As a considerable fan of the Resident Evil series of survival horror video games, I had the constant image of the famous Leonardo DiCaprio pointing meme in my head while watching Zach Cregger’s hardcore splatter homage. Yet with this studied adaptation he has coined a new, acceptable method of fan service, where those little nostalgic cues are either baked into the narrative or take a cogent place within the backdrop. They never feel like little in-film marketing prompts, desperately reminding you that, as soon as you’ve left the cinema, you need to go and purchase a bunch of merchandise.
An original series of films, many of which were helmed by Paul WS Anderson, riffed largely on the complex lore and machinations of the Umbrella Corporation – a comically nefarious biotech firm who accidentally-on-purpose unleashed a zombie plague in their search for evolutionary perfection. What Cregger does is what game designers Capcom did with 2017’s lauded Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, where they dispensed with the gaudy action that had bogged down the previous two game entries and boiled things back down to flinty, effective horror basics. And speak as you find: the film works like gangbusters.
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Our protagonist is the dweeby medical courier Bryan (Austin Abrams), whose dialogue predominantly consists of muttering expletives while attempting (and usually flubbing) Leon Kennedy-style cool-guy exclamations. He’s in the wrong place at the wrong time when buttonholed by a nurse to transport an urgent mystery package to the General Hospital in Racoon City – the iconic setting of many of the early RE games. His trouble begins when a crazed woman jumps in front of his car on an icy woodland pass. Miraculously, she isn’t dead, and so he attempts to do the right thing and take her along with him. It turns out that the injuries from a mere auto accident are the least of her worries.
Creggar co-opts many of the game’s key scare mechanics, such as characters walking into dark spaces, doors opening super slowly, shotgun blasts to the frontal lobe and the fact that survival resources such as bullets are finite. The first 30 minutes of the film plays like a low-budget indie horror, with minimal production design, spare dialogue and only a few key characters. Yet just at the point where you think that things are perhaps being played too low key, Cregger clicks off the safety catch and allows the blood (and vomit) to flow in rivers.
The film’s story doesn’t reference or mirror any of the specific games, rather it creates an amalgam of touchpoints and subtle nods through its settings and supporting cast. Like a good literary adaptation, Cregger has ingested the games and then chosen to forge something in their spirit, for better and for worse. While he absolutely nails the tone and the experiential aspects of the game, he also ports over the fact that the stories themselves are just empty pulp that are purely focused on in the moment thrills over any lasting impact.
In fact, as with the majority of video game adaptations, where the game itself becomes a kind of creative albatross around around maker’s neck, this one takes the opportunity to bring its own fresh elements to the mix, and it wouldn’t be surprising if some of the new monster designs here didn’t end up inspiring the games. It feels as if Cregger and co have been gorging on films such as Bryan Yuzna’s Re-Animator and Society, or even some of Peter Jackson’s early (brilliant) forays into OTT gore, such as Bad Taste or Braindead.
The slightly irritating character of Bryan, too, offers a subtle corrective to some of the game’s outmoded (and often mocked) sexual attitudes, with men being macho action figures and women being screeching damsels. Bryan’s definitive lack of tough guy credentials, and the fact that he’s working through problems as they arrive, makes him more of an avatar for the player than the characters, which is both an effective and ingenious creative decision to make.
Indeed, by the end of the film, the reference point that is most prominent in the mind isn’t any of the Resident Evil games or previous films, but the dirty B‑movie bangers of famed gamer John Carpenter. Cregger manages to emulate that purity of violence and a stripped back economy where moments of silence are embraced and there’s always a clear sense of where all the characters are in relationship to one another. And there are many direct hat-tips to iconic body horror feature, The Thing. In all, it’s a massively impressive and effective film, but maybe one that appears so much better because the bar for this type of work is so low. Wait here while I go and watch it again, just to check…
