Editor’s Note: All review content reflects the views of the individual author only and does not represent a stance taken by The Collegian or its editorial board.
“Resident Evil,” a successful long-standing franchise from video game production company Capcom, first hit the markets in 1996.
Featuring a zombie apocalypse, stubborn protagonist, evil Umbrella Corporation and corruption of the United States government, the series is known for its outrageous plot lines, quippy characters, twisted body horror and teeth-gritting ammo management. And with the fan base it carries, the new film was almost guaranteed a favorable opening weekend.
Sure, the “bad apples” of the gaming community might rant about how the movie is not exactly what they hoped for, but what’s done is done. The money is there; the movie is paid for; and it will fall to obscurity after two years just like the other seven “Resident Evil” movies.
How Zach Cregger managed to evade the fate of bad video game adaption his predecessors fell into came down to his understanding of what inherently made the video game good. Most other game adaptations, such as 2026’s “Return to Silent Hill,” ride the high of a well-loved IP with a massive audience. They simply recreate what they see: cast only well-known characters, explore the already carved out scenes of the game and present the same plot line.
At that point, why not just play the game?
Cregger’s adaptation goes beyond that; he understood the story has already been told. These characters, like Leon Kennedy or Ada Wong, have already been cemented as icons, so realizing them as something even slightly different would end up a failure. Cregger instead chased the high of playing a “Resident Evil” game.
It’s the same reason people watch playthroughs online or stream their gameplay to friends on Discord. They are chasing the experience — it’s a shared experience digested through a linear story.
Our protagonist, Bryan, acts as the personification of experience, rather than a main character. He misses half his shots, makes rash decisions that lead him in worse situations and expresses his disdain through profanities that would make even the most explicit of teenage boys impressed. Cregger understands Bryan is a secondary character in this world and cannot have virtually any outstanding impact onto the canon. He gets the blunt end of the stick, flails, screams and sobs his way through a story which should make him look like a hero, but fails at almost every turn.
This isn’t Leon Kennedy; this is the player.
I truly believe this is the lesson Hollywood needs to learn. If someone wanted to see the world of the video game and know the direct characters, they would simply play the game. Producers could pour millions of dollars into a fancy production, get all the hot-shot actors and actresses onto the screen and say the right things, but people will still hate it. A more recent example is Borderlands in 2024, which had a estimated budget of $115 million and a box office gross of $33 million. Borderlands had the previously mentioned formula: established characters, bizarre world and colorful language. For a well-established IP, they, by definition, did everything right. But in all honesty, they remade the game and took out all of the fun parts — the player’s parts.
Cregger made the entire movie out of the fun parts, making it both more enjoyable and profitable, with it being — as of Sept. 23, a week after it’s release — the highest rated horror movie of 2026, with a 96% on Rotten Tomatoes; its domestic box office opened to $60.1 million.
Starting off on the snowy suburban roads of Raccoon City, viewers are immediately grounded in the opening setting of the game “Resident Evil 2,” even going as far as to poke fun at the audience for knowing more than the protagonist as he carelessly carries around a clearly infected woman. The narrative then moves through a lone farmhouse on the hill that immediately allude to the environments and play style of “Resident Evil 7” and even goes as far as to introduce us to the family that lives there.
Winding through the backroads, sewers and alleyways of the city, the protagonist is consistently followed by an ever-encroaching, seemingly invincible mutant creature, recreating the unique fear of Mr. X from “Resident Evil 2” and Nemesis from “Resident Evil 3.” Just to top it all off, Bryan runs into the scientists of the Umbrella Corporation, subverting my expectations as a viewer by playing into the absurdity and foolishness of the employees. From virus vials, laboratory scenes, large “weak spot” eyes and a consistent increasing of body horror from the infected individuals, the film felt like sitting in my room, booting up the game for the first time.
I came out of the movie nostalgic, thinking about replaying those games just to feel the same exhilaration I felt the first time. Bryan represented the kid in me: playing those games, fearing for my ammo reserves and reeling in the ever-increasing stakes. It was a perfectly well-rounded story, leaving no loose ends for a possible game or sequel spin-off to ruin it and allowed even the oldest of fans in the franchise to get that first-playthrough feeling. Amazing as it would have been to see specific characters on the big screen, video game adaptations need to move in this general direction to survive the current media climate.
Cregger set the stage, and now we wait to see what game franchises follow in his footsteps.
9/10
Reach Alli Adams at entertainment@collegian.com or on social media @RMCollegian.
