Level 1 — Absolute Beginner
There is a new film called Resident Evil. It comes to cinemas on 18 September.
The director is Zach Cregger. A director is the person who makes a film.
The main actor is Austin Abrams. In the film he brings medicine to a hospital.
Resident Evil started as a video game. But this film tells a new story.
- film
- A story you watch on a screen, also called a movie.
- cinema
- A building where people go to watch films.
- director
- The person who tells the actors what to do in a film.
- actor
- A person whose job is to perform in films or on stage.
- hospital
- A place where sick people go to get help.
- medicine
- Something you take to feel better when you are ill.
- story
- Words that tell you what happened to someone.
- new
- Made or started a short time ago.
Level 2 — Elementary
Sony Pictures released a new horror film called Resident Evil in cinemas on 18 September. One day earlier, on 17 September, the film had its premiere at Fantastic Fest, a festival for horror and fantasy films.
The director is Zach Cregger, who became well known for his earlier films Barbarian and Weapons. He wrote the script together with Shay Hatten. The film cost about 80 million dollars and was filmed in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, starting in October 2025.
Austin Abrams stars as Bryan, a medical courier. His job is to deliver medical supplies. He is on his way to Raccoon City General hospital when an outbreak begins and he has to fight to survive. Zach Cherry, Kali Reis and Paul Walter Hauser also appear in the film.
Resident Evil began in 1996 as a video game, and many films have been made from it before. This one is different. It uses an original story and does not include any characters from the games.
- horror
- A type of film or book designed to frighten the audience.
- premiere
- The first public showing of a film or performance.
- festival
- An organised event where films, music or art are shown.
- script
- The written text of a film, with all the words the actors say.
- courier
- A person whose job is to deliver packages or documents.
- deliver
- To take something to a person or place.
- survive
- To stay alive through a dangerous situation.
- original
- New and not copied from anything else.
Level 3 — Intermediate
Sony Pictures opened Resident Evil in cinemas worldwide on 18 September, one day after the film premiered at the twenty-first Fantastic Fest. The release marks the latest attempt to turn one of gaming's most durable horror properties into a successful film series, and it arrives with a decision that sets it apart from everything that came before.
That decision is the story. Rather than adapting a specific game or reviving familiar faces, the film is an original narrative set inside the Resident Evil universe, featuring none of the characters that gamers know. Austin Abrams stars as Bryan, a medical courier making a delivery to Raccoon City General hospital when an outbreak traps him inside and forces him to fight for survival. Zach Cherry, Kali Reis and Paul Walter Hauser round out the principal cast.
Behind the camera is Zach Cregger, a director whose reputation has risen quickly on the strength of Barbarian and Weapons, both of which built tension through structure rather than spectacle. He co-wrote the script with Shay Hatten. Production ran on a budget of roughly 80 million dollars and filmed in Prague from October 2025, a city that has long offered European studios and locations at a fraction of Hollywood costs.
Whether audiences accept a Resident Evil without its signature characters is the commercial question the weekend will answer. Franchise adaptations usually lean on recognition; this one is asking to be judged on the filmmaking instead.
- adapt
- To change a story from one form into another, such as a game into a film.
- durable
- Lasting a long time without becoming weaker or less popular.
- narrative
- A story, or the way a story is told.
- outbreak
- The sudden start of something dangerous, such as a disease.
- principal cast
- The main actors with the largest roles in a film.
- tension
- A feeling of worry or excitement about what will happen next.
- spectacle
- An impressive visual display meant to amaze the viewer.
- franchise
- A series of films, games or books that share a world and a brand.
Level 4 — Advanced
Video game adaptations have spent three decades learning the same lesson badly. The films that fail tend to fail for an identical reason: they mistake inventory for storytelling, assembling recognisable characters, weapons and set pieces on the assumption that familiarity will supply the emotion. Sony's Resident Evil, which reached cinemas on 18 September after premiering the previous evening at the twenty-first Fantastic Fest, is notable chiefly for declining that bargain.
The film contains no characters from the games. Its protagonist is Bryan, a medical courier portrayed by Austin Abrams, whose entire narrative function is to be an ordinary man with a delivery to complete at Raccoon City General when the outbreak begins. Zach Cherry, Kali Reis and Paul Walter Hauser fill out a compact ensemble. The premise is deliberately modest, and that modesty is the argument: a world is more frightening when observed by someone with no special standing inside it.
The choice reflects its director. Zach Cregger arrived through Barbarian and consolidated with Weapons, two films that generated dread through architecture rather than expenditure, withholding information and restructuring chronology so that the audience is perpetually a step behind. Working from a script co-written with Shay Hatten, on a budget near 80 million dollars and stages in Prague from October 2025, he is operating at a scale that permits ambition without demanding the blunt spectacle that larger sums usually require.
The commercial risk is plain enough. A franchise film that discards its franchise forfeits the one asset studios reliably monetise, and asks instead that the picture succeed on execution. That is an unfashionable wager in contemporary Hollywood, and its outcome over the coming weekend will be read closely by every studio currently holding a games licence and wondering what to do with it.
- adaptation
- A film, book or show based on a work created in another medium.
- inventory
- A list of items in stock, used here to mean assembling elements without purpose.
- set piece
- An elaborate scene staged for maximum effect.
- protagonist
- The main character in a story.
- ensemble
- A group of actors performing together in a production.
- dread
- A feeling of great fear about something that may happen.
- chronology
- The order in which events happen or are presented.
- forfeit
- To lose or give up something, often as a consequence of a choice.
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