Paul Walter Hauser – THE REVIEW MONSTER

Zach Cregger has emerged as one of the great horror directors working today.
Barbarian was a lot of fun and Weapons is one of my favorite movies of 2025.
So, knowing that he would be the mind behind the latest Resident Evil movie, I was interested to see if he could deliver.
Given how bad some of the previous live-action Resident Evil films were, there was this little speck of doubt in my mind about whether this newest adaptation would be good.
Well, having seen the movie a few hours ago, I can thankfully say my doubt was unwarranted.
Zach Cregger has done it again, delivering a great story set in the Resident Evil universe.

The mutated monstrosities seen in many RE games translate well to Cregger’s film.

The film follows Austin Abrams’ Bryan, a medical courier taking a package to Raccoon City just as the zombie outbreak is beginning.
Upon Bryan’s first encounter with the undead, the film puts its foot on the pedal and does not let up until the credits role.
Bryan encounters one disgusting biohazard after another in scenes which felt like moments I could potentially play through in a survival horror game.
Zach Cregger has been met with some backlash that his adaptation does not center around any characters from the games but, honestly, I think it is better this way.
It gave him complete freedom to do what he wanted with Bryan’s character and those infected with the virus.
And, boy, does he make some bold choices by the film’s end.
Austin Abrams also does a solid job as the main character.
He gave my favorite performance in Weapons (excluding Amy Madigan), and he feels especially relatable here as just an average joe dropped into a gore-filled, traumatising hellscape.

Let’s just say if Bryan did not want to have kids by the film’s end I would totally understand his reasoning.

Speaking of the gore, there is a lot of it to wince in disgust at.
Most of it is CGI, but it is of good quality, as are the jump scares.
There were two in particular from the first act which had me leaping from my seat in fright.
Along with the effects and horror, the cinematography is also great, with some shots reminding me of the first-person perspective from the most recent RE video game entries.
So, the movie feels like it takes place in the game’s universe, the gore and jump scares are unnerving, and the performances are solid.
Is there anything I did not like about the film?
Well, unfortunately, I do think the comedy was a bit overplayed at times.
Comedy is nothing new with Zach Cregger.
He comes from a comedic background after all, and there was plenty of humor in Barbarian and Weapons.
Still, I do think the humor should have been toned down a bit in the third act, so the horror of the situation could have been allowed to shine better.

Less humor would have made the ending hit harder than it already does.

As for the conclusion, I can see some people being unhappy with it.
Personally, I liked what Zach Cregger was going for, but I can definitely understand if anyone ends the movie feeling a little bitter.
Overall, though, despite these minor gripes, the movie is still great.
I would say it is better than Barbarian but I do enjoy Weapons more.
And what about the other live-action Resident Evil movies?
Where does this latest adaptation rank among them?
Well, that would be spoiling things because I did a rewatch of these movies before going to the theater, and I plan to release a post ranking all eight live-action films sometime next week.
Until then, know that Resident Evil is a gory and tension-filled time.
If you are a fan of the games, I would definitely recommend it.

On July 27, 1996, a pipe bomb resulted in two deaths and injured over a hundred people in the Centennial Olympic Park.
An investigation was quickly launched but the man who discovered the bomb, Richard Jewell was hailed as a hero for his actions… until he wasn’t.
When news that Jewell was the FBI’s number one suspect leaked to the media, they jumped on it and, soon enough, Richard Jewell was number one on everyone’s suspect list.
Just one problem: Jewell really was a hero.
He had nothing to do with the bombing and his actions probably saved the lives of hundreds of people.
Yet, his life was destroyed by flawed, one-track mind FBI investigating and media reporting that both threw integrity out the window.
This is the true story that Clint Eastwood’s 2019 film Richard Jewell tells, and it is incredibly compelling.
I had heard of Jewell’s story before but I only knew the basics.
After watching the film, I looked up how much of the story was true and most of it is.
The finer details are shocking, with the efforts the FBI and media took to prove Jewell’s guilt being, quite frankly, disgusting.
This disgust that I felt was helped by the extreme sympathy I felt for Jewell, who is played brilliantly by Paul Walter Hauser.

I recently watched interviews with Jewell and it is a spot on portrayal that is right up there with 2019’s best performances.
He is not the only one because Kathy Bates, as Jewell’s mother, Bobi, and Sam Rockwell, as Jewell’s lawyer, Watson Bryant, are both fantastic.
The structure of the film is also great, with it admittedly starting out a bit slow, but picking up in momentum once the bombing occurs.
All of this combines to create a shocking and great film, but one with a very big problem that holds it back from being one of 2019’s best.
This is the portrayal of certain characters, specifically Kathy Scruggs (Olivia Wilde) who plays the journalist who breaks the story about Jewell being a suspect.
She is portrayed in the most negative light possible, with her appearing to not care about the bombing deaths, only wanting a good story out of it, and trading sex for information.
While it is true that Scruggs was part of the media that slandered and demonized Jewell, her initial portrayal as irredeemably cruel feels a lot like the media’s initial portrayal of Jewell and thus hypocritical.
Thankfully, the film does go about showing she later regrets her actions, but the film’s message of not painting someone out to be a monster is slightly tainted by it doing this very thing.

repoter — Scruggs is portrayed as villainous for most of the film, making it seem like the film is demonizing her the same way that Richard Jewell was demonized.

Despite this, Richard Jewell is still Clint Eastwood’s best film in a long while.
With fantastic performances and a gripping true story, it raises good questions about the morality of certain parts of the media and authorities.

Tag: Paul Walter Hauser

Resident Evil Review: Survival Horror the Movie.

Richard Jewell Review: Shockingly True.