Resident Evil – Review

Cert – 15, Run-time – 1 hour 34 minutes, Director – Zach Cregger

Emergency courier Bryan (Austin Abrams) is tasked with taking an urgent delivery to a hospital, however a virus outbreak and human mutations hold him back at every turn along the way.

Hospital courier Bryan (Austin Abrams) makes many stupid decisions over the course of Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil. He knows he does, the film knows he does, but they’re the decisions that push the narrative onwards, and sometimes feel like the only decision given in a video game.

Stranded in the snowy hills towards Racoon City, needing to take a mystery package there as quickly as possible, his decisions are motivated purely by wanting to get back to girlfriend Michelle (Sarah Paxton) and get paid double for the further-than-usual-area delivery. But, a virus outbreak and mutations have other intentions as at each stage after stopping once in the middle of nowhere attacks come from many directions.

While I may not have found the humour in Cregger’s previous horror ventures, the otherwise much-praised Barbarian and Weapons, it’s definitely present here. The laughs bring fun to the scares; jumps, suspense and pure mutation-based icks. While Bryan might take his foot off the peddle to stop once or twice Cregger never does, creating a constantly moving 90-minutes of propulsive entertainment.

Abrams captures bafflement and exasperation in the lead character, as he simply wants to get the job over and done with. Even as people attacking him appear to have tentacle-like limbs his attitude is almost comparable to ‘I’m not even supposed to be here today.’ Yet, you still feel his desperation amongst the confusion about what’s going on around him. As he races down a street of abandoned cars, bodies throwing themselves off the towering buildings causing a mess of blood and glass there’s a mass of tension to the almost unexplained. Mixed with the pure visual aspect of the moment, and there are some great visual moments throughout – sequences lit up by police lights or car headlights as the camera moves around the action like its in a third-person video game sequence. 

Cregger mixes in some first-person camerawork, too, that slots in with the surroundings and tension of the moment. To highlight the approaching monsters; with unsettlingly tangling designs, or Bryan’s inability to shoot a padlock – a recurring gag showing his consistently poor decisions, and hope. Hsi easiest route is perhaps the tensest, and for us most entertaining. Perhaps Cregger’s most mainstream film to date, one likely to work for fans of the hit game series of the same name and those, like myself, completely unfamiliar, this is a non-stop thrill-ride from start to finish.

Barrelling with energy, scares and laughs this is surely one of the most fun films of the year. A cinematic audience experience that knows exactly how to go from one exciting sequence to another as fluidly as possible, all led by the actions and poor decisions of an amusingly determined, consistently disgusted, main character.

An effective blend of fun and thrills, Resident Evil puts the horror front and centre, but creates its fun with well-timed laughs. Making a point of its lead character’s poor decisions, it’s consistently propulsive entertainment from start to finish.