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Zach Cregger’s ‘Resident Evil’ Just Got Its First Social Reactions, Here’s What They are Saying

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Video game movies have spent decades trying to shake off a reputation for disappointing the very fans who grew up loving the source material. Every few years a new adaptation arrives promising to be the one that finally gets it right, and every few years audiences brace themselves for the possibility that it won’t.

That skepticism has followed the ‘Resident Evil’ franchise more than most, given its uneven history on the big screen. Zach Cregger’s take on the beloved Capcom series has spent months building a very different kind of reputation, one built on test screenings, brief footage previews and a director who keeps insisting this is the most violent film he has ever made.

Now the first full reactions are in, and they are extraordinary. A verified account called Global Box Office posted that Cregger’s ‘Resident Evil’ is “not only the best and most gigantic ‘Resident Evil’ movie yet,” but also the director’s own best film, the best horror film of the year, and Columbia Pictures’ best release since ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.’ The account gave the film a full five-star rating, with a complete written review promised for the following morning.

That is about as high a bar as a studio could hope to clear. Comparing any film to ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,’ Quentin Tarantino’s acclaimed 2019 love letter to old Hollywood, places ‘Resident Evil’ in rare company for a Columbia release, and it suggests Cregger has delivered something that plays well beyond the usual horror crowd.

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The reaction lines up with the momentum ‘Resident Evil’ has been building since early September, when Sony screened the opening thirty minutes for press and audiences in Los Angeles, New York and Dallas. Critics who attended those early screenings praised the footage as tense, funny and unexpectedly emotional, with several singling out Austin Abrams’ performance as Bryan, a medical courier who gets pulled into a catastrophic outbreak over the course of one impossibly bad night.

Cregger has been candid that the film only gets rougher on his protagonist from there, joking that he himself would never survive the situation Bryan is thrown into. That blend of dread and dark comedy has become something of a signature for the director following ‘Barbarian’ and ‘Weapons,’ and it appears to have carried through into the finished movie rather than fading once the credits on that opening act rolled.

The film also stars Zach Cherry, Kali Reis and Paul Walter Hauser alongside Abrams, with Cregger directing from a script he co-wrote with Shay Hatten. Rather than retelling the stories of established characters like Leon Kennedy or Jill Valentine, the film follows an original story that unfolds alongside the events of ‘Resident Evil 2,’ letting Cregger build tension without the weight of decades of established lore.

The enthusiasm has not been limited to critics who have actually seen the film. Prediction market Kalshi had traders forecasting an 82 percent “Fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes ahead of the review embargo, a strong number for any horror release and an especially strong one for a franchise that has never scored particularly well with critics in the past.

With the full review embargo expected to lift shortly and the movie opening in theaters on September 18 following its Fantastic Fest premiere, ‘Resident Evil’ is shaping up to be one of the more surprising critical success stories of the year. For a franchise that has spent over two decades searching for a cinematic version worthy of its source material, that would mark a genuine turning point.

What do you think of the early buzz around Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil?

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