Starring: Austin Abrams, Zach Cherry, Kali Reis, Paul Walter Hauser Written by: Zach Cregger, Shay Hatten Directed by: Zach Cregger
After Barbarian and Weapons—two grab-you-by-the-collar original movies that were a rush to watch (both for the thrills they elicited and the surprise and creativity baked into them) and increasingly successful at the box office (Barbarian made $40M domestic, Weapons made $151M)—I was scratching my head when it was announced writer-director Zach Cregger’s next movie would be an adaptation of the video game Resident Evil.
Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with video game adaptations (literary adaptations have been a lifeblood of the movie business since day one, why not video games?), it’s just that movies based on video games haven’t historically been very good. And it seemed like a step back for Cregger, one of the few modern filmmakers who has found success producing original material.
But leave it to Cregger to not only make a good “video game movie” but also a damn good movie. While Resident Evil isn’t necessarily an elevation from what he gave us with Weapons, it’s a solid victory lap; a filmmaking flex to make sure everybody knows he’s truly got the goods.
Like his previous movies, Cregger shows a rare patience and confidence behind the camera with Resident Evil. He delivers a barrage of jump scares and (amazingly) none of them ever feel cheap because he’s so good at building tension. There’s also a heavy dose of comedy (when we’re not wincing, we’re laughing—and sometimes we’re doing both). Cregger knows how to use laughs to inflate the scares rather than deflate them.
As a writer, Cregger (along with co-writer Shay Hatten) also constantly zags the story away from cliche. He knows how filmgoers (especially horror fans) are trained to anticipate story beats, or even familiar moments like shooting off a lock or driving through a fence, and he expertly plays against our expectations. That’s just such a satisfying thing to watch.
Perhaps most impressively, Cregger understands that video games are inherently about atmosphere, being inside a world, and adapts that experience better than any movie I can think of. He uses cinematic techniques to put us in the shoes of the protagonist in a world where strange things jump out at you in the dark. The approach is both incredibly simple and incredibly effective.
If there’s a knock on the movie, it’s the fact that, despite its unique and gooey visuals, it’s wall-to-wall CGI. And not CGI that blends seamlessly, but CGI that is always clearly CGI. You could argue that fits with this world and the movie’s video game origins. But I could only think how much better this would look with practical effects (a la John Carpenter’s The Thing).
In the end, that’s a small price to pay for a 90-minute movie (remember those?) that’s this fun, surprising, and exhilarating. While I hope Cregger will return to original material with his next movie, no matter what he does you can preorder my ticket now.