“Accidents happen!” One character shouts this line while quickly trying to explain how a zombie outbreak occurred, but it ends up being the ethos of Resident Evil. Rather than stitching together a myriad of references to the video game it’s based on, director Zach Cregger is more interested in finding the ridiculousness of mistakes made around grotesque monsters capable of brutal violence. This is less of a slick zombie action romp and more of an absurd comedy of errors coated in ooey-gooey blood. And after enduring Resident Evil games and movies with piss-poor acting, it was refreshing to watch one of these films where the laughs felt more intentional.

Breaking away from the usual crop of action-hero protagonists, the film centers on Bryan (Austin Abrams), a medical courier who can’t even get doctors to sign off on his deliveries. He’s not even sure how to talk about relationships with complicated developments. So when a zombie outbreak starts, he’s not exactly going to be quick on the draw when dealing with the undead. Thankfully, he has just enough luck to always remain a fair distance away from the carnage as he struggles to tiptoe through the aftermath. Bryan won’t have to endure running from hordes of the undead sprinting towards him, but he will have to learn about the situation organically through his bizarre encounters on a dark, rural road. He’s smart enough not to fall for going into dark rooms he doesn’t have to, but not smart enough to load a gun without something going wrong.

While many will compare this film to Cregger’s recent award-winning Weapons, it has more in common with Barbarian, a film that toyed with horror-movie tropes of being trapped in horror-movie situations. That movie framed characters forced to explore the innards of a scary house as an obligatory trope in these movies, where we want to see what lurks below the creepy interior. Bryan will do the same, but more out of frustration with his bad luck. In the same way that Cregger didn’t entirely shy away from tropes in Barbarian, he embraces a common explanation for why unfortunate scenes of anxiety and violence occur in this genre: Stupidity. There’s a hilarity in watching how badly Bryan stumbles, from firing weapons to dealing with perpetual padlocks. If characters need to make mistakes for the scary and putrid sights to occur, Creggar commits to showing them so fully that it’s fair to call this a horror-comedy for how many genuine laughs it evokes. Bryan might successfully survive swarms of undead rats and zombies launching themselves at him off buildings, but he’ll do so while screaming in a frantic manner that screams “I don’t want to be here” at the highest octave.

Rather than getting frustrated with these errors in navigating a zombie apocalypse, I stayed engaged enough to see how far such a character would make it through a cavalcade of creatures that eat and absorb human bodies. There are reasons to root for him, given the MacGuffin he’s forced to transport and the woman he has waiting for him to take their relationship to the next level. There are stakes beyond whether or not he becomes dinner for mutations that lurk in the sewers or scale up buildings. The bloody mazes he navigates also carry thematic weight, raising questions about how ready Bryan is to respond in situations that demand quick thinking and tough calls. Creggar has enough faith in the audience to let them piece together the character’s connections to his encounters and environments, while never relenting on making Bryan a believable delivery boy who isn’t fully prepared to shoot people in the face, even if they do want to much on his flesh. This is the type of guy who is sometimes clever, with his only knowledge of guns and zombies coming from video games, but he’s still a dork who will celebrate his few victories by shouting “Yeah! Video games!”

Speaking of video games, Resident Evil is so heavily divergent from the source games that those uncertain how much lore they might have to catch up on can rest easy. This video game movie doesn’t rely on references to hold together a rickety premise, as with the baffling plot of Five Nights at Freddy’s and the tiring citations of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. There are some Easter eggs here and there, noting familiar items from the games, but there’s no zooming in on the presence of medical sprays and typewriters to nudge the fans into getting giddy over stuff they recognize. It also helps that the movie doesn’t adapt characters from the games, guaranteeing no plot armor or predictability for any of the characters. This is a vast improvement over previous Resident Evil movies and games that featured weapon-trained professionals making stupid mistakes. Watching amateurs make lethal mistakes is far more believable and fun, especially for the few bursts of smarts when they decide not to go into the dark room with creepy sounds.

Resident Evil succeeds as a video game movie, shedding fan service for an engaging, gory, and hilarious horror film all its own. It’s not as compelling a story as Creggar’s previous works, given the serviceable, action-heavy script by co-writer Shay Hatten, but it holds together well enough for Creggar’s penchant for finding the most absurd moments to exploit when the blood starts splattering the screen. It’s a simple enough story that makes it easier to appreciate the onslaught of various monster designs that keep coming as Bryan’s journey becomes tougher with every step through viscera-strewn exteriors and interiors. The blood keeps pumping with enough absurdity and thrills, and it feels like Creggar approaches every scene with how much worse things could get and how the protagonist will find a way to keep going.

Whether it will appease fans or not, I can’t say for sure, having only played a handful of the Resident Evil games from the early years of the franchise. What I can say is that I think it might succeed at giving the fans not what they wanted, but what they never knew they wanted. I never thought a Resident Evil movie could be an enduring dose of brutality and ridiculousness. But here I am, invested in whether or not a Resident Evil character can bust open a gate, flee a mass of limbs pursuing him, and maybe change his socks, rather than how hard they can scissor-kick a mutant dog.

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