Video game movies used to be where good ideas went to die. Then directors like Zach Cregger showed up. His Resident Evil — in theaters now — isn’t just the best film in the franchise’s history. It’s one of the best horror films of the year, full stop. And audiences agree: a $60 million domestic opening, $200 million-plus worldwide as of this week, and a 96% Rotten Tomatoes score. When was the last time a horror movie made everyone this happy?
Dread, done right
The premise is lean: Bryan (Austin Abrams) finds himself in a race for survival, in a brand-new story built from the bones of the beloved games. No homework required. You don’t need to know the lore, the timelines, or which game had the mansion. You just need a pulse.
What makes it sing is Cregger’s understanding of what actually made those games great. He told The Atlantic he plays them because “the game design and the pacing and the dread is so effective… That, to me, is the heart and soul of those games.” That’s the whole movie in one quote. This is horror built on pacing, not jump scares — corridors that feel too long, silences that feel too loud, a camera that knows exactly when to look away.
Abrams carries it beautifully. Bryan isn’t a superhero; he’s a guy trying to stay alive, and Abrams plays every shade of that fear without ever tipping into melodrama. You believe him. That’s rarer than it sounds.
Craft you can feel
What separates this from the average horror release is the craft. The sound design alone deserves mention — every creak, every distant thud, every held breath is placed with intention. Cregger understands that dread is a rhythm, and he conducts it like a maestro. The production design leans into decay and detail: environments that tell stories before anyone speaks. It’s the kind of filmmaking that rewards the big screen, where scale and sound do half the scaring for you. This is a director who learned pacing from games and atmosphere from the masters, and it shows in every frame.
The numbers tell the story
Let’s linger on the box office, because it’s genuinely remarkable. Sixty million domestic out of the gate. A second weekend holding at $23.3 million and pushing past $100 million domestic, per TheWrap’s roundup. Two hundred million worldwide and counting. For an R-rated horror film in September, those are the kind of numbers that make studio executives weep with joy.
And here’s the kicker: the same week Resident Evil crossed $200 million, Cregger’s next film — the Jennifer Lawrence sci-fi thriller The Flood — was announced. One director, one week, a historic hit and a dream project greenlit. Hollywood loves a winner, and this is how winning weeks look.
Why it works as an adaptation
Most game adaptations fail because they treat the source like a Wikipedia page to summarize. Cregger treated it like a feeling to recreate. The dread, the resourcefulness, the sense that safety is always one wrong turn away — that’s the games, translated honestly into cinema. Parade calls it a box office hit; we’d call it a template. This is how you do it.
The verdict
Resident Evil is scary, smart, and propulsive — the rare franchise entry that respects its source while doing something entirely its own. Cregger has now delivered Barbarian, the Oscar-winning Weapons, and this: three for three, each one distinct, each one excellent, each one proof that original voices still win big. He’s not just the most exciting horror director working. He might be the most exciting director working, period.
If you like horror, see it on the biggest screen you can find. If you don’t usually like horror, see it anyway — this is the one that converts people. Few films earn both critical love and crowd love in the same breath; this one did, and then some. A genuinely joyful week for the genre, and a triumph worth celebrating.
