The newest entry in the long-running Resident Evil franchise arrives in theatres this year as the eighth live-action film to bear the name. It follows the eight-episode Netflix series that debuted in 2022 and the 2021 reboot Welcome to Raccoon City making it the third attempt to reset the cinematic continuity of Capcom’s beloved survival-horror series. Director Zach Cregger who co-wrote the script with Shay Hatten brings a blend of dark comedy and genuine scares, echoing the tone of his earlier award-winning work.
Where the 2026 movie fits in the franchise timeline
Although the early 2000s films helmed by Paul W.S. Anderson share a nominal universe, they became infamous for dangling unresolved cliffhangers and discarding central characters. Meanwhile, the video-game series itself has undergone numerous remakes, protagonist swaps, and setting overhauls since its 1996 debut. This fragmented legacy means each new screen adaptation must decide whether to honor past continuity or forge its own path. Cregger opts for the latter, treating the Resident Evil brand as a flexible canvas rather than a rigid canon, which explains the film’s willingness to diverge from both the Anderson saga and the latest game narratives.
The plot that puts an ordinary guy in extraordinary danger
The story centers on Bryan (played by Austin Abrams), a freelance organ-transport courier who takes a last-minute, double-pay job delivering a mysterious package to Raccoon City. He is fresh-off news that his girlfriend is pregnant and is too indecisive to voice a clear stance. As he speeds toward the city, he inadvertently hits a disoriented woman, foreshadowing the chaos to come. Upon arrival, the town is already spiralling under a rampant T-Virus outbreak unleashed by the corporate behemoth Umbrella. Bryan’s average-Joe demeanor forces him to stumble through corridors, confront zombie-like citizens, and battle grotesque mutated rats, all while delivering a steady stream of cringe-worthy one-liners.
Influences that shape the film’s tone and style
Although rooted in a video-game universe, the movie’s sensibility draws heavily from a palette of cult cinema. The relentless escalation of monsters—moving from sluggish infected humans to nightmarish, Lovecraftian beasts—mirrors the progression found in Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead II (1987). Like Raimi’s iconic Ash, Bryan mixes bravado with blundering missteps, creating a comedic rhythm that never undercuts the underlying horror. Additionally, the film’s night-long odyssey recalls Martin Scorsese’s After Hours (1985), where an ordinary protagonist is thrust into an urban underworld populated by hostile strangers. Here, Umbrella’s staff, especially the sociopathic Paul Walter Hauser cameo, embody the “corporate nightmare” Scorsese hinted at, turning a simple delivery into a descent into corporate madness.
Homages to anthology horror
The Creepshow (1982) influence surfaces in several set-pieces. One sequence pits Bryan against swarms of possessed rats, echoing the relentless cockroach attack from the “The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill” segment. Both protagonists are hapless everymen who inadvertently unleash an unstoppable infestation, paying the price for their curiosity. Moreover, the film’s occasional vignette-like bursts of gore and humor feel like a modern reinterpretation of Stephen King’s anthology spirit.
Video-game mechanics on the big screen
Where many adaptations replace the player’s vulnerability with an invincible hero, Cregger keeps the core tension of survival-horror intact. Bryan’s constant back-tracking, limited resources, and sudden death traps emulate the feeling of a player repeatedly hitting a wrong door and respawning. The climax, set inside Umbrella’s towering research facility, evokes the final-level architecture of titles such as The Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2018), where the protagonists race to a rooftop lab for a potential cure. This “vertical ascent” mirrors the escalating difficulty curve gamers recognize, reinforcing the film’s devotion to its source material’s gameplay DNA.
Beyond overt references, the movie also channels the unsettling surrealism of David Lynch’s Eraserhead (1977). A harrowing scene inside a virus-infested maternity ward captures the same nightmarish dread of confronting an unwanted, monstrous offspring, a visual metaphor for Bryan’s unintended role in spreading the contagion.
In total, Resident Evil (2026) succeeds by marrying the frantic pacing of a video-game with the timing of a comedy-horror hybrid. Its willingness to lean into the absurd, while still delivering genuine scares, positions it as perhaps the most balanced adaptation of the franchise to date.
