There are plenty of reasons to watch the 2026 Resident Evil film, but I’m obviously not going to waste one of them on “watch it if you’re a fan of the franchise.” Fans are going to watch it anyway; they don’t need some stranger on the internet telling them to. And yes, the film is packed with references and Easter eggs from the games, so there’s plenty here for longtime fans to enjoy. Although it’s like a side-quest, so it’s easy for some to find it lacking the tension and grit of an apocalyptic survival story.
Anyway, with the most obvious reason out of the way, here are six slightly more useful ones:
1. It basically plays like a Resident Evil game
Watch it if you’re up for a game-like horror story that’s surprisingly comical in tone. A lot of sequences are shot almost like you’re watching someone stream a Resident Evil game, complete with moments that feel straight out of a first-person shooter set-up. I really wasn’t expecting it to unfold like a horror-comedy, especially since most of the older Resident Evil stuff I’ve watched has been seriously dystopian and oppressive. But those who aren’t fans of the horror-comedy genre might go ‘what the hell?!’.
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2. It’s from the director of Weapons
If you loved Weapons, there’s another reason to check this out: Zach Cregger is back in the director’s chair and shares the writing credit with Shay Hatten, who has worked on the John Wick films. Just don’t expect the complexity or wickedness of Weapons. Resident Evil is a much more straightforward tale about a delivery guy trying to get something to a hospital in Raccoon City while everything around him goes spectacularly wrong.
3. The story is refreshingly simple
Honestly, this is also part of the appeal. There’s no need to keep track of a dozen characters or an elaborate conspiracy. The story is told largely from the POV of one random courier driving towards Raccoon City on a snowy night. He gets into an accident on a deserted stretch of road, and things just keep going downhill from there. Yet despite all the increasingly horrid things that happen to him, the poor guy remains bizarrely committed to making his delivery.
4. Austin Abrams gives you someone you actually want to survive
Austin Abrams as Bryan is the absolute heart of the film, and you genuinely want him to succeed even when his odds of survival seem to be about 10%. That’s always a plus in horror, because there are definitely movies where the protagonist becomes so annoying that you start rooting for the monster instead. I couldn’t immediately remember an example, but apparently I wished exactly that upon the protagonist of the 2022 Resident Evil series. I know this only because I reread my old review today while hyperlinking it to this one. So… thanks, past me.
5. Logic happily takes a back seat to gross, wacky horror
If you’re absolutely chill with horror movies sacrificing logic in the name of some wild-as-hell gore, Resident Evil keeps delivering. There are plenty of wacky monsters, gross transformations and sequences that make you wonder what exactly you’re watching. And obviously, someone puking their guts out all over the protagonist is practically mandatory gross-out horror at this point.
6. It’s a crisp 90 minutes
Finally, Resident Evil knows when to get out. The ending feels abrupt, but at least the filmmakers don’t stretch things out or suddenly get overly sentimental. Any longer and the film probably would’ve started becoming overbearing. We watched it in a theatre, where there was no magical fast-forward button, and not once did I wish I had one. For a 90-minute horror movie, that’s a pretty solid compliment.
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