Zach Cregger Turned Resident Evil into Pure Adrenaline

 

Ten minutes in and everything had already happened. Resident Evil runs ninety minutes but feels like twenty. The jump scares land with brutal precision. A mix of terror and comedy so sharp I hadn’t seen since Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead II. Everything points to Zach Cregger finding Raimi’s formula, or to Raimi’s spirit taking up residence in him.

Cregger, just like Raimi, takes the lead character, Bryan, played masterfully by Austin Abrams, and subjects him to increasingly absurd suffering until he nearly becomes a cartoon character. You laugh. And at the same time the horror sinks under your skin. Every action generates a reaction. Pure physics. Every decision drags an inevitable consequence. Every door that opens brings us closer to the abyss, with no way back.

Cregger had already slipped into my list of favorite current horror directors. Barbarian and Weapons are two modern gems where he explains nothing. He just drops you right into the center of the fear. When they announced he was taking on the Resident Evil franchise, I felt uneasy. Could he work within the limits of such a worn out brand? My fears evaporated the moment the movie started. Ten minutes were all it took.

Cregger did the essential thing. He hadn’t seen the previous films. He only knew the video game. So he shot a movie about the game. Austin Abrams becomes our player. He advances, picks up weapons, manages resources, moves from stage to stage, and completes missions. In the best Raimi tradition, Cregger takes an ordinary guy, untrained, confused, forced to make decisions under pressure and fulfill a mission that will destroy him. For our enjoyment? Every door that opens is a new blow.

As incredible as it seems, Cregger found the perfect cross between Sam Raimi’s savage terror and the suffocating anxiety of the Safdie brothers. That magic makes ninety minutes pass as if they were twenty. Impressive. Today Cregger is my favorite director in current cinema. Few things have as much punk rock attitude as taking a worn out franchise and turning it into pure art that provokes terror, laughter, and anxiety all at once. Cregger is a genius.