Resident Evil Is a Fleet, Entertaining Zombie-Filled Reboot

Austin Abrams in Resident Evil —Dušan Martinček—Sony Pictures If Zach Cregger ’s career tells us anything, it’s that starting out as a comedian might be the best training for becoming a horror filmmaker.

Cregger’s 2022 surprise hit (and directorial debut) Barbarian paved the way for an even bigger success, 2025’s Weapons , a well-written, intelligently directed picture featuring sterling performances from Julia Garner, Josh Brolin, and most of all Amy Madigan, who won an Academy Award for her role as Aunt Gladys , an unctuously polite polyester-pantsuit-wearing costume jewelry addict who also happens to be a witch, having lured a town’s schoolkids away in the middle of the night for her own nefarious purposes.

So many contemporary horror films lack a sense of humor, about the world or about themselves.

But Cregger, a founder of the comedy troupe The Whitest Kids U’Know, gets that it’s an essential ingredient.

Weapons, despite its overarching aura of dread (and more than a few mildly traumatizing visuals), didn’t come at its audience like a doomy thundercloud.

Instead, it found ways to lure us in, with scattered morsels of terror as well as laughs.

And unlike too many modern horror films, it featured a confident, definitive ending that was both mortifying and funny, the exact opposite of the carelessly worked-out wrap-up we so often get.

Cregger didn't leave you wondering what the heck you just watched—or, worse, wondering why you’d invested the time.

His latest film, Resident Evil, a riff on the enduring and now practically antique Japanese video game, isn’t as clever, funny, or grimly haunting as Weapons —but then, it’s simply a different type of beast altogether.

The picture is loose-limbed and rambling by design, a kind of shaggy-dog story that reflects the experience of maneuvering a character, via a controller, through a landscape of obstacles.

And while some fans of the game have complained that Cregger has failed to include their favorite characters, he has perhaps wisely decided to focus on one: Austin Abrams, who portrayed the drug addict James in Weapons, plays Bryan Hodukavich, a hapless medical courier charged with transporting a very important parcel to far-away Raccoon City General Hospital, which can be reached only by driving across treacherous, icy mountain terrain.

His ramshackle vehicle slips and slides on the slick roads, and his headlights flash on the figure of a wild-eyed, bloodied woman just as he hits her.

We know, though he doesn’t seem to, that she’s a zombie lady.