Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil Goes Deliciously Off Script

By Lara Kramer  •  28 Sep 2026 in Movies & TV

Thirsty for JUICE content? Quench your cravings on our Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and WhatsApp

Zack Cregger’s Resident Evil feels like being dropped straight into a video game, except it’s one you haven’t already memorised.

For longtime players, that’s what makes it so refreshing. It doesn’t feel like a copy-paste of the existing games, although the closest comparison is probably the PS2-era Resident Evil 4. There’s enough familiarity to immediately feel like Resident Evil, but enough of a detour to keep you wondering where it’s going next. That’s what makes the film work.

Cregger gets to play around with gore, dark humour, and all the wonderfully grotesque nonsense the series has to offer without having to recreate something players have already experienced. It knows what makes Resident Evil fun, but isn’t afraid to take it somewhere new.

Austin Abrams is also a delight. He plays the most dedicated courier you’ll ever see, attempting to deliver his mysterious little package through Raccoon City while everything around him descends into biological chaos. Having a completely new character to experience the city through makes the whole thing feel surprisingly fresh.

There’s less of the impossibly flawless, robotic women, less mad-science laboratory theatrics and fewer moments that feel like they’ve been lifted straight from the games. Honestly, I didn’t miss them either.

Instead, the film feels more interested in creating its own identity within the Resident Evil universe.

It borrows the things that make the games recognisable without constantly stopping to point at them. There’s no need for every character, location, or set piece to feel like a direct recreation of something players have already seen.

The older films are iconic in their own strange way, and they have a particular brand of over-the-top chaos that is hard not to appreciate. But seeing Resident Evil’s gore and glory filtered through modern effects and editing gives it a different kind of punch. The creatures look nastier, the violence lands harder, and the film has a much better sense of when to let something be genuinely disgusting and when to let it become completely ridiculous.

That balance is important because Resident Evil has always been at its best when it allows horror and absurdity to exist side by side. This film understands that.

It can be disgusting, ridiculous, and occasionally very funny without feeling like it’s desperately trying to remind you that you’re watching Resident Evil. It simply trusts the world and lets the madness unfold.

Most importantly, it’s fun. It feels like Resident Evil without being trapped by what we already know about Resident Evil, leaving the door wide open for some wonderfully nasty sequels. Catch it in cinemas now!

For more cool stuff, click here.

Follow JUICE on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.