Resident Evil (Zach Cregger, 2026)

Dying is easy; comedy, hard. 

Of course I was going to check this out-- Zach Cregger's Weapons was one of the more interesting horrors of last year, Barbarians one of the more interesting horrors before that. 

Does it deliver? Save you the suspense: yes, but how it delivers is I submit the question to ask. 

Resident Evil: Retribution (Paul WS Anderson, 2012)

 Poetry in motion

Surprised to see Dave Kehr interviewed on Movie Morlocks; was even more surprised to see that Kehr is a fan of Paul Anderson--W.S., not Thomas--and that he loved Resident Evil: Retribution.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (Edgar Wright 2010)

Game on

Not a big fan of video games. The last game I took even halfway serious was Missile Command back in the '80s-- something somehow addictive about keeping all those relentlessly approaching nuclear missiles from wiping out everything you know and love, something somehow traumatic about the big flashing THE END that flashed your failure That, plus the cool trackball spinning in one hand, sending the crosshairs skittering across the screen--what's not to like?

Event Horizon (Paul WS Anderson)

Lost in space

Paul WS Anderson's Event Horizon is arguably the Mary Celeste of science fiction cinema, not just the story of a ship adrift in the vast oceans of space but the film itself falling victim to malevolent forces (Paramount Studios) and mutilated, the missing portions gone forever.

Romantic? Yes. The film?  

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (Paul WS Anderson)

Lost in a Roman wilderness
 
Paul WS Anderson's Resident Evil: The Final Chapter begins on a suitably ominous note: Alice (Milla Jovovich) climbing out of a steaming underground exit, looking around, being chased by a vast winged monster while driving a recalcitrant humvee. Welcome, Alice (the name's hardly coincidental), out of the rabbit hole back not into reality but Wonderland. Things are a little different nowadays.

It's been fifteen years and six films so far, with a combined boxoffice of close to a billion dollars, arguably the most commercially successful video-game film adaptation ever. And the rare popular film franchise I might add that features a kickass female in the lead (with an ethnic-and-gender-diverse set of allies, while the villains are mostly privileged white males).