Zach Cregger’s ‘Resident Evil’ highlights fears of fatherhood | Review
Hayden Milanovich, Staff Writer
FSView
Sept. 19, 2026, 9:02 a.m. ET
Writer and director Zach Cregger is back with a new horror film in the form of “Resident Evil.” Releasing a little over a year after his Oscar-winner “Weapons” hit theaters, Cregger returns to the genre for his third solo feature as a director, this time based on a beloved intellectual property.
Largely known as the first survival horror video game, countless follow-ups to Capcom’s “Resident Evil” have sprouted since the first game’s release in 1996. Many movies soon followed. Although it has the second installment of the game franchise in mind, Cregger’s latest “Resident Evil” franchise reboot is largely its own thing.
The film follows Bryan, a medical courier, who is having the worst night ever delivering a very important package to the Raccoon City Hospital. Bryan is an original character played charmingly by Austin Abrams, who you’d recognize from his key role in “Weapons.”
‘Resident Evil’ brings controlled chaos to the screen
Check your “Weapons” and “Barbarian”-sized expectations at the door, “Resident Evil” is a further continuation of what Cregger does best: big, bold, horror that is as absurdly funny as it is chillingly scary. Abrams really runs away with the whole thing, playing a screw-up type that’s not unlike his addict character in “Weapons.”
The film grants Abrams his much-deserved leading man moment. Much like a lonesome protagonist in a video game, Abrams hardly shares the screen with other performers in the film.
It’s kind of a miracle how good the controlled chaos of “Resident Evil” is. Film adaptations of video games are notorious for being often atrocious, but a blossoming horror auteur like Cregger is just what this franchise needed.
Most film adaptations of video games seem to exist to further profit off the success of the game in reference. But “Resident Evil” is more than an engaging, well-directed film attached to its IP, the film remarkably bridges the gap between video games and movies in a way that hasn’t quite been done before.
Cregger’s film is adapted for the screen not to fulfill the fantasies of fans around the globe, but because the games it is inspired by are ripe with unsettling atmosphere and the potential for filmic story-telling.
“It was honestly very refreshing, while also feeding into what the fans of the game want to see,” TSC psychology student Jesse Shaw said to the FSView. “I feel it gave a new take on both movie adaptations of games and action/thriller movies by having the main character not be incredibly capable and perfect in every task, and instead giving it a comedic edge with the realistic troubles faced throughout the story, just like in a video game.”
This “Resident Evil” film plays a whole lot like a video game. Bryan’s quest and all that it entails is one strikingly similar to that within a video game. This concept should be repulsive to someone like me with little interest in video games (I’ve truthfully never played a “Resident Evil” game, sorry), but I found it rather endearing to subtly nod at gaming while first and foremost being a movie.
Take an early moment where Bryan breaks into a house, for example. He needs to use the house phone to call for help, soon finding a zombie-woman from earlier in the film is running in to get him. He grabs a shotgun from off the wall and digs through drawers upstairs for bullets. His speech is frightened and disjointed. When it comes time to use the gun, his aim is far less perfect than that of your typical action movie protagonist.
Bryan’s dialogue runs a lot like that of a gamer anxiously playing a horror game. He speaks primarily in swears, running up a check of f-bombs in the film’s brisk 95-minute runtime. The character even yells out “Video game!” in a particularly amusing moment where he uses his re
“The movie was a great rendition of what playing the video game feels like,” FSU risk management and insurance student Jadon Thayer said to the FSView. “I’ve played all of the video games, and the way the [film’s] story flowed was as if I were watching someone play the movie like a game. All of the main character’s choices felt like the choices I would have to make as if I were controlling them, and then they did and said what I was thinking.”
“Resident Evil” continues to solidify Cregger as a master of modern horror. What makes his scenes stand out is when and how they choose to scare the viewer. He makes you think you have his routine all figured out, calculating when the next jump scare will take place. But in place of an anticipated scare, Cregger is often instead going for a creaking door or distracting sound to keep viewers on the edge of anticipation, preserving the perfect scare for the right time.
Sometimes, you’ll find that there’s no jump scare to behold at all and rather an essential beat of the story. Big moments are built up to all the same in Cregger’s film whether they’re scary or not.
The fear of fatherhood in Cregger’s reboot
Beneath the blockbuster-sized action horror, “Resident Evil” serves as a fear of fatherhood film, too. Bryan starts the film on the phone with his girlfriend, who gauges his opinion on whether or not to keep their baby. Bryan is quick to encourage Michelle not to have the child, which the film inevitably reveals to be a great insecurity of Bryan’s.
Cregger admits that he wrote his own uncertainty of fatherhood into the film. In this sense, “Resident Evil” acts as the “Eraserhead” of his career, his male protagonist’s fear of fatherhood manifesting in the form of complicated interactions with mutilated children. Filter large-scale action through the guy-having-the-worst-night-ever of “After Hours” and you arrive at Cregger’s “Resident Evil.”
The film’s finale sees Bryan deliver the package after a final-boss elevator encounter with multiple creatures that’ll have you wanting to take the stairs up to your apartment at night. While he does own up to his insecurities about growing up, Bryan doesn’t achieve redemption for his cowardice by the end of the film. He does nothing to rectify his failure of the people he loves, resulting in his untimely, truly-gross death.
“The movie was different from the ‘Resident Evil’ franchise in the way that it was unserious. I believe it helped immerse the audience because the way the main character acted was realistic,” FSU information technology student Gabby Foard said to the FSView. “The story was also good and different as we got to see a main character not get their escape or happily ever after.”
Zach Cregger’s “Resident Evil” is many things at once: the identification of an artistic bridge between video games and movies, an action film with a screw-up as its lead, a document of his fear of parenthood, and the perfect IP-film scenario for a burgeoning auteur. Radiating great respect for the established “Resident Evil” property, Cregger opts to craft a delicious film that is wholly his.
Hayden Milanovich is a Staff Writer for the FSView & Florida Flambeau, the student-run, independent online news service for the FSU community. Email our staff at contact@fsview.com.
