Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil finally faced a full Fantastic Fest crowd on Tuesday night, and the early word is the kind studios dream about three days before opening: relentless, gory, funny, and—according to multiple attendees—the best Resident Evil movie yet. Sony is letting premiere-goers post short takes now; full reviews were set to unlock the morning of September 16. Theaters and IMAX get the film Friday, September 18.
“Never hits the brakes”
Reaction after reaction uses the same vocabulary: the movie floors it from the opening scene and refuses to idle. Critics and fans on the floor describe Thing-esque creature work, survival-horror tension, and set pieces that keep the camera—and the audience—on edge. A few call it one of the strongest video-game adaptations in years even though the story introduces no returning game icons. Faithfulness, they argue, comes from tone and pressure more than name-drops.
Austin Abrams as the chaotic center
Abrams plays a medical courier scrambling through a Raccoon City outbreak, and nearly every early take singles him out. Viewers credit him with selling panic, dumbstruck humor, and leading-man charm while the world collapses around him. Co-stars Zach Cherry, Kali Reis, and Paul Walter Hauser round out a cast Cregger co-wrote with Shay Hatten. Even after test screenings reportedly pushed the director to trim jokes that drew too many laughs, premiere crowds still call the finished cut hysterically funny between the scares.
Box-office stakes this weekend
Tracking suggests the film could top the opening of Cregger’s summer hit Weapons ($43.5 million). The only recurring caveat in the Fantastic Fest batch is a second half that occasionally slows—usually paired with strong overall scores. For horror fans deciding between home and IMAX, the consensus is blunt: see it big, see it loud, and expect the franchise’s most confident theatrical swing in years when tickets start tearing on September 18.