Resident Evil.

Wow.

Just wow.

SLiTHER is my favorite horror movie. I love the balance of horror, comedy, character-development, and world-building that James Gunn brings to the film. Every time I watch the film (yearly, on my birthday!) I see some new detail or a line of dialogue hits different and I have a new appreciation for the film.

Resident Evil is this generation’s SLiTHER but with a much bigger budget. It is a non-stop, action-packed, mayhem-fueled, gore-coated, creature feature. It is a film for fans of the film, and a film for anyone who just likes really, really, good movies.

So Zac Cregger has been on a roll that would make the Juggernaut jealous, going three for three (I am including RE here) with original horror films. Someone I know said that it sucks that Cregger had to lose someone to become this horror movie maven and I concur but at the same time I am thrilled that Cregger has found his voice and vision and is pursuing it whole heartedly. This approach is working as evidenced by Resident Evil sitting at an absurd box office total as this is being written, and I expect it to continue growing as October decays away one rotten day at a time.

So how did Cregger make a film using a video game IP and make it actually scary?

CREgger defied gamers’ expectations:

Man, I love the Internet. Full of folks who claim they want original concepts and stories but also gatekeep the ever-loving f*ck out of the IP they stan.

These clowns said they’d boycott the film. That the film would make no money. That it would be a critical failure if it didn’t adhere to X storyline from the game series. And on and on and on and on and on, ad infinitum.

So let’s take a look at how “big of a failure” the film is, were the RE fanboiz correct in their blind hatred? Was it the most reviled film of the year? The “wurst” in the franchise? Did their boycott of the film (because no Leon Kennedy!) cause the box office to wilt beneath their dead-eyed, irate gaze? Did the crunchy sound of their cum-crusted fingers whinging away at their keyboards at three in morning, posting rage bait and sending hate mail, cause Zach Cregger to want to stop working in film forever? The answers are below:

1. The movie sits at 96% on Rotten Tomatoes. The next closest live-action Resident Evil film in the franchise is 2016’s also mostly unrelated to the video games film franchise at 39%. The animated films did better with the highest at 71%. On a different note, I have never understood the love for the Anderson/Jovovich series. The first film was fine, but again not related to the games at all, so I don’t know why the same video game fan boys mad at Cregger for not adding Chris Redfield so happy with a franchise of films that at best only ever played lip service to their beloved video games while making increasingly incoherent and stupid films with bigger budgets and bigger set pieces instead of higher quality writing and acting.
   
2. The highest grossing film in the IP was again the final chapter in PT Anderson’s saga. It made $312 million with only $26 million or so coming from the domestic side of things. Those fan boys really showed up state side to support the film! BUT WAIT! WHAT’S THIS? THE ZACH CREGGER HELMED RESIDENT EVIL FILM IS ALREADY AT $320 MILLION ONLY FOUR WEEKS INTO ITS RUN? HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE? THE FAN BOYS ONLINE SAID IT WOULD BE AND IS A FLOP! But it is true.
   
   The movie has grossed $142 million state side and a whopping $183 million elsewhere around the world, proving conclusively that horror and comedy can sell the hell out of a theater. It will finish close to $500 million (or half a billion) if predicted estimates are correct. That is an insane number for a “flop”.
   
3. It is in fact true. This will be our only taste of a high quality franchise film with a bespoke director looks like. Here’s why: gamers and Gamergaters were up in arms the moment that this film was announced as an original story set in the universe of Resident Evil, and that vitriol was so bad in fact that it was pretty much the reason that Cregger will not be returning to the IP despite the film’s incredible box office dominance during its run and the critical love being heaped upon the film.

CREGGER GAVE US DLC

While the gamer folk felt Cregger’s decision to avoid the main continuity/characters of the film was absolutely perfect. Not because it stuck it the fanbase or anything cynical like that. It was perfect because it made the film seem like it COULD actually be set within the universe of the game. It feels counterintuitive but it is true. The inclusion of characters from a franchise immediately creates expectations, none of which can be reasonably met. If the characters are not the baddest of asses, then the fans will be upset. If the characters do not say the thing from the game that you liked that one time, well fuck this movie. If you make a character no one likes likeable, you can go to hell. If Wolverine is not OP, go eat shit. And on and on and on.

Cregger deftly avoids this trap with two tricks, the first is that our protagonist is a likeable, doofy, and relatable everyman kind of dude. He could be anyone and any one of us and that is why what he goes through feels so visceral and affecting. He also has stakes! He’s struggling to come to terms with some important news, news that everyone can sympathize with, and the audience wants him to live so that he can figure out if he wants to be a dad or not. He has no connection to the in-game universe, so we the audience can not begin to predict what his fate is going to be. This feeling of uncertainty put me on the edge of my seat the whole time. For the first chunk of the film I was waiting for Cregger to pull the rug and make the main character of the film the medical bag our protag was carrying. Hitchcock killed off his leading lady 20 minutes into Psycho, so you know that trick will work. More importantly, this approach led to the main character being put through the absolute ringer and the audience never knowing what his fate is going to be until the credits rolled. It was sublime, that feeling of uncertainty. I love films that give me that.

Even better, Cregger found a willing participant in Austin Abrams, who gives us an absolutely gonzo performance. He will get all my votes for next year’s Chainsaw Awards! Seriously though, Abrams performance is reminiscent of Tim Balme in BRAIN DEAD (DEAD ALIVE). Just as poor Lionel is goes to work slaying his friends, neighbors and family after they are zombified, so too does Bryan go to mad cap, full physical comedy work trying to make his delivery and survive the night.

Brilliant stuff to go with a brilliant script and brilliant direction, this film just shines.

The second choice he made was to put the film in the snow. Gamers and film fans alike have not seen Raccoon City in the snow before. It was a bold choice that gave the film a unique texture and it made the setting as much an antagonist to our protagonist as any of the insane creatures on display, which in turn made the film feel exactly like a video game I would want to play.

IN CLOSING

RESIDENT EVIL is a rare horror experience that I would encourage people to experience in theaters, preferably a crowded one. Regardless, you should watch this one. I loved it, I will own it in several formats and I will revisit this one yearly as I do with SLiTHER and FROGMAN and RARE EXPORTS. More importantly this film has given me a clear way to define WHY I love horror. I need only point at it and say, “Go watch this, this is why I like horror.”

That breathless feeling, that rush of uncertainty and anxiety, the non-stop, adrenaline-spiking whirl that is the journey that this film takes us on; that is why I love horror.

I am so happy films like RESIDENT EVIL exist.