Adapting video games for the big screen proves wearying for many filmmakers who take on the challenge of moulding a game series with several key characters, events, lore details and imagery into appropriate film runtimes, all while maintaining the original ambience of the games and appeasing die-hard fans. Several game titles have made strides toward successful screen adaptations in the last year alone, including Mortal Kombat II, The Super Mario Bros., (Return to) Silent Hill, etc., yet do any of these releases prove themselves as worthy of the best video game film adaptation ever made?

Modern horror filmmaker Zach Cregger’s junior feature, Resident Evil, based on the smash hit survival horror game series of the same name, consisting of eleven original games and five remakes, running from 1996 to 2026, may be a new and promising contender to such a question of two media fields crossing paths.

This survival horror flick follows his 2022 acclaimed debut Barbarian and 2025’s Weapons, which earned star Amy Madigan an Oscar win for her villainous role as Aunt Gladys, one of the few to do so in the genre. As the eighth installment in the Resident Evil film franchise and the second attempt at a reboot following producer Paul W.S. Anderson’s 2002-2017 series and Johannes Roberts’ 2021 reboot, Cregger’s Resident Evil film take was penned by him and Shay Hatten, focusing on a separate story running along the events of the 1998 video game, Resident Evil 2.

Austin Abrams returns under Cregger’s direction, following his appearance as homeless criminal James in Weapons, as a medical courier called Bryan who is tasked with a sudden, important yet demanding job of delivering an important package to a location in Raccoon City (as named in the original games). However, it takes only moments for the delivery to spiral into a bloody, vicious fight for survival as Bryan finds himself in the middle of a deadly outbreak which turns infected into horrifically distorted creatures out for blood.

Additional cast members in Cregger’s video game adaptation include Zach Cherry, Kali Reis, Johnno Wilson and Paul Walter Hauser.

“Our theatrical landscape is kind of limited in that way, to big-budget action extravaganzas and then horror, and there’s just not that much room for anything else,” the director previously shared with Collider when discussing the horror genre’s potential and utility. “I happen to be really fortunate in that my creative tuning fork tends to just really resonate the strongest with horror.”

And his recent release proves Cregger’s “creative tuning” is more than efficient, even when working around already cemented source material and concepts.

First, so many details help Resident Evil land as an accurate video game adaptation, while still holding its own merit and weight as a distinct cinematic experience and a standalone movie that could be a video game. Cregger balances his latest work as a game retelling in a different outlet that stays loyal to the source material while remaining uniquely creative and stamped with his vision. We are gifted throughout with some fantastic camera work, scoping through mysterious, threatening locations to deliver tension before a horrific, graphic threat bursts onto the screen to tear through the strained atmosphere, amplified by engulfing, booming and thunderous sound design to cement the impact of onscreen action and defence.

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Additionally, a brilliant translation between a game’s story play and a film’s plot is how this specific, enclosed story within the game’s arc and the world of Raccoon City folds out and expands masterfully and with a great deal of tasteful consistency. The way our protagonist comes across physical hurdles/obstacles, distinct deadly monsters and potential allies progresses with such effort and quality, helping to build a powerful momentum you won’t want to miss a moment of.

Practically every scene improves upon the last, with the risk and the horror raising a notch or two and the physical/mental strain burdened upon our protagonist accelerating in intensity in such an exhilarating manner.

Holding down a glorious runtime of just an hour and a half, yet refusing to waste even a second on screen, grabbing audiences by the collar and immediately strapping them in for a wild ride, Resident Evil deserves additional praise for how effortlessly it captures the full potential of every scene’s intriguing yet terrifying concept. Cregger delivers so many brilliant individual ideas to place his protagonist in and present the game’s gory lore onscreen, yet still maintaining his own artistry.

Proving knowledge of how to lead the audience into a variety of tonal compositions in sequences, the director is proving his craft is rooted in sparking individual creativity. Such brain blasts are implemented into assigned genre codes and pre-existing source material to imply that perhaps the ultimate way of making a video game adaptation is placing your own story into the game’s universe.

A huge highlight of this is how filmmaker Cregger is becoming a master at balancing creepy with the gory, as evidence of his distinct horror-making vision, which reaches two stylistic approaches. We get chilling, heart-stopping imagery of distorted creatures running towards Bryan from afar and just getting closer and closer, with our protagonist scrambling to find a means of defence or escape, which feels so authentic and gripping as we are right there with him in the same situation, painting one mode of horror filmmaking reminiscent of the 1960s and ’70s’ love for suspense. Then, we are thrown into seas of blood and guts reminiscent of the games, with the monsters’ gruesome transformations and bodily threats turning our stomachs and bending our brains, achieving a more 1980s grizzly style of the genre.

And what else could make this brilliantly executed horror story, which masters adapting its source material and reads as its own individual body of work with immense quality, even better? Providing us with such a likeable, authentic and entertaining protagonist, which is deeply appealing, as our viewership is latched onto this character for the film’s runtime. From the moment he appears onscreen, we wholly connect with Bryan in this outrageous, horrifying journey thanks to a brilliant and natural performance hailed by Abrams. Such a performance wastes no time in rising up as a contending highlight of the overall film despite the consistent, fantastic execution of horror, visual composition, and story development.

As a lifelong fan of Resident Evil who was raised on the games, Cregger’s take on the survival horror franchise respects its inspiration while embedding the director’s creative identity of a tactful blend of both brutal and ambience horror and understandable relief comedy. The film achieves so much, both as an adaptation and within its own identity, and utilises all available film components to their fullest potential.

In an interesting layout of film viewership identity stance, you are clearly watching the film as either a Resident Evil fan, a general horror fan or a specific Cregger fan; either way, you will be more than pleased.

★★★★

In cinemas 18th September/Austin Abrams, Zach Cherry, Kali Reis, Johnno Wilson and Paul Walter Hauser/dir. Zach Cregger/ Sony Pictures/ 18

About the Author

Ros Tibbs

Editor

Ros is a film and lit graduate writing news and reviews at The People's Magazine. She also writes long-form film theory, film history, analytical or curated recommendations pieces on other platforms.

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