Reviews are pouring in for RESIDENT EVIL (2026) Live-Action Film Review, and the verdict is splitting audiences and critics alike. From the performances to the direction, here is a closer look at what the film does right β and where it stumbles.
The Story So Far
I'm fairly certain that RESIDENT EVIL doesn't even make it to the ten-minute mark before its well-meaning hero, Bryan (Austin Abrams), is covered in blood and screaming for his life. The first and most significant thing that anyone is likely to notice about Zack Cregger's crazed and confident stab at adapting CAPCOM's beloved universe of survival-horror video games is that this sucker moves with the unrelenting ferocity of its ravenous undead hordes.
In the frantic opening minutes of the movie, we are introduced to our reluctant protagonist as he is navigating the personal crisis of a pregnancy scare with his girlfriend Michelle while trying to get his final medical delivery for the night. Once he accepts that fateful assignment that sends him down the snowy mountain roads towards Raccoon City, neither Bryan nor the viewers are given more than a few moments to breathe and take stock before a bloody car crash and an even bloodier encounter with a doomed state patroller force Bryan to take up arms and start running and shooting his way through the monsters that are bearing down from every dark corner.
Throughout his promotional tour for the movie, Cregger has been quick to emphasize how much his interest in helming the latest attempt to bring CAPCOM's legendary property to the silver major screen lies in capturing the feeling of playing a meticulously crafted survival-horror experience, and not so much in carrying over the decades of accumulated bioterror backstory and soap opera melodrama.
This, I think, was absolutely the right call. While there are plenty of visual nods to legendary elements from the games β a stray can of health spray, a safe room with a dusty old typewriter at its center, progress-barring padlocks that demand keys engraved with conspicuous symbols β RESIDENT EVIL is not concerned at all with the typical drudgery of dragging the same old narrative beats and characters out from whatever decrepit shaft of the IP Mines they've been trapped in for the last 30 years.
I'm sure there are many diehard admirers of the games who will be disappointed or even angry to learn that this movie will not be yet another remixing of storylines and boss monsters from specific RESIDENT EVIL games, but I would argue that Blumhouse production house's misguided Five Nights at Freddy's series has demonstrated just how much we all stand to lose when a production house cares too much about activating the nostalgia-fueled dopamine receptors of its most lore-addled gatekeepers and not enough about making a proper, functional horror movie.
Instead of worrying about finding the least awkward places to cram in cameos of everyone's favorite Kennedys or Redfields, Cregger's brutally efficient screenplay locks in on the structure and pacing of the finest survival horror set pieces, and it is anchored by Austin Abram's eminently likable and charming willingness to jump headfirst into whatever crazy cacophony of ultraviolence Cregger has devised.
RESIDENT EVIL'β¦
For now, fans have plenty to discuss, and the industry has plenty to analyse. TeraMovies will be tracking every twist in this story as it unfolds, bringing you the full picture from the world of entertainment.
