After seeing it get rave reviews, I was excited to check out the Zach Cregger (Weapons, Barbarian) directed and co-written Resident Evil. In my head, I couldn't see how it could live up to the hype, but being a huge fan of the survival horror video game series, I just had to see it for myself. I didn't mind if this wasn't to rigidly stick to the game's lore, but I did expect it to be a serious survival horror film. What I instead discovered was not only a comedy horror, but one that had me constantly laughing out loud from start to finish.
Bryan (Austin Abrams - Weapons, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark) is a courier that one evening is delivering medical supplies to a hospital. While there, he is asked if he wanted to do another urgent delivery, this time to a hospital in Raccoon City. Out of his normal delivery zone, the offer of extra pay has him jumping at the chance. Up in the snowy mountains where the city is located, he is on his phone to his girlfriend when a woman steps out into the road right in front of him and without time to avoid her, he hits the woman. Stopping, he is relieved to see the woman appears very dazed and covered in blood, but otherwise apparently ok. Doing the right thing, he decides to take the woman along with him to the hospital. A series of small misadventures later he begins to suspect there is something really wrong with the woman, who is not only able to sustain injuries that would kill a normal person, but is also acting more and more violent around him. With his car broken down, and his mobile phone having no signal, he heads to a nearby farm house to seek assistance. Things are not much better there, and after dealing with a aggressive dog and a farmer (who both also seem to have something very wrong with them), he decides he has no other option than to head to Raccoon City on foot; both to find help for the insanity he is encountering, and also, as he really does want to deliver the urgent medical supply to the hospital. Bryan comes to learn that a virus has escaped from a lab in the city and has infected the citizens with a terrifying parasitic virus. He also discovers that the delivery he has on him may be the key to a cure for this virus.
Going in, I had zero idea that this was going to be such a funny film, so was more than surprised when it become clear it was. Even better for me, the humour was great, there was barely a visual gag or amusing line of dialogue that didn't land perfectly. In the video game series, several have you playing as a normal person; someone with no special skills, but who nonetheless thrives in a monster filled situation. Here, that idea is made more realistic, Bryan is as normal as they come, and that includes not really having a clue how guns work. With no special skills outside of being resourceful, he muddles his way through his adventure through a combination of luck and sheer determination. Along his journey he comes across increasingly powerful guns, but barely knows how to use them, struggling to load ammo, struggling to remove safety catches, frequently accidentally discharging them, and when he does shoot them, it turns out he is a terrible shot. Like in the video games, Bryan constantly finds his way forward blocked by locked doors, this becomes a running joke of him attempting to destroy the locks by shooting them and failing.
Much of the movie has Bryan alone, his constant mutterings, screaming and swearing meaning that despite that there is barely a quiet moment. Along the way he encounters a bunch of different characters, all of which are usually used for comedic effect, such as the film's sole badass character who almost immediately gets killed off. The film is focussed on Bryan for the entire runtime, there are no subplots, and the viewer only has as much limited knowledge of what has happened in the city that Bryan himself finds out. The man is slightly cowardly, but he is a good person who does want to do the right thing, even if he comes to have a stake in the game. Despite all the monsters, he really does want to deliver the medical item he has been tasked with delivering. There was only one genuinely sad moment in the film when Bryan is at rock bottom, but even this is humorously interjected, courtesy of a fun role from Zach Cherry (Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, Severance).
I assumed this would be primarily a zombie film, while they do appear, that wasn't actually the case. Like the video games, the focus falls more on the various mutated monsters the virus has created. The virus can cause fleshy tentacles to reach out from the infected, with the tentacles able to stich together various infected to create a nightmarish mishmash abomination, one of which acts as a recurring antagonist force for Bryan to escape from. Alongside zombies and split-headed dogs, there were a bunch of one-off creatures, such as a grotesque zombie mutation that spits acid, and a large ghoul in the sewers that is fit to bursting with infected rats. There was even one monster that was very similar to William Birkin's monster form in Resident Evil 2, complete with a giant eyeball on its shoulder. While rated 15, this was very gory and bloody, with severed limbs, exploding heads, and people even ripped clean in half. This was more exciting than scary, though one early scene had a jump scare that had my best friend screaming out loud, which in turn made me jump. The story almost takes place in real time, with it happening over the course of one long night rather than a longer time frame. There are plenty of easter eggs from the games to discover lurking in the background, from first aid sprays and green herbs, to keys embossed with playing card hand symbols and ammo stored in the same box type as in the games.
Resident Evil was an amazing film from start to finish. At 90 minutes long it feels lean in modern day, with movies often feeling the need to be two hours in length. It was the rare type of film that when the end credits rolled I was ready to re-watch the journey all over again. A comedy horror set in the Resident Evil universe could have been a disaster, but it just works here, with jokes that are near always spot on, and ones that never get in the way of the unfolding horror on-screen - an admirable blend of humour and horror, essential viewing.
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