Matt Konopka has the details on a ‘Resident Evil’ footage preview, where Zach Cregger promised an “unrelenting” experience in terror.
We’re about two months away from Zach Cregger’s (Weapons) take on Resident Evil biting into theaters. With it, you can feel a sense of anxious anticipation growing in the air. After all, there have been numerous films based on Capcom’s hit survival horror franchise (many of them directed by Paul W.S. Anderson). None have been very good. That’s left fans hitting our heads against the wall as we say with each new entry, “maybe this time, it will work”. Over and over, we’re left with nothing but a headache.
But this time does actually feel different. For one, my personal opinion says Cregger is the most talented director to tackle the series up to this point. He’s stated numerous times how much of a fan of the games he is. And, maybe most importantly, he doesn’t intend on trying to retell a beloved story with fan-favorite characters. That’s a losing battle, and Cregger knows it. Instead, his goal was to create a film representative of the panic players feel while playing the games. That quickening pulse as you turn a dark corner; The frantic firing (and missing) of your weapon as hordes of zombies rush towards you; The utterance of “oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck” as you run away, gun empty.
Well, I had the immense pleasure of checking out a preview of the first eighteen minutes or so of Resident Evil with Cregger in attendance, and let me tell you…the filmmaker nailed exactly what he set out to do.
SPOILERS FOR THE FIRST ACT OF RESIDENT EVIL AHEAD. YOU’VE BEEN WARNED.
Resident Evil opens with Bryan (), a courier, arriving at a hospital to deliver a kidney. A total doofus, he wanders the halls, ignored by the staff and nearly vomiting at the sight of a patient’s bloody wound. Finally, he unloads the package and is offered another job…transport a Level-A priority package to a hospital in Raccoon City. In need of the money, Bryan accepts.
Unfortunately for Bryan, he lied about his car being snow-ready and finds himself swerving around in a nasty winter storm. While driving, the bumbling idiot and his girlfriend discuss her pregnancy over the phone. She wants to know if he thinks they should keep the baby, and Bryan is full of the wrong answers.
Suddenly, a woman steps into the road. No time to react, Bryan slams into her with his car.
Surrounded by trees and drenched in an eerie atmosphere, the panicked Bryan follows a bloody trail, finding the woman mangled and in shock. He packs her into his car like a mannequin (her arms refuse to move, and it’s hilarious).
Bryan has decided to take the woman to the hospital in Racoon City. Somehow, he doesn’t seem to notice how messed up his passenger truly is. Silent, bloody, eyes miscolored. Multiple times, Bryan puts his neck near her mouth or freaks out at her putting a bloody hand over his, all while we, the audience, know exactly what’s wrong with her.
Eventually, Bryan encounters a cop, who takes the woman off his hands, but orders Bryan to follow him to the hospital, or he’ll be in serious trouble.
Moments later, the cop car flips over. Bryan runs out to find the cop dead, and the woman missing…until she attacks out of nowhere, teeth gnashing, hands flailing. Bryan grabs a gun, but has no idea how to use it. So, he runs around the vehicle, chased by the manic woman and screaming his head off. Finally, he gets the gun to work and, after missing a few shots, plants one right in the woman’s chest.
Phew, right? Wrong. Turns out, a few of those stray bullets smashed into the engine of Bryan’s car. Stranded in a furious winter storm in the middle of the night, Bryan spots a house in the distance with the lights on. He heads that way, with no idea just how much worse his night is about to get.
Through the entire preview, my audience laughed, screamed, and cheered their asses off. I know it’s only the first eighteen minutes, but I’m telling you…it’s the most entertaining eighteen minutes I’ve seen in a Resident Evil film yet.
As he did with Barbarian and Weapons, Cregger manages to infuse a natural humor into horrific situations. Despite dread oozing off the screen, I found myself cackling here and there, in part thanks to a terrific performance from Abrams. Watching the actor recalls those moments of playing Resident Evil, the ones that had you screaming and dropping F-bombs as you ran from monsters of all types. We all like to think we’d be Leon Kennedy in the situation, but most of us would be just like Abrams, out of our minds scared and practically shitting our pants. In that sense, Cregger has recreated the vibe of playing the games better than any other Resident Evil to date.
And if you’re worried there’s too much comedy, don’t be. Not only do the jokes all come off as natural, but Cregger brings the same screaming-in-your-face intensity of his previous films. As much as I laughed, I also felt my fingers gripping the seat as I waited to see what would happen next. Those first eighteen minutes or so feel like when you first step into a Resident Evil game. Quiet, creepy atmosphere. The sense that you’re being watched. Until, finally, that first horrific encounter occurs, and the race towards all-out terror is off.
In fact, Cregger assured our audience that once Resident Evil takes off, it never lets up. “The challenge is…can I put my foot on the gas and not take my foot off the gas until the end of the movie? That’s the challenge of this. And I just fucking floor it all the way through. By design, it does not stop. It’s an unrelenting thing.”
That should be music to any Resident Evil fan’s ears. I certainly perked up all the way when he said that.
Added Cregger, “What happens in this movie is basically it just goes from location to location, sequence after sequence after sequence and things just keep escalating. And it gets bigger and bigger as it goes. Some of these sequences are elaborate and big. I’ve never done anything on the scale of what comes later.”
You’ve seen the finales of Weapons and Barbarian. And you’re telling me this goes even bigger and more intense? Be still, my beating heart.
Look, it’s impossible to say if Cregger’s Resident Evil will be any good or not based on a preview. But if the other eighty minutes are as tense, terrifying, and funny as what I saw, I have no doubt in my mind that Cregger is about to deliver the most satisfying Resident Evil movie to date. I’ve been infected with the hope that we may actually have a winner on our hands, here.
Remember, Cregger is a fan, and he knows how much we’ve been hurt by other adaptations. Asked what he hopes fans get out of the film, Cregger said, “I want people to feel seen because I love these games and I am making this to celebrate these games.”
I felt seen. And, like one of the franchise’s ravenous zombies, I’m craving the rest of the film right the hell now. September can’t get here soon enough.
Bite into Resident Evil when the film creeps into theaters on September 18th via Sony Pictures.
