Video-game movies have been a punchline for decades, and Zach Cregger just offered a fix nobody saw coming: stop adapting the characters and start adapting the feeling. His new Resident Evil ditches series mainstays like Leon Kennedy and hands the lead to Bryan, a scrawny medical courier played by Austin Abrams, who stumbles through a zombie outbreak in Raccoon City with all the grace of a first-time player fumbling a pistol safety.
The film runs alongside the events of the second Resident Evil game without directly adapting its plot, loading up on Easter eggs for longtime fans while keeping the focus on escalating weapons, scarce ammo, and pure panic. Cregger, coming off Barbarian and Weapons, leans into horror comedy, playing Bryan’s mortal terror for laughs, including his memorable yell of“stupid monsters”at exactly the wrong moment.
It’s a big swing for a genre that rarely rewards risk, and it lands because it understands something simple: the games were never really about the heroes. They were about you, sweaty-palmed on the couch at 2 a.m. So what’s the one video-game movie you’ll defend forever? Tell us in the comments.
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Local Lawton
Local Lawton is a contributor to LocalBeat, covering local news and community stories.