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There is a tradition of exciting new directors being sucked up into the Hollywood machine and having their great creativity stifled by involvement in some big movie franchise. Recently this has happened to Gareth Edwards, Colin Trevorrow, J.A. Bayona whose entries into the Jurassic World Series showed none of the promise of their early films Monsters, Safety Not Guaranteed and The Orphanage. The same thing happened back in the day with Bayona’s producing partner and mentor Guillermo Del Toro and even Greta Gerwig’s work on Barbie is an undeniable step down from things like Little Women and Ladybird. 

Most of these filmmakers have subsequently broken out of this (we’ll see what Gerwig’s Narnia movie is like next year) but nonetheless when you see the name of someone, who’s first few movies have been widely celebrated for their imagination and originality, attached to a big budget project or a huge ongoing series then there is reason to be concerned that something is going to get lost. It doesn’t happen to everyone, I would argue that Ryan Coogler was not at all compromised with Black Panther and Taika Waititi’s first Thor was great but Marvel are not off the hook because look at what happened with Waititi’s second Thor, as well as Chloé Zhao’s work on The Eternals and Nia DaCosta’s with The Marvels. Sometimes this is studio interference, sometimes it is other factors but with all of this history I went into Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil film with the same trepidation that his protagonist enters a corridor or a deserted street. The previous six Resident Evils have not exactly been criticality lauded either. Seeing the director of Barbarian and Weapons step into this world is a bit like seeing Curry Barker follow Obsession with Sharknado 7. 

Mind you, you could similarly say it this is like seeing Christopher Nolan pick up the mantle of The Dark Knight after Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin and while we may not have quite the same turnaround here I am pleased to say that Cregger’s deliciously twisted and extreme horror sensibilities are all over this new movie. I cannot say it is as good as his previous works but he has definitely not been quashed by corporate Hollywood, Resident Evil has plenty of the nasty delights we’ve come to expect from this guy and his habit of putting relatable heroes in horrible situations is better done here than ever before. It is also more consistently funny. His other movies have had laughs but this is a proper horror comedy like An American Werewolf in London or Shaun of the Dead. 

It helps that this has no association with the previous Resident Evil films. Like Batman Begins it takes the same central conceit but totally starts again. It also starts really small. For most of its 90 minute running time we just follow one character as he stumbles slowly through a mounting zombie apocalypse. The way the action carefully escalates is probably the best thing about this film as incident by incident poor Bryan gets deeper and deeper into trouble, that and his great reactions to the increasingly weird things he is dealing with. The first two acts are definitely where this excels but it earns its big denouement with the strength of its precise characterisation and world building. It might echo some of the excesses of The Substance by the end but the journey to get there is great. 

Cregger’s movie doesn’t take a huge amount from the original computer game either but it does quite closely follow the format of a survivalist third and first person shooter. It is clear that Cregger loves this game. Up until now I’d have argued that the best video game movies were those that used the grammar of the format but in an original setting like Scott Pilgrim vs the World, Boss Level or Ready Player One but this is the first to successfully adapt a game and keep the feel of gameplay. Like the source material it is more gross than scary but a few things do jump out at you as they do when you are handling the console too. 

Much of the movie hangs on the central performance and Austin Abrams is superb. These are not his first zombies having appeared in The Walking Dead (although these are not your traditional Zombies) and he has worked with this director before too, in Weapons, but now is definitely his moment. He is soon to appear in the ‘can’t quite get my head around how it is going to work’ movie Whalefall as well and he is sure to soon become quite the star. He is so good in this and he and Cregger have created a very compelling lead. 

The good news then is that this is most certainly a case of a gifted filmmaker keeping his artistry in a commercial industry. Perhaps Resident Evil isn’t the carefully guarded cash cow that other profitable series are but Cregger has definitely had more money to play with here and it hasn’t apparently lead to crushing accountability. I hope he returns to original work next but this sojourn into known IP is not the horror show it could have been.