From the World of Resident Evil

            Horror stories have absolutely dominated the box office. Of course, The Odyssey and Spiderman Brand New Day have made the most money at the box office, but as far as profitability goes, horror has been doing the best. Obsession, specifically, led this charge. The creator was a YouTuber, and then he was given the chance to make a feature for the big screen, and it was sold for minimal money in the movie world, and then it proceeded to make hundreds of millions of dollars. Something similar can be said about Backrooms, it also had a lower budget, and it made so much money! Zach Cregger had one of these movies last year with Weapons, but can he repeat with Resident Evil?

            Resident Evil focuses on Bryan. Bryan is a medical courier, and he has just finished his last delivery when he is asked if he can do one last emergency delivery. It is extra pay, so he takes the job. His assumption is that it is a heart for a dying child that needs it immediately. Also, he just found out that his girlfriend is surprisingly pregnant, so he is running away from that problem as well.

            It is an incredibly snowy night, and Bryan must take a long unplowed country road to get to Raccoon City. Suddenly, a woman in a sun dress walks in front of his car, and he hits her. By the time he works up the courage to go and look at what he hit, she is gone. Bryan follows the footsteps into the woods, where he finds her, and he is able to guide her into his car.

            Shortly after, a police man pulls him over, and he convinces the police man to take her, and he now has a police escort to the hospital, which is short lived, because the police man flips. Bryan stops to check on them, but the police man died in the accident, and now the woman is acting like a zombie. Bryan shoots her, and he flees to a nearby house, where he is able to arm up, and after a couple harrowing escapes, he continues his journey on foot to Racoon City.

            After crossing through a tunnel and being chased by a blob of human appendages that the zombies conglomerated into, Bryan is rescued by a scientist and his bodyguard. This is when he finds out what is in his package is not a human organ at all, it is the antidote to reverse the zombification of the people. The first set was dropped and now they need the new set. The only problem is, the city has been ravaged by zombies, and they must get the antidote to the top floor of the hospital.  

            This is Zach Cregger’s third horror movie. He jumped to prominence with Barbarian, which had me gripping the side of my chair for the first 30 minutes before turning into a completely different movie. It was critically loved, and it raised the hype for his follow-up film, Weapons, which was good enough that Amy Madigan won an Oscar for supporting actress.

            Both movies have the same problem; they are incredible at building the tension and setting the stage. The premise gets me so invested in what is going on, and in both instances, it is creepy, but Cregger has a specific tone that is a little goofy, and he always seems to revert to it at some point. So it just makes the movies feel so different from one act to the next, but typically this is always a problem in the third act for him.   

            The same can be said for Resident Evil. The first two acts of the movie are amazing. It is so much better when it is on a smaller scale. I must have jumped at least five times in the first hour, and that is not an easy feat, and these were big jumps too. There was also so much tension, like when he had the lady he hit in his car, I was just waiting for her to attack him, but it never happened, and when he had to fight the surprise zombie in the house, it was just incredible.

            Then we got to the city, and there were some good parts there too, like when he was running down the street, and the zombies were just dive bombing off the roof and their bodies were exploding when they hit the ground. I have not seen a scene like that, it was wild, but when he gets in the car with the scientist, and it is Paul Walter Hauser, it completely shifts the tone to goofy. This dude is no top tier scientist, and the odds of the one tube of antidote breaking because a scientist is an uncoordinated buffoon seems unrealistic and like a lame gag.

            This is also when we get to see more of the monsters/zombies as well. The zombies from the opening parts of the film are creepy, and they remind me of the people possessed in Evil Dead Rise, but the zombies in this movie are weird. When they “die” their bodies start to combine, which at first seemed interesting like when it was a dark shadow at the door of the house Bryan is fleeing, but it gets weirder when they become giant boulder sized balls of arms and legs rolling around the city and climbing walls like spiderman. It just feels silly and not scary. Even when Bryan turns into a zombie conglomerate, I was kind of bored by that concept by then. The singular zombies were so much better.

            This movie also falls into a weird category. So Resident Evil was originally a video game, but this movie is not based off any of the video game stories. It is an original creation by Cregger made in the same world as the video game, which I was excited about, but there was one aspect of the movie that confused me. They continually did video game tropey things. They would put the camera on the barrel of the gun to make the view look exactly like a video game. They also had scenes where he would be scavenging through a house looking for bullets or other supplies, just like when playing a video game like this, but if this is not based off of a video game story, why are we trying so hard to make it feel like a video game???

            The ending of the movie was interesting. Bryan makes it to the laboratory, but he is turning into a zombie, and they are rushing to get the antidote ready, but right when it is ready, is when Bryan starts to lose it. He is unable to control his body anymore, and he starts killing the scientists. They just need to poke him and give him the dose, but no one can get him. Then Bryan has the syringe in his tentacle and drops it. Failing himself and the surrounding area. So it was a dismal ending, but I was not too upset about it, because there is a much larger story to this, so it could not have just ended with an antidote so easily.

            I would recommend seeing this movie. It does fly by and is super engaging. Cregger knows what he is doing, but he also loves to be goofy, which is fine, if he wants to continue to put out 3.5 star bangers, I will continually go and see them. I know what to expect at this point. I can’t recommend this to everyone because there are a lot of exploding bodies, gross liquids and randomly connected body parts. There are also a kid death and a nasty maternity ward scene. I do not think this movie is going to get any Oscar love, but Austin Abrams does an excellent job of carrying this film almost solely on his shoulders, and it did make $60 million opening weekend, which is great. 3.5 Stars!