Zombie Die Hard

I'll be brief about this because it doesn't warrant a long excavation but Paul Walter Hauser being in the cast was a fun surprise for me. It's not an extensive cast so to see him pop up was a real treat. I'm a fan and he's a great source of serious comedic relief. Maybe that's my segue into how his relevance highlights another great element of this film. The humor is perfectly applied which is not surprising from Creggers. As one of the creators of the wildly popular offbeat sketch comedy group, "The Whitest Kids You Know", his understanding and application of humor is wonderfully deliberate. In this film it's fantastically applied to dismantle the tension appropriately at times and set up rising anxieties. It's one of the best marriages of fright and funny I think I've seen in a very long time. Abrams and Hauser deliver such wonderful performances to highlight this that the entire presentation blends into this incredibly organic approach to horror filmmaking that even in the chaos there's an odd dose of comfortability simply because of the sprinkling of comedic elements here and there. I did read that he cut a fair amount out as well which makes it even more appealing that he landed so perfectly in how he imbued the film with calamitous chuckles.

The third piece I'd like to touch on are the visuals. There was a deliberate nature in how this movie was filmed. There are scenes that uniquely highlight a first person perspective that lends itself directly to feeling like you're in a video game. So it has that distinct connection to the source material. But even when establishing some third person shots, they were also intentionally positioned to mimic some of the awkward ways that the Resident Evil franchise poised a player's vantage point at times. One of the things throughout the entire film that worked so well was the incorporation of competing elements in a way that felt very harmonious which, I think, speaks to Cregger's ability on a number of layers. His knowledge and appreciation of the source material only further endeared his efforts to a genuine desire to present an experience that presented a story in traditional filmmaking style while also somehow capturing the hallmarks of the video gaming experience. It perpetually worked so well and was a cornerstone of keeping the audience engaged in particularly meaningful ways.

My last positive has to go to the narrative. I've been reflecting a lot lately on how gratifying it is when a story really relies on it's own integrity to propel the plot forward. Create elements that depend on each other and execute them well. I've seen a number of films recently that establish rules or boundaries and then defy them. Some movies deliberately show us an action or visually suggest a value structure and then betray it shortly after. I'm not proposing that this film is perfect, by any means. But I will say that there are so many instances of cause and effect that directly implicate one another that it was supremely satisfying in the end to survey the entire structure of the story and come away with that feeling that all the ingredients were lovingly applied and baked appropriately to deliver a finished product that is firmly cohesive in it's narrative composure. Action X creates situation Y. This choice illuminates that path. There are callbacks and references that tie the film together so well. It's that 360 degree type of filmmaking that is such a pleasure to really behold that I found it wonderfully regrettable when the film ended. It didn't end too soon and it didn't end to late. It was 90 minutes and it ran itself for the best amount of time it needed to.

I have two main critiques of the film. They aren't significant but I also said this movie isn't perfect and there are a couple simple reasons I take a few points off. They are both nitpicky to a degree but they still feel like valid enough criticisms to note. The first one is lingering too long at certain points. Everybody knows a scene where something overwhelming happens and it requires the precise amount of action and instinct for survival to even be possible in a film like this. Toss in a little luck here and there and this is essentially the recipe for how Bryan, Abram's character (and yes, I did have to look it up), continues living several times over. I will give you that some situations require taking a beat after reaching a reasonable degree of safety. Breathe. I'm still alive. Yay. But there were enough times that some kind of action beat happened and it just seemed like we took our collective foot off the gas pedal too quickly and hung on a little too long when speed would have been important. Not a huge deal. It wasn't a detriment to the plot overall. It was just a personal annoyance that in my head I said to our protagonist enough times to "ok, keep moving now" that it bothered me enough to take a couple points away.

This other point, I'll put a little bit of a caveat that I'm not sure if it's a spoiler or not but I'm erring on the side of caution and announcing some kind of awareness on the front end. Ok? That's all you're getting. If you want to go in totally clean then just skip the rest of this paragraph. Alright, now that we have that out of the way, my other minor beef with the film was lack of zombies. It's not that there weren't any zombies. There were several instances of them. And I will admit that I did not play the series of games with any real dedication. I goofed around with the first two on the original Playstation and that was probably about it. But in those, while I know there were other monsters, zombies were pretty much the main antagonist. I don't know exactly how you pepper them in more while maintaining the integrity of the movie I did watch, but it felt like they really erred more on the side of monsters than zombies. Minor note. It doesn't change really anything in the film for me. But I felt like outside of a couple brief instances where a corpse was notably reanimated, the focal point really was more so on the abominable creatures that felt more like an escaped lab experiment than the overall threat of the undead. There were definitely allusions to their presence in a horde like fashion. But Bryan had minimal run ins with the walking dead.

I thought I had settled on a B+ for the film. But as I'm reflecting on it more now, I really do feel like it's deserving of the A- that I was also toying with. Originally I thought the lack of zombies was enough to tip it past the line of "Not A" territory but looking back at how well everything really came together, I feel like it's unfair to take away an A ranking of this film. It earned that. There was a lot of heavy lifting this movie did in the modern era of horror filmmaking and it did so with a real expertise I appreciated thoroughly. So I think that's where I have to land with it. I'm still debating on whether it makes the shelf. I'm leaning towards a yes but I haven't convinced myself yet. I think with the right blend of inspired packaging and the special features that get added to a physical media presentation will ultimately sway me so I may have to investigate that piece further. But I do wholeheartedly recommend the film. It was a wonderful experience. Knowing other folks who aren't particularly fond of scary movies but enjoyed this one quite a bit, I think it really appeals to a broad audience. If you have any proclivity at all towards looking for a fun horror flick with a considerable degree of newness to it, you cannot go wrong with Zach Cregger's "Resident Evil". So that will do it for day 22. Getting dangerously close to that final week of the project. I feel like there's a renewed zeal after this one so I'm excited to finish 2026 out well. So I'll see you tomorrow and until then, I'll catch you on the flip side.