Austin Abrams’ Bryan heads toward Raccoon City with a medical delivery, absolutely no survival-horror experience and no idea what he is driving into — but typewriters, weapon upgrades and a very human sense of panic make Zach Cregger’s adaptation feel unmistakably Resident Evil.
Warning: This article discusses story details from approximately the first 30 minutes of Resident Evil. We’re avoiding a complete beat-by-beat breakdown, but there are spoilers below.
One of the biggest questions surrounding Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil has been whether it will actually feel like Resident Evil.
After seeing roughly the first 30 minutes, the answer is yes.
Just maybe not in the way people are expecting.
Bryan’s Very Normal Night Starts Going Very Wrong
The film opens with Bryan, played by Austin Abrams, finishing a medical delivery at a hospital while simultaneously having an increasingly uncomfortable phone conversation with his partner, Michelle.
She may be pregnant.
Bryan is trying very hard to give the right answer about what they should do without actually giving an answer at all.
Meanwhile, he is wandering through the hospital carrying a medical package, trying to find the right department and eventually attempting to get someone — anyone — to sign for it.
The doctor who actually takes the delivery disappears into surgery before signing the paperwork, leaving Bryan stuck arguing with a nurse over the receipt.
She tells him she cannot sign because she was not the person who received it.
Bryan points out that apparently anyone can sign.
Her response is simple: then why doesn’t he sign it himself?
That kind of humor runs throughout the opening.
Bryan is constantly talking — to Michelle, hospital staff, strangers and, more than anything, himself.
He is not delivering perfectly timed action-movie one-liners. Instead, he seems like the kind of person whose internal monologue becomes external the second he gets stressed, which is unfortunate for Bryan because his night is about to become extremely stressful.
Raccoon City Is Just Another Delivery — To Bryan
After finishing the hospital delivery, Bryan is offered one more job.
It pays double, it is considered top priority and there can be no stops.
The destination is Raccoon City General.
For Bryan, that is simply another hospital.
For anyone who has ever played a Resident Evil game, the name lands very differently.
He accepts the job and heads into the mountains, where the roads are icy, the woods are increasingly isolated and his phone conversation with Michelle continues to deteriorate.
She is frustrated that he is not coming home to talk about the pregnancy face-to-face. Bryan, meanwhile, is still trying to explain that his delivery could be carrying something that might save someone’s life.
Then a woman suddenly appears in the road.
He hits her.
Bryan Has Absolutely No Idea He Hit a Zombie
The audience can pretty quickly tell that something is deeply wrong with the woman.
Bryan cannot.
As far as he is concerned, he has just hit somebody with his car in the middle of nowhere.
So he does what a normal person would probably do: he panics, feels terrible and tries to help her.
A police officer eventually arrives, and Bryan explains what happened while still trying to make sense of why this woman was wandering around freezing mountain roads by herself.
Maybe she was lost.
Perhaps she was confused.
Maybe she was trying to hurt herself.
Bryan keeps searching for a completely rational explanation.
Eventually, the injured woman ends up in his car so he can help get her to the hospital.
That is where the opening starts leaning into some of its funniest horror.
The woman is frozen, barely responsive and repeatedly reaching toward Bryan with an unnaturally cold hand while he is trying to drive.
The audience knows exactly what kind of movie this is.
Bryan does not.
He does not think he has a zombie sitting next to him. He thinks he has an injured woman who desperately needs medical attention and is also being incredibly difficult.
His reaction is essentially: lady, calm down.
The Humor Has a Little Shaun of the Dead Energy
There is an almost Shaun of the Dead quality to those moments.
Not because Resident Evil turns into a parody, but because Bryan keeps encountering things that are obviously horrifying to us and interpreting them through the completely ordinary logic of someone who has never had a reason to believe zombies exist.
That is what makes him funny.
Bryan has absolutely no genre awareness.
A pale, frozen woman behaving strangely does not immediately register as “zombie outbreak.” His thought process is closer to: what the hell is wrong with this person?
And because Bryan seems physically incapable of keeping a thought inside his head, he usually says some version of that out loud.
For a little while, the movie lets him keep rationalizing everything.
Then it stops letting him.
The police escort disappears.
So does the woman.
Communication becomes unreliable, the roads become more isolated and Bryan finds himself increasingly alone in a situation that no longer makes sense.
What began as an irritating medical delivery gradually becomes survival horror.
This Isn’t Leon, Jill, Chris or Claire
That distinction matters because Bryan is not Leon Kennedy.
He is not Jill Valentine, Chris Redfield or Claire Redfield.
There is no military training or elite police background waiting to kick in when things go wrong. Bryan does not enter Raccoon City already equipped to deal with a biological nightmare.
He is a courier.
A very talkative courier.
Putting someone that ordinary into this world gives the opening a completely different energy.
Rather than watching someone who knows how to clear a room or fight monsters, we are watching a regular person slowly realize that all of the rules he understands may no longer apply.
And Bryan is always several steps behind both the audience and whatever is happening around him.
Yes, There’s a Typewriter
Bryan eventually reaches a house looking for help.
There is, unfortunately, still somebody inside.
Just not somebody who is going to be particularly helpful.
As Bryan begins searching the house, the movie starts slipping in some of its clearest nods to the games.
He moves through rooms looking for the people who live there, searches for something he can use to protect himself and opens doors without knowing what is waiting on the other side.
At one point upstairs, he opens a room.
There is a typewriter.
That is it.
No dramatic musical cue accompanies it. Bryan does not stop and stare, and the movie does not turn toward the audience to announce that it has made a Resident Evil reference.
If you know, you know.
For anyone unfamiliar with the games, it is just a typewriter sitting in a room.
For longtime players, it is almost impossible not to notice.
Typewriters have been tied to saving progress throughout the franchise for decades, and seeing one quietly sitting inside this house creates that immediate flicker of recognition.
It is there for us.
The movie just does not need everyone else to care.
From Pistol to Shotgun, It Starts Feeling Like the Games
That restraint extends to the way Bryan begins arming himself.
He starts this journey completely unprepared for what is happening.
Eventually, he gets his hands on a pistol.
Later, he effectively upgrades to a shotgun.
It is such a familiar Resident Evil progression that you can practically see the inventory screen.
Pistol first.
Shotgun later.
Things are getting worse.
The movie never needs to stop and explain why that progression feels familiar because fans already understand it.
Bryan searches rooms. He looks for anything useful. Resources begin to matter more, and better weapons arrive as the danger escalates.
Somewhere in that process, the structure starts feeling less like a movie simply borrowing imagery from the games and more like someone actually moving through a Resident Evil level.
The First 30 Minutes Feel Like Playing Resident Evil
That may be the most interesting thing about the footage.
The opening does not seem interested in screaming, “Look, this is Resident Evil.”
Instead, it starts recreating the rhythm of playing one.
You enter somewhere unfamiliar.
You search.
Something feels wrong.
A weapon becomes necessary.
A better weapon becomes even more necessary.
Every closed door starts feeling suspicious.
Then you spot a typewriter and immediately know exactly who that detail was meant for.
Bryan is essentially moving through survival-horror logic without understanding that survival horror is what has happened to his life.
His constant talking becomes more effective as the footage continues, too.
Early on, it is funny because Bryan is complaining about paperwork, talking through his relationship problems and muttering to himself while driving.
Later, the exact same behavior starts feeling different.
The world around him is getting quieter, yet Bryan keeps talking.
He keeps joking because what is happening is becoming harder to explain. He keeps applying normal logic because the alternative is accepting that normal logic may no longer apply.
The comedy does not disappear when the horror arrives.
It becomes part of the panic.
That tonal balance may end up being one of the movie’s biggest strengths.
Cregger does not immediately drop Bryan into a city full of monsters. He lets things become wrong one piece at a time.
First there is a woman in the snow.
Then a missing police officer.
Next comes a house that should feel safe but does not.
People who should be answering phones are not.
Weapons suddenly become necessary.
Little things become unsettling before anything becomes completely impossible.
Bryan Is Still Heading Toward Raccoon City
Hanging over all of it is the fact that Bryan is still headed toward Raccoon City.
He does not know what those words mean.
We do.
That dramatic irony gives the opening an extra layer of tension because Bryan is still thinking about finishing his delivery and getting home to Michelle while the audience already knows he is driving toward one of horror gaming’s most infamous locations.
He thinks this is one very bad night.
We know it is Resident Evil.
And based on its first 30 minutes, that may be exactly the point.
This does not feel like a movie trying to recreate the games shot for shot.
It feels like Cregger is trying to recreate the experience of playing them.
You start with a simple objective.
You go somewhere unfamiliar.
Something feels wrong.
You find a pistol.
Eventually, you find a shotgun.
Then a typewriter appears in a room, and the people who know immediately know.
Somewhere along the way, whatever you were worried about when the night began becomes completely irrelevant.
Sometimes you do not enter Raccoon City with a badge, a tactical vest and a gun.
Sometimes you just take the wrong delivery.
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