Let's be honest, something rather odd is going on with this new Resident Evil film. Because, believe it or not, today is the day it hits UK cinemas, and the least we can say is that the marketing campaign has been alarmingly discreet. Barely any media presence, no reviews available ahead of release, a campaign that seems surprisingly low-key and, above all, hype that is practically non-existent on social media. So much so that a question starts to arise: could the marketing team have been put off by the poor reception the film got from the internet?
Because yes, the first Resident Evil footage really didn't spark the enthusiasm that was hoped for. On social media, a section of the audience was particularly harsh on the trailers, some complaining that the film didn't look enough like the games, while others seemed to have condemned the project before they'd even had the chance to see it. For a licence this popular, that first impression is enough to cool off a marketing campaign. And Sony does rather give the impression of having chosen not to take too many risks. Resident Evil arrives in cinemas with fairly measured messaging for a film that could have been sold as a genuine horror event.
What if the internet got it wrong?
This is where things get interesting, because the first professional reviews are finally starting to land and the tone is nowhere near as catastrophic as what you could hear online. Several outlets are even praising Zach Cregger's work, his approach to horror and, above all, his determination to recapture the sensations of the games rather than simply reproduce their plot. The review from our colleagues at Première (published just now) sums up this shift in perception particularly well:
« We'd ended up believing Resident Evil was unadaptable. Because every time, the studios made the same mistake, treating an exercise in fear as a playground for blockbuster action. Cregger, on the other hand, has understood exactly what thirty years of blockbusters had missed. His compass is Evil Dead II, and his film is conceived as a “love letter to the games”. »
Over at Numerama, they welcome the return of the intelligent jump scare: « The violence is brutal, graphic and utterly uncompromising, with a few particularly juicy dismemberments that had half the cinema wincing. Above all, the director restores the jump scare's good name. »
The verdict, then, is quite different from the one emerging out of the reactions to the trailers. Resident Evil wouldn't in the end be another clumsy attempt to turn a video game into a Hollywood blockbuster, but on the contrary an adaptation that has understood that the licence's strength lies first and foremost in its blend of fear, exploration, tension and action.Some caution is obviously in order: a handful of positive reviews isn't yet enough to make Resident Evil a critical success, and the real verdict will come from audiences and the box office. But the gap is big enough to be worth pointing out.
Some caution is in order, though: a handful of positive reviews isn't yet enough to make Resident Evil a critical success, and the real verdict will come from audiences and the box office. But the gap is big enough to be worth pointing out.
A different kind of Resident Evil
Zack Cregger's film isn't actually trying to adapt Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 4 or any other cult entry directly. The story follows Bryan, a medical courier who finds himself plunged into a night of chaos after an outbreak breaks loose. It's a way for the director to pick up the franchise's fundamental building blocks — exploration, creatures, survival, oppressive environments and that sense of constant danger — without necessarily retelling a story we already know. That may also explain why the campaign has been so hard to read. To sell a new Resident Evil, it's far easier to show Leon Scott Kennedy, Jill Valentine, Chris or Claire Redfield than to introduce a new character whose story nobody knows yet. And when the first footage was then met with a frosty response online, opting for more cautious messaging becomes understandable.
But there's now a small twist in the tale: the film some corners of the internet had already buried before release is starting to pick up rather encouraging reviews. The question now is whether word of mouth can do what the marketing campaign clearly failed to: make audiences want to head back into the corridors of Resident Evil.
