back of the car.
What works well for me is the director’s use of mostly empty places through which threats run towards Hodukavich from a distance. In one scene, we see a bizarre zombie-mutant running across a snow-clad field towards him as he watches from the upstairs window of the farm house in which he has hidden. This, and a few other scenes, recall the spookily running children in Weapons.
The director also nods to John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982). Not the Huskie! Yes, the Huskie. We are forewarned by the Holladay’s soundtrack, which plays with a few beats from Enio Morriconi’s score for The Thing. Resident Evil may be best described as “knowing”. Cragger knows that we know and what we know is that he knows. There are quite a few scenes of the surrogate player looking around for ammunition and his armaments increase in size and strength as the film progresses.
My favourite conceit comes from a couple of scenes. In the car park of the Raccoon City medical Centre, Hodukavich spots a transfer in the back window of a car, which depicts an idealised family in the window of an ideal family car. In a heartfelt moment, he records a message to his girlfriend, who is struggling to decide whether or not to have an abortion. Then, a few scenes later, our hero enters a maternity ward and is confronted with the bloated, mutated and bleeding remains of the babies in its nurses care. It’s a hard scene to stomach.
Chillingly, the maternity ward has a walkway that leads almost directly to the laboratory of the Umbrella Corporation populated by white-lab coated scientists for whom Hodukavich is a very much welcomed new arrival, even though he has been bitten by one of the infected. Is his mission just in time or far too late? The fact you’ll care is an indication of the film’s successful story telling.
Video games really hold no interest or involvement for me. Yes, I played Arcade Games including Space Invaders, Asteroids and Pac-Man, but I am not a member of Pewdiepie’s “let’s play” generation. I enjoy watching things and I enjoyed watching Resident Evil, even though I’m not a fan of much on-screen horror. For me, this film struck the right balance between playfulness and fright fullness. Importantly, I was not so disturbed that I was left trying to get to sleep by counting sheep.
Tim Robins
Resident Evil is in cinemas now, or available to preorder for Home Entertainment here on AmazonUK (Affiliate Link)
The History of Resident Evil by Tommy Keough | ISBN 978-1036113353 | AmazonUK Affiliate Link
Step inside the world’s most iconic survival horror video game series, Resident Evil, From the eerie halls of the Spencer Mansion to the decaying streets of Raccoon City. From the isolated Spanish mountains to secret underground labs, Resident Evil has reigned supreme for the last 30 years. This book covers every major entry, spin-off, and remake across the long running franchise. Exploring, characters, creatures, and unstoppable bioweapons.
Featuring exclusive images, rare promotional material and unseen photographs from fans and collectors worldwide, a book by fans, for fans. Inside, you’ll uncover detailed character bios, timeline breakdowns, and insights drawn from first-hand interviews with leading Resident Evil influencers. Every page celebrates the imagination, desire, and enduring legacy of Capcom’s bestselling survival horror saga.
Whether you first faced the shambling undead on the original PlayStation back in 1996 or survived the nightmare years later. This book is the ultimate love letter to the games, the lore, and the fans who continue to keep the flame alive.
So, grab that green herb, pick up that shotgun and don’t forget your lockpick.
It’s time to enter the world of… RESIDENT EVIL!
An avid gamer of over 30 years Tommy Keough’s passion for gaming started from an early age, something he is still fascinated by. When he’s not gaming or writing he enjoys, creating and recording his own music as well as flying drones, working out and going on adventures with his beautiful dog, Indy. When that’s all said and done, there’s nothing better he likes doing than sitting down and getting lost in the world of video games.
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A freelance journalist and Doctor Who fanzine editor since 1978, Tim Robins has written on comics, films, books and TV programmes for a wide range of publications including Starburst, Interzone, Primetime and TV Guide.
His brief flirtation with comics includes ghost inking a 2000AD strip and co-writing a Doctor Who strip with Mike Collins. Since 1990 he worked at the University of Glamorgan where he was a Senior Lecturer in Cultural and Media Studies and the social sciences. Academically, he has published on the animation industry in Wales and approaches to social memory. He claims to be a card carrying member of the Politically Correct, a secret cadre bent on ruling the entire world and all human thought.
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