The entire film follows medical courier Bryan (Austin Abrams) on the delivery from hell. Despite being in the middle of a phone argument with his pregnant girlfriend, Brian accepts one last job for the day; a drop-off in remote Raccoon City. The icy roads he is ill prepared for turn out to be the least of his worries as something has gone very wrong in the mountain city. After running a woman over in the town outskirts, things quickly escalated and Bryan ends up being pursued by a menagerie of abominations as he rushes to deliver a package that might be even more important than he first thought.
Like the games, the Umbrella Corporation is behind the devastating outbreak but here they are less sinister shadow organisation and more incompetent idiots. Or at least their Raccoon City branch is. The idea the world could be ended by corporate stupidity is a very modern take on the "big business is bad" idea and the updates don't stop there. A virus has still been unleashed on the denizens of the city but rather than hordes of zombies shuffling around, people are turned into a variety of body horror nightmares. From a cartwheeling flesh mound made of bodies to long-limbed spider like babies, there is a constant stream of inventive monsters to keep the audience on their toes. There is an emphasis on practical effects and the reverence for John Carpenter classic "The Thing" is clear.
The other film Resident Evil shares the most in common with is "The Evil Dead". Indeed the blend of horror, guts and humour feels closer to Sam Raimi's original dead films than this year's "Evil Dead: Rise" did. It is probably as close as you can get to an out and out comedy while still being at all frightening. Some parts are gross, but funny. Some parts are unsettling, but funny. Some parts are outright scary, but funny. Cragger had his roots in comedy before he became one of the hottest names in horror and he clearly knows exactly what makes each genre tick. Here he mixes them both seamlessly to subvert the expected outcome of nearly every scene.
The humour working so well owes a lot to lead Austin Abrams. It's incredibly difficult to carry a film when you are alone on screen for the majority of the time but he entertains from start to finish. In lieu of having dialogue with another character he engages in an almost continuous, muttered monologue, expressing his fears and anger in ways that are never not funny. Cregger and Abrams have said they wanted Bryan to act like Marty McFly in some scenes, Bruce Willis in others and sometimes Kevin McCallister. This sliding scale of bravery isn't the most naturalistic way for the lead character to act but it lets the audience have fun while he is being put through one nightmare after another, rather than just feel scared or sorry for him.
In a way, he is a very video game like character, and there are plenty more nods to the IP's digital beginnings, even if the story and characters here are new. There are direct references like the branding on ammunition boxes, green herbs growing in cars and some monsters feel quite familiar (you don't want to pet this dog). Beyond that there are wider game-esque touches in play. Bryan is introduced in a long take, shot from over the shoulder, there are a couple of short first person scenes and, in true survival horror fashion, any characters our hero meets are not long for this world. It's all done in a way that won't be remotely distracting to anyone not familiar with the games, or not interest in player controlled pixels at all.
What might rub some people up the wrong way is the abrupt ending. It fits tonally and narratively but it, along with the film in general, may be a bit mean spirited for some viewers. It is also a slight film, it really is just one man going from location to location and having to escape increasingly dicey situations. There is more than enough ingenuity on show for that to propel such a simple premise through the svelte ninety-five minute runtime but those looking for something below the surface will be left wanting.
That's not really a problem for a genre piece like this though and any thematic fat on the bone would risk slowing things down. Instead, Resident Evil is a lean, mean laughs and frights machine that should be a blueprint for franchise adaptations. Cregger discards the details and focuses on capturing the spirit, and given Hollywood's obsession with recycling IP we could really do with about a dozen more of him.
8 bungling lab technicians out of 10.
Comments
Post a Comment