Contains Plot spoiler – so if not reading – see the film. One of the best of the year.

The Director & Creative Team

• Director / Co-Writer: Zach Cregger, the visionary filmmaker behind the breakout horror hit Barbarian and Weapons.
• Co-Writer: Shay Hatten, known for his work writing high-octane blockbusters like John Wick: Chapter 4 and Army of the Dead.

The Hero: An Unlikely Everyman

• Genuinely vulnerable: Moving away from standard action-hero templates, Austin Abrams plays Bryan, an ordinary medical delivery courier caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
• Flawed but human: His behavior feels authentic; he alternates between paralyzing panic and bursts of unearned confidence, making his reactions to terror feel entirely natural rather than scripted.
• Survival by necessity: Bryan’s arc relies on realistic desperation—counting his scarce bullets, scrambling for tools, and barely scraping by, which aligns beautifully with the raw tension of early survival horror.

The Monsters: Ever-Changing Evils

• Visceral mutations: The film relies on highly physical, shifting body horror rather than a standard horde of simple zombies.
• Tactile presence: The creatures possess a heavy, believable weight on screen because the production heavily prioritized practical puppets and onset props before layering in digital enhancements.
• Unpredictability: Rather than mimicking exact monsters from the source material, the threat feels original—evolving constantly to keep both the main character and the viewer completely off-balance.

The Story: A Tight, Contained Nightmare

• Streamlined focus: Instead of trying to adapt the massive political lore of the games, the plot focuses entirely on a single, high-stakes objective: a courier trying to get a medical package across Raccoon City during a sudden freeze.
• Atmospheric isolation: Setting the outbreak during a localized snowstorm provides a perfect excuse to isolate the characters and maximize the claustrophobic dread.
• Playful but dark: The story leans into a bleak, John Carpenter-esque tone, pairing genuine terror with a subtle undercurrent of grim comedy that keeps the pacing lively.

Rather than just copying cutscenes, the film implements specific structural techniques that mirror what it actually feels like to control a character in a survival game:

• Fixed Perspectives: The camera frequently locks into static, high-angle corners of rooms, forcing the protagonist to run directly toward the lens—re-creating the disorienting, claustrophobic dread of original 1990s horror games.
• Tight Tracking: During claustrophobic hallway sequences, the lens shifts seamlessly to an over-the-shoulder perspective to mimic modern gaming remakes.

Enjoyable with heavy leaning towards Evil Dead 2, one protagonist carrying the film and taking us along for the ride. Some great unexpected moments plus excellent monsters and original take on horror themes.

The hero feels grounded and like an ordinary man caught up in an unimaginable situation.

I am so looking forward to a sequel, no reason why the main protagonist cannot be part of it. He did get the virus but the cure was still only a drop away. Would love to see him come back from it a changed man, ready to take on the world.