Resident Evil Review
Studio: Columbia Pictures
Release Date: September 18, 2026
Runtime: 1h 34m
Director: Zach Cregger
Resident Evil Has Been With Me My Entire Life
I’ve been around Resident Evil for nearly my entire life — probably starting a little earlier than I should have.
My dad bought the original game, and I watched him play it when I was way too young to be watching anything involving zombies eating people inside a mansion. I can still picture that first-floor encounter where the zombie slowly turns its head and looks back at you.
Yeah. That one.
That thing lived rent-free in my childhood nightmares for a while.
Funny enough, somewhere along the way, being terrified turned into being fascinated. Horror eventually became one of my favorite genres, and Resident Evil became one of those franchises I simply never get tired of. Resident Evil 2, 4, and 7 are among my favorite horror games ever made, and Resident Evil Requiem is one of my favorite games of 2026.
So when another Resident Evil movie was announced, seeing it wasn’t much of a decision.
I was going.
This Movie Actually Understands What Playing Resident Evil Feels Like
It doesn’t take long to realize Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil isn’t interested in treating itself like some deadly serious prestige drama.
There are corny jokes. There are intentionally weird moments. There are scenes where you’ll probably think, “Yep, this is definitely Resident Evil.”
And I mean that as a compliment.
The movie is absolutely loaded with references to the games without feeling like someone is constantly elbowing you in the ribs asking, “Did you get that one?”
I won’t spoil most of them, because discovering them is half the fun. But moments like barely making it over a fence only for a dog to immediately come charging after you felt hilariously authentic. So did spotting a completely random green herb sitting inside an abandoned car on the highway.
Resident Evil fans know.
Of course there’s a green herb there.
But the movie goes beyond Easter eggs. It occasionally captures the actual feeling of playing these games.
First-person sequences, fumbling with a reload when you desperately need another bullet, running low on ammo at exactly the wrong time — there were scenes that felt dangerously close to watching one of my own Resident Evil playthroughs.
Which, for the record, usually involves me confidently wasting ammunition five minutes before realizing I desperately needed it.
That’s the kind of fan service I want. Don’t just show me something I recognize. Make me remember how the game feels.
Watching the Outbreak From the Wrong Side of the Gun
One of the movie’s smartest decisions is its perspective.
Resident Evil normally puts us in the boots of people who are ridiculously qualified to survive the apocalypse. Leon Kennedy isn’t exactly the guy I’d bet against when something with six eyeballs crawls out of a sewer.
This movie gives us something different.
We get to experience the nightmare much closer to a civilian’s perspective, watching an ordinary person’s night completely unravel as the outbreak gets worse and worse.
That change works.
Instead of wondering how our hero is going to destroy whatever nightmare comes through the door next, there’s genuine uncertainty about whether Bryan is remotely equipped to deal with any of this.
Austin Abrams sells that beautifully. He never suddenly transforms into an unstoppable action hero because the script needs him to. His reactions feel human, his comedic timing works, and most importantly, you actually want to see this poor dude survive his increasingly terrible evening.
It gives Resident Evil a slightly different flavor without losing what makes Resident Evil… Resident Evil.
Loud, Bloody and Constantly Moving
Once the movie gets rolling, it rarely gives you much time to settle in.
There’s action, suspense, creature horror, some well-timed jump scares, and enough mystery surrounding the outbreak to keep pulling you forward.
The cinematography deserves a lot of credit here too.
There are some gorgeous shots buried inside an otherwise extremely disgusting situation. Lighting, environments, creature work, and camera movement regularly elevate scenes beyond what could have been fairly standard horror setups.
The audio hits just as hard.
This is the kind of movie that benefits from a big theater setup. Gunshots have weight, creature encounters come alive, and the more chaotic moments sound properly enormous. “Loud and electric” is probably the easiest way to describe it.
And at just 94 minutes, the pacing is one of its biggest strengths.
Thank you.
Seriously.
Not every movie needs to cross the two-hour mark.
Resident Evil gets in, unleashes hell, tells its story, and gets out before the experience overstays its welcome. I would take a focused 94-minute horror movie like this over another needlessly bloated blockbuster almost every time.
It Gets Corny — But It Knows It
Resident Evil has always occupied a strange little corner of horror.
These games can be absolutely horrifying one minute and completely ridiculous the next. You might be carefully creeping through a dark hallway terrified by every noise, only to eventually fight something the size of a small apartment building.
The movie understands that balance.
Some jokes are definitely corny. Some scenes are intentionally strange. But the corniness never hijacks the movie.
More importantly, quite a few of the jokes landed for me — especially when the humor played directly off familiar Resident Evil mechanics and situations.
It feels like the movie is laughing with the games rather than making fun of them.
That’s an important distinction.
Cregger’s affection for the source material comes through constantly. This isn’t a movie desperately trying to disguise the fact that it came from a video game. It embraces it.
There Was Still Room to Dig Deeper
As much as I enjoyed it, there are a few places where Resident Evil could have pushed harder.
The story works, but it isn’t especially deep. I was interested enough to keep following the mystery and wanted to see where everything was going, but another layer of character development could have made some of the bigger moments hit harder.
I also wouldn’t have complained about another major action sequence or two.
Not because the movie is boring — it absolutely isn’t — but because when Resident Evil really lets loose, those moments are some of its best.
A little more time developing certain characters and slightly more meat on the narrative bone could have elevated the entire thing.
That’s really where my complaints end.
Even the ending, which I can see being divisive, worked for me. I found it satisfying, and more importantly, it left me hoping there’s a way to continue this story rather than feeling like I had seen enough.
This Feels Like Resident Evil
That’s ultimately what matters most to me.
We’ve had plenty of Resident Evil movies before. Some I’ve enjoyed more than others. But this one stuck out.
It doesn’t simply borrow the name, throw some zombies on screen, and call it a day.
It understands the limited ammo. The panic. The absurdity. The tension. The creatures. The little environmental details fans immediately recognize. That awful feeling when you’ve just overcome one problem and the game immediately introduces another one.
It feels like it was made by people who have actually spent time with these games.
And after spending my entire life with Resident Evil — from being terrified of that first zombie as a kid to calling Requiem one of my favorite games of 2026 — that matters.
Verdict
Resident Evil is fast, fun, visually impressive and much more faithful to the spirit of the games than I expected.
It’s not a flawless adaptation. The characters could use additional development, the story could dig a little deeper, and I’d gladly take another big action sequence.
But none of those issues stopped me from having a great time.
In a year that has seemingly decided horror fans don’t deserve a break between good releases, Resident Evil is another one worth making time for.
Longtime fans should have a blast catching the references and recognizing the gameplay DNA scattered throughout the movie. Newcomers still get an entertaining, tightly paced horror ride that doesn’t require decades of Resident Evil knowledge to enjoy.
