Resident Evil

Spooky Season started a little early this year, when Sony Pictures snagged a mid-Sept IMAX release window for the latest installment in the video game-inspired Resident Evil franchise. This latest film comes from the acclaimed director of Barbarian and Weapons, Zach Cregger. Co-written by Shay Hatten (John Wick 3 and 4, Zack Snyder's Army of the Dead and Rebel Moon), the picture serves as some kind of reboot or parallel story to events depicted in other entries in this film series (or so they tell me; this is my first Resident Evil movie).

Austin Abrams stars as Bryan, a medical courier tasked with bringing a vital case he assumes houses an organ transplant to the hospital in Raccoon City. It's a dark and snowy night, and Bryan's car isn't really equipped for the drive through the Colorado mountains. Plus, he's just learned that his girlfriend is pregnant, and he really should be home with her, planning his future. But the pay for this delivery is high, so he feels the risk is worth it. On his way, he accidentally hits a pedestrian who steps out in front of his car, but that's just the first of many insane encounters Bryan will experience before this night is through.

Cregger's background is in sketch comedy, and that comes through loud and clear in this movie. It's a comedy first and foremost. In fact, aside from a few VERY effective jump scares, this is far too silly a picture to take seriously as horror. While it has all the trappings of an extreme Zombie movie, Cregger's Resident Evil plays like Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead II and John Landis' An American Werewolf in London, two other films that I guess you put in the horror section because that's where they fit based on their plot descriptions.

The film gets less and less interesting as it builds toward the multiple, over-the-top third-act set pieces, but Abrams, Cregger, and Hatten do a great job creating a silly, not-too-bright protagonist that we can still engage with and root for. And the 94-minute running time prevents the film from wearing out its welcome or dipping into even a hint of self-important "elevation." Even more than this summer's The End of Oak Street, this is a movie that's not out to do anything more than provide viewers with a fun night out at the movies, which in our upside-down culture has become the noblest of cinematic pursuits.