If you’re a video game fan, you’ve likely heard of the new Resident Evil film. When I was invited to watch this movie, I had very low expectations. As a horror movie fan who has not played Resident Evil and detests cliche stories in zombie media, I typically have low expectations for movies like this. Surprisingly, I was completely amazed by this movie; this is not to say that this is one of the best horror movies of all time, but for what it was based on and what they had to work with, I cannot think of a single way they could have made any major improvements. Additionally, one of my strongest opinions surrounding horror in modern day media is how silly it is for a horror movie to have a happy ending. Of course, I was expecting this movie to end in a somewhat positive way due to the fact that we are following a single protagonist for the entire time and films will often avoid killing this kind of protagonist in order to appease the audience. I am extremely happy to say that this was not the case.
Resident Evil (2026) was based on the Resident Evil games, intended to take place in the same fictional universe as Resident Evil and during the events of Resident Evil 2. Despite this, the movie has essentially no direct ties to the plot of the games outside of the outbreak that occurs in both the games and the film. This was pleasing to me as it meant you could watch the movie with no prior knowledge of the games and enjoy it just as much as someone who has played all of the games, but it also meant that it would be a fresh story for those who already knew the plot of the franchise. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, here is your official spoiler warning.
In the beginning of the film, we are introduced to our protagonist, Bryan, played by Austin Abrams, who works as a medical courier. The first few minutes show him struggling to get any attention from hospital staff as he attempts to deliver an organ. This delay allows a member of the hospital staff, Dr. Maria Stokes, to ask him to deliver a highly important package which will give him double pay. She warns him that he needs a vehicle fully prepared for icy roads as he needs to travel up a mountain and he, of course, completely ignores this. This leads him to hit a woman walking across the road on his drive up, badly injuring her. He finds her lying in the woods with her arms and legs in the air like an animal in shock and attempts to take her to the hospital. Due to swerving, Bryan is pulled over and negotiates with the officer that the injured woman will ride with the police while Bryan follows behind. The cop car then unexpectedly drives off the road and flips multiple times and when Bryan attempts to help the officer, the injured woman attacks him. In the process of shooting her, he damages his car and is forced to proceed on foot. This scene establishes the behavior of the infected as violent and seemingly resistant to pain.
Bryan then encounters an infected dog, the original woman who was resurrected, an elderly couple, and a little girl in a trailer who says her mother bit her foot. As he is forced to fight off all of these creatures and work through the moral implications of what’s happened, he gets bit on his arm in the process. As he walks away from finally defeating them, we see that all of the creatures we witnessed earlier have now morphed into a grotesque ball of human body parts that roll around in pursuit of uninfected humans, introducing the important feature of the infection with which those who have been killed can be “consumed” by other infected beings in order to come a larger, more powerful entity.
Our protagonist is saved by two government officials named Maxine and Paul who, on the way to their workplace, Raccoon City General Hospital, explain to him that the outbreak was started by an accident in the lab they work in. It is also revealed here that what Bryan is carrying is not an organ but actually a crucial part of the antidote to this outbreak. Along the way, Maxine and Paul are killed and Bryan is forced to continue on foot once again. He makes it to the right destination but is completely unable to get in and seems to give up. He takes off his shirt to view how his bite has begun to spread and records a final message for his girlfriend. A scientist then begins speaking to him and instructs Bryan, who is now half naked and crying on the floor, to walk up 28 flights of stairs to reach the lab. After finally reaching the scientists, Bryan watches as his condition worsens while they rush to create an antidote. Just as they’ve successfully created the antidote, Bryan’s infection becomes too difficult to control and he kills and morphs together with each of the scientists before the final one attempts to inject him with the antidote. Unfortunately, Bryan, unable to control his own body, cannot let this happen. We watch as the final scientist falls to his death and, with him, our last shred of hope: the antidote. Government helicopters, presumably the National Guard, arrive just before we zoom in on Bryan’s deformed face and he lets out a terrifying roar, showing that he has fully transformed. This ending leaves us on a bleak, melancholic note as we see all the work put in throughout the movie go to waste.
As I stated before, I have a slight distaste for “zombie” movies as I believe they are often not well explained and cannot possibly come off as realistic, but this film managed to do so. Their explanation for the outbreak was that there was an accident in a science lab in which high-profile scientists were attempting to create some kind of serum which would enhance natural human abilities; this explanation feels much more digestible to me than the typical vague explanation most movies give, blurring the lines between whether zombies are simply “undead” or if they have been infected by some kind of virus. In this film, it seems that zombies are living, infected humans which can come back to life after fatal injury, within reason. Another aspect of this movie that I appreciate is that they made it a point to show that zombies could not survive extreme injury such as decapitation or falling from extremely high buildings, but still offered the challenge of their bodies morphing with others. I felt that, although there wasn’t extensive exposition, I never felt completely lost in what the logistics of the problem were and, for the most part, the main character did what the audience would have thought logical. We learned with him and, as he learned, he applied his knowledge and made the smartest decisions he could which meant we were never left on the edge of our seats frustrated with the character we are supposed to be rooting for.
In many horror movies, they require the main character to make very illogical decisions in order to place them in danger. I believe that, if the story is well-written, there should be a reasonable expectation that any normal person placed in these situations would not be able to avoid it any better than the main character. This is what makes a horror movie scary; when protagonists make consistently bad decisions, we find ourselves frustrated and almost no longer root for their success. My primary praise for this movie is that they did not opt to allow Bryan peace in the end. In so much of “zombie media” we are introduced to, at least one character who somehow developed immunity to the virus and, despite being bitten, survives without being infected. In The Walking Dead series, 28 Days Later (2002), Zombieland 2009, and even Resident Evil (2002), we are made to accept whatever easy explanation they give us for a main character being immune to either the virus or the attacks of zombies. Although some of these films and shows give adequate explanations, it feels very silly to establish such high stakes for the dystopian world the story takes place in but then completely disregard them for one or two characters. I’ve always felt like these characters only exist because it would be illogical for them to survive a certain encounter that has already been written and is pivotal to the story, but the creators don’t want to kill them off in fear of audience backlash. Due to the commonality of characters in zombie media being bitten and waiting to develop into a zombie but then being saved by deus ex machina with either some antidote, the discovery of immunity, or any other random savior, it felt extremely refreshing for the story to take the turn that isn’t expected. Because of how common it is for these kinds of movies to have somewhat of a happy ending, it’s actually become shocking to see the story play out without some crazy twist.
Moreover, I want to address how this movie’s choice of perspective as well as the actions Bryan takes tastefully gives the film the same feeling as an action-adventure game. Early on in the movie, Bryan takes to looting a home of guns and bullets, checking drawers and other surfaces to find useful items. Constantly keeping track of his remaining bullets is reminiscent of player-behavior in these kinds of games. Additionally, Bryan’s weaponry gradually increases in power throughout the movie, similar to the process in story-based combat games. Another aspect I highly appreciated was the occasional usage of first-person perspective during moments where Bryan had to focus highly on his aim or footwork, similar to the process in these games.
Finally, I want to praise how well this movie depicted a regular man defying all odds and nearly coming out on top. I, and others who watched with me, felt that Bryan had very realistic reactions to nearly everything and the way they blended humor into such tragic situations without making the situations themselves feel comical was impressive. Furthermore, the addition of Bryan’s denial of such an impossible situation and his moral ambiguity in killing seemingly innocent people made it much easier to empathize with him as a person. That, along with his emotional breakdown and desperation for survival as he becomes overtaken by the virus make him a character that many audience members can relate to.
Overall, I believe that this movie was very well made, both in the context of it being a horror movie and the context of it being based on a very popular video game franchise. As far as horror movies go, it was nothing monumental, but the fact that I had so little complaints, as someone who tends to be highly picky with horror movies, shows that the producers truly considered audience opinions and perspective when creating this film.