Resident Evil

Check out my full review @ https://www.manuelsbento.com/resident-evil-2026-zach-cregger-turns-a-beloved-franchise-into-the-horror-comedy-of-the-year/ Rating: B I went into RESIDENT EVIL having never played or watched a single entry in this franchise, and I still had a blast. Zach Cregger turns a video game he clearly loves into a horror-comedy that's relentlessly gory, genuinely funny, and stuffed with jump scares that actually worked on me. It's predictable once the machinery kicks in, and it doesn't carry the thematic weight of his last two films, but as a purely fun night at the movies, this delivers exactly what it promises.

As a adaptation of the Resident Evil franchise, this is really, really good. It beats the last movie, Welcome to Raccoon City, and is far more in line with the feeling of playing a Resident Evil game. The main protagonist isn't a skilled operative or military, he's just a guy who happens to get tangled up in extraordinarily gory and scary circumstances. He therefore acts accordingly. He struggles with things that action heroes take for granted, and it makes him far more interesting to watch than the protagonists of the last movie, for instance. The effect work is, of course, superb, as it would need to be in a movie like this, and it is a fun time overall. I recommend this wholeheartedly.

Courier "Bryan" (Austin Abrams) is charged with delivering a vital organ through snowy conditions to a distant city hospital whilst arguing with his girlfriend on the phone about what to do about her recently discovered pregnancy. Next thing, he's clouted a woman wandering the woods at night with his car, and that's just the start of things going perilously wrong for this young man as she appears to have certain traits of lithe and nimble immortality and - well maybe she isn't alone? Abrams holds this together really quite well, and his dead pan delivery is really pretty engaging. Sure, the plot itself isn't that original and it's not really so similar to the 2002 version, but the wintry conditions set the scene darkly and a little claustrophobically and there's some fun to be had from a dialogue that tells us amidsts all his perils, that his socks are wet! The visual effects used to...

The best kind of survival horror knows that darkness is not merely a lack of light—it is a promise that something is waiting just beyond it. That instinct serves *Resident Evil* remarkably well, delivering a film that finally understands the eerie isolation and creeping dread that made the games so enduring. The atmosphere is easily one of the movie's greatest strengths. Dark corridors, quiet stretches and an almost oppressive sense of isolation give the film the texture of survival horror rather than generic creature-feature action. The story's emphasis on being alone and cut off from safety captures the essence of the games, often making the viewer feel as though they are navigating the next room alongside the protagonist. That commitment to suspense pays off. The film knows when to hold back and when to strike, and its jump scares are generally effective because they are built...