Having never played Resident Evil and not being a horror fan, what got me excited for this movie was the trailer. It seemed like it was going to lean into a goofy protagonist and not take itself too seriously. This ended up being my favorite part of the movie. Austin Abrams, who plays the protagonist, did a fantastic job throughout the film. Something about his vibe just jived with me. The comedy here worked for me, but by the end of the movie it was starting to get close to the point of becoming cringe. The saving grace was the runtime; it didn’t need to be any longer than it was. The ending was a little abrupt, but realistically I couldn’t see them ending it in any meaningful way.
While I enjoyed the goofy nature of the film, the horror didn’t do much for me. There were a few jump scares which were alright, but the main thing that everyone in my theater seemed to be talking about after the show was how gross it was. Gore might be my least favorite element of film. It is squarely in the category of things that I’d rather not pollute my brain with. Whenever there is a particularly gory scene in a film, I cover parts of the screen with my hand. However, there is a tipping point where there is so much gore that it loses all effect on me. At the beginning of The Substance (2024), I was constantly covering the screen. While the film stayed somewhat grounded and was showing medical scenes, I wanted no part of it. But as it continued, the gore progressed to absurd levels. I stopped looking away. It crossed over from depictions of things that I could imagine happening to a human body to red gobbledygook splashing on the screen. Resident Evil skipped the first part entirely and started off in the absurd. This matches the rest of the not-so-serious nature of the film, but for me it didn’t evoke any sort of emotion. It was just kind of red.
Not nearly as good as Cregger’s previous film Weapons (2025), but a fun watch nonetheless.