By Kevin Tran
Developed by Tokuro Fujiwara and Shinji Mikami, Resident Evil is widely considered by many players and game critics to be one of the most iconic and influential horror video game franchises of all time. With its dark atmosphere, survival aspect and its terrifying enemies, the gaming series has been appealing to many horror fans for many years.
The Resident Evil games have also been adapted several times into live-action movies and shows. While some of them were praised, many received mixed reviews. For example, the 2021 “Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City” received a 5.2/10 on IMDb and only a 30% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes.
After several mediocre adaptations, Resident Evil returned to theaters on Sept 18 with a new movie directed by Zach Cregger. The film has so far been critically acclaimed, receiving a 96% on Rotten Tomatoes, and I believe it deserves that score.
Before going into the movie, I didn’t know much about the Resident Evil series and had never played any of the games or watched the previous movies. Therefore, I was mainly watching this film to see if it could stand on its own as a good horror film.
Plot:
The movie follows Bryan, who is a medical courier who’s given what seems like a normal delivery to a remote hospital. However, things go wrong for him quickly when he becomes trapped in the middle of a deadly outbreak and is forced to fight his way through mutated creatures and infected people.
I’d say the story is really easy to follow, even if you don’t know anything about Resident Evil. I never felt like I needed to understand the game’s lore or have watched any of the previous movies or shows to understand what was going on, which made the movie a lot easier to get into as a newcomer.
Additionally, one thing I enjoyed was how quickly the movie gets Bryan into an obstacle he must face. The film doesn’t spend a lot of time explaining the entire history of Resident Evil; rather, you get to learn what is happening at the same time as Bryan does, which makes some of the scenes feel much more tense.
As Bryan continues to figure out the cause of the outbreak, the situation continues to get worse. What starts out as a simple delivery slowly becomes him trying to find a way out of a tough situation while he’s constantly avoiding the infected people and other creatures around the hospital. I think one of the best things the movie did was slowly show more about what is happening instead of dumping everything right away, which I really liked since you are just as confused as he is.
The Movie’s Horror / Atmosphere:
The horror was, in my opinion, the best part of the movie. There are a lot of dark and uncomfortable scenes where you feel like something is about to happen, but you don’t know exactly when. The movie also uses a lot of gore and weird, disturbing creature designs, so it for sure earns its R rating.
What this movie did really well was that it didn’t rely on jump scares to be scary like your average horror movie. A lot of the tension came from the atmosphere, such as lighting and sound.
For lighting, a good example would be a scene in the hospital when there’s intentionally dim lighting, so it’s harder to tell what might be lurking in the background. The sound also adds tension as some scenes have little to no background noise and rely on footsteps, breathing, and long periods of silence. This was a good way to make the viewer feel like something could appear at any moment.
Another thing that I thought made the horror really effective was the designs, specifically the mutated creatures. A lot of them looked really disturbing and unnatural, which made them feel very threatening.
Characters/Acting :
I think Bryan, as a main character, felt very realistic and relatable. He gets scared, makes mistakes, and sometimes has no clue what he’s doing. I also liked that Byran could be funny without even trying. Some of his reactions to everything happening eased the tension. For instance, he often panics and mutters to himself. I liked how the film didn’t make him a typical fearless main character.
However, one flaw with the characters in this movie was that, besides Byran, a lot of characters did not get enough screen time to really care about them. In fact, I think many of them were mainly used to move the plot forward rather than having much development.
Conclusion:
As my first experience with Resident Evil, this movie did what I think a good adaptation should do, which is make me care about a franchise I knew almost nothing about beforehand. Despite its flaws, Resident Evil still stands well enough on its own that newcomers can walk into the theater knowing nothing and still enjoy it. This is why I’d give the film a 9/10.
