Video game adaptations are the new, hot thing in Hollywood; the Mario movies each crossed $1 billion, A Minecraft Movie flirted with it, the Sonic series is a constant success, the Fallout and Last of Us TV shows are widely seen, there’s upcoming adaptations of Elden Ring, Call of Duty, Death Stranding, and Battlefield — everybody in town wants a slice of this 64-bit pie.
But for Resident Evil, this new, Zach Cregger-led direction is not the first time that Raccoon City has been brought to life on the big screen, no no no. On seven previous occasions have filmmakers far less skilled than Cregger tried — and failed — to capture even half of the pulsating, rip-roaring fun that Cregger does here. From Paul W.S. Anderson to Alexander Witt to Russell Mulcahy to Johannes Roberts, none have managed to walk the fine line between “faithful” adaptation and standalone success in quite the manner that Cregger miraculously does. He enters rare air in the sense that he strikes a scarcely achieved balance between making good on what’s promised — this is, for all intents and purposes, a Resident Evil movie that’s full of all the creepy monsters, loot acquiring, and relentless, constantly-on-the-run nature of the games — and satisfying those who have never once even thought to pick up a controller with pure horror comedy filmmaking of the highest order that harkens back to the ’80s peak of Sam Raimi and John Carpenter.
At the centre of it all is Austin Abrams’ Ryan, a self-admitted “Glorified Postmates driver” — medical courier — who is just having the absolute worst night of all.
Cut from the same cloth as Griffin Dunne’s Paul Hackett in After Hours and Matt Damon’s Odysseus in The Odyssey, Ryan takes one last job for the night on the promise of double pay. The catch? He has to head into the icy centre of hell: Raccoon City. There, he finds something for everyone. Whatever your biggest fear is, they’ve probably got it in spades. Zombies? Rats? Baron Harkonnen-looking demons in the sewers? Science geeks? The government? The personification of your parental anxiety? Get in, buddy, we’ve got you covered.
Like all Cregger films, Resident Evil, despite all its gory glory, is first and foremost a very, very funny comedy — perhaps, though, to a fault. What prevents Resident Evil from ever truly crossing into masterpiece territory — great as it is — is Cregger and co-writer Shay Hatten’s inability to ever fully strike a sensible balance between the films comedic and horrific tones. The scares and saddening turns that the movie takes are too often undercut by humour — a little is great, a lot is too much.
Nevertheless, Resident Evil’s final act is stronger than its Cregger-penned predecessors. Weapons and Barbarian are at their strongest when shrouded in mystery, whereas RE is at its loudest and proudest best throughout its conclusion. It feels as if Cregger is on the precipice of putting all the pieces together to create something truly special, and I’m quite sure he will.
Exceptional screenwriting prowess, natural comedic flair and generally superior filmmaking expertise aside, Cregger sets his vision for this type of adaptation apart through a genuinely unique and new POV style of filmmaking that brings us as close as we’ve ever gotten the experience of a first-person shooter game on the big screen, jump scares and all.
It borrows from the found footage-esque style of Alien, Cloverfield, and The Blair Witch Project and combines it with Cregger’s now distinctly Cregger-y visual language: the fear of being chased, the unknown behind the door, the dynamic, freely-moving camera that knows something we don’t. Cregger is defining his style more and more with each project, and with each an even bigger success than the last, he begins, now, to enter a stage that very few directors can and do: his name being the biggest selling point of any of his movies.
Like, say, Nolan now or Spielberg in the past, the huge success of Cregger’s movies — which ooze with style that’s so distinguishably his — will see audiences rush out to return to theatres each time a new Cregger joint is out on the basis that they know it comes from the mind of he. Zach Cregger is now a brand, I think, but the box office performance of his upcoming Sci-Fi action flick, The Flood, will likely prove to be that theory’s greatest vindicator or refuter. Which brings me to…
Box Office Corner
The box office projections for Resident Evil’s opening weekend sits at a cool $40-$50 million domestic, and closer to $80 million worldwide. For comparison, the box office story of the year, Obsession, which grossed $263,451,715 domestic and $513,840,715 worldwide, opened to $17,196,855 in North America.
My gut tells me, too, that the projections are underestimating Resident Evil’s cultural power and Cregger’s draw as a director. A more apt comparison in my mind would be the other box office triumph of the year, Backrooms, whose built-in audience (Gen Z) likely shares an interest in the world of RE — such is the video game-inclined sensibility of today’s youth. And when accounting for an entire generation of gamers who found themselves letting bullets rip on zombies in Raccoon City all the way back in the ’90s that might not have even heard of the idea of “The Backrooms” until this past May, it would be a surprise to me if RE 8 didn’t just outgross Backrooms, but dominate these next couple months at the movies.
But why is this movie about to be the smash success it looks destined to be? There’s a few reasons:
Gen Z Likes Video Games, Not Comics!
No one goes to the movies as much as Gen Z. That’s a fact. And as a proud cinema-going Gen Zer, I can tell you that very few of us grew up reading comics the way that those 20 years our senior did. We played video games instead! And now that Gen Z has reached an age where we are the centre of cinema-going culture — or in some instances even the ones making the films — Hollywood is catering to us just the way it catered to the millennial X-Men reader in the 2000s. There’s more video game adaptations on the slate than comic book ones right now, and not only does that seem to be a sign of what’s to come, but a sign of what people (Gen Z) want to see right now. The people yearn to see their favourite games adapted for the screen, just the way they once longed to see Wolverine roll out in yellow spandex, and given that the people are coming out to see them when they are, Hollywood has no reason to stop obliging any time soon.
Horror is Booming!
The even more obvious answer is that horror is, and has been for quite some time, the most consistent money-making tool in any movie studio’s arsenal.
Obsession and Backrooms’ scale-breaking over-performances aside, horror continues to consistently prove to be a safe and valuable low-budget bet for any and all studios. This year alone, Sam Raimi’s Send Help bagged Disney $94 million on a $40 million dollar budget, whilst Lee Cronin’s The Mummy saw its $22 million input return a whopping $90 million. Other such examples as The Conjuring: Last Rites’ $499,256,445 and Cregger’s own Weapons’ $270,072,492 intake from last year, too, helped prove the genres wide appeal — whilst sleeper hit Undertone’s $21,000,000 return on investment from a $500,000 budget is just as remarkable from a few months ago.
In summary, the youth are showing up. And there’s two things they love more than anything else: Video games and horror flicks. This just so happens to tick both of those boxes.
Awards Season
Finally, the conversation does need to be had. Given Amy Madigan’s win for her supporting role in Cregger’s Weapons, could Resident Evil come away with any Academy Awards? Probably not. Madigan’s win was a total upset relative to awards history: Just the eighth time ever that a performer was awarded an Oscar for a role in a horror movie. But also the win was a product of 1) a much showier part than Abrams’ here, and 2) a celebration of an iconic screen performer whose first nomination came 40 years earlier.
A nomination in any other category would come as a surprise, too — we’re yet to reach a point where horror is awarded quite the same level of respect as drama at any awards body, let alone by the Academy.
