Pop Culture Happy Hour - Resident Evil and What's Making Us Happy

Episode Date: September 18, 2026

The new Resident Evil movie is wild, scary, inventive, fast-paced, and funny. That’s because the videogame-turned-film franchise got a reboot courtesy of director Zach Cregger (Weapons and Barbarian). Austin Abrams plays a medical courier tasked with transporting an important medical MacGuffin, and his journey goes haywire almost immediately as gnarly perils pile up. But does the movie’s blend of horror and comedy work for newcomers and longtime fans?Looking for more gore? Check out these episodes:In ‘Weapons’, the kids aren't at all right, not in the slightest, nope'Ready or Not 2' is a satanic and manic thrillIn '28 Years Later: The Bone Temple,' the zombies aren’t the worst villainsConnect with Pop Culture Happy Hour:Letterboxd / FacebookOur weekly newsletterSupport public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour, the podcast that keeps you plugged in to the latest, greatest, and sometimes not so greatest in pop culture. Now, if you love pop culture and you're not following the show yet, we are recommending you fix that post-haste by following Pop Culture Happy Hour on your favorite podcast app. I think there's something fun just about horror comedy that knows that what you need to do after you scream is laugh. Those two things are linked together. That's just like part of the human condition. The new Resident Evil movie is wild, scary, inventive, fast-paced, and funny. That's probably because the video game-turned-film franchise got a reboot, courtesy of Zach Craigor, who's behind films like weapons and barbarian.

I'm Stephen Thompson, joining me today on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour. Is Vulture TV critic Roxana Hadati. Hey, Roxanna. Hey, Roxanna. Hey, thank you for having me. It is a pleasure. Also with us, Jordan Morris. He's a podcaster and the writer of the upcoming Marvel Comics series,

The Amazing Venom. Hey, Jordan. Hey, great to be here. It is great to have you both. So, Resident Evil isn't the kind of horror franchise that requires a ton of character development or lore, thanks to the misdeeds of the Umbrella Corporation, some sort of terrifying, zombifying agent, has been let loose into society, and it's turning everyone in its path into bloodthirsty monsters. In the games and in the movies, the primary objective is simple, don't get slaughtered. The new Resident Evil movie is actually the eighth film in the series, but it's a complete reboot without a whole lot of characters. Austin Abrams plays Brian, a medical courier,

tasked with transporting an important medical McGuffin from point A to point B. His journey goes haywire almost immediately, and it gets worse and worse as gnarly perils pile up. And honestly, that's the movie. Resident Evil is in theaters now, Jordan Morris. I'm going to start with you. What'd you think? Yeah, I'm going to be a little vulnerable.

here and say that I am a big fan of the original Milovovich Resident Evil movies. Wow. Okay. Yep. Here I am. I'm letting it all hang out. I feel like I can trust y'all, so I'm going to be honest here. We won't tell anyone.

Thank you. I'm with Jordan, so he doesn't need to apologize to me. Those movies are fun. This is a private Zoom call, right? Nobody's broadcasting this anywhere. When I saw that they were taking a different approach to this franchise, I was a little disappointed that this wouldn't include a woman all in leather shooting Uzi's in slow motion, which is kind of what the Milovovich ones are like. But yeah, once I kind of like accepted that

and saw that this movie was taking a different approach, I thought it was really cool. I think it's a really fun way to do, you know, a big franchise. It's kind of an all-in-one night movie. It's from the perspective of one character who isn't like a character from the games, as far as I know. Yeah, I think it's really cool for fans because there's a lot of those little Easter eggs, and I think it really captures the feeling of playing those games. But I think it is just welcoming to new horror fans, like somebody who wants a cool, weird horror comedy can sit down and not be bombarded with a bunch of lore from video games and movies that they haven't experienced. So, yeah, I thought this was cool and funny and gross and worked really well. All right. How much you, Roxanna?

Yeah. I mean, I think horror comedy is sort of the key terminology there. The Mela movies are very fun and very dumb, but they are primarily action movies, right? They are sort of like hordes of zombies running at fences and you're on the other side of the fence, nor the zombies is going to break through the fence. They always break through the fence. Like that's those movies. But yes, far more horror comedy.

I found myself laughing a lot more than I anticipated. and that is really because of Austin Abrams and his charmingly high-pitched scream. And I think that it does a lot of things that the best sort of like crowd involvement horror movies do, which is, why are you walking toward the zombie? Why are you yelling hello into an empty house? So all of that stuff, I think, is very well. calibrated. And then there are just some really gnarly, disgusting set pieces that to me were very evocative of alien, actually. I was a little bit surprised by how genital some of these

monsters got. But I had a good time. I had fun. And I'm not really a Kregor guy. So I was a little surprised there in a good way. Okay. I think I am a Kregor guy. Because I really, really dug weapons. And part of what I enjoyed so much about weapons is that Zach Kreger has such an interesting sense of what is weird about the human body. And how to present that visually in ways that are somehow unlike anything you've seen before, even as this movie owes heavy stylistic debts to everything from annihilation to the substance. Yes. There are echoes of other horror franchises here. But what made this film work for me almost completely was the humor, was the fact that there is consistently, as this poor hapless dolt is just trying to get from one place to another, as things get worse and worse and worse and worse, is this kind of sense of like almost Chuck Jonesian cartoon mayhem. A lot of physical comedy in this film and a lot of like, not even necessarily jokes, but visual playfulness.

Right? Like when you think about the, not to keep calling back to weapons, but when you think about that kind of final set piece in weapons, so much of what makes it work is just how visually kinetic it is. And I think he is able to kind of bring that to almost the entire runtime of this movie. I don't like to dwell too much on runtime, but the fact that this movie is in the range of 90 to 95 minutes, A, is a blessing. And B, I feel like is a necessity because I would have been too exhausted if this movie had gone on much longer. It's so funny that you mentioned kind of all the other franchises that you see little, you know, little nods to in this. I walked out of this thinking that if you just stripped out the video game references, if you stripped out the references, if you stripped out the references, to the Umbrella Corporation and the T-Virus, you could have slapped the Evil Dead on this.

This could have been Zach Grecker's The Evil Dead, and I would have gone, oh, yeah, cool, that's in the same universe as those movies. I think that the kind of recent Evil Dead's kind of forgot about the comedy of those original movies. They completely forgot the comedy. Yeah. Yeah, and they've kind of just these kind of grim, dark, you know, horror movies. And, yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think that what obviously made The Evil Dead such a big series is they are funny, they're weird. they have that real-life Looney Tunes feel.

To me, it was like, oh, this could just be a rescanned Evil Dead movie. And I mean that as a compliment. I was going to say, and you mean that literally. Yes. Yes. Yeah, I think there's something fun just about horror comedy that knows that what you need to do after you scream is laugh. Those two things are linked together. That's just like part of the human condition.

And so I think that's sort of the pace of the comedy. does a very good job in terms of letting us know Brian's reaction to things. And I also think, to a certain degree, mimicking probably what any of us would do in this situation, which is just complain a lot under your breath and sort of keep like a running, expletive-filled commentary of everything that you're dealing with. Lots of just grunting swear words. Yeah, you know, I think that that little bit of levity goes a long way once you get to like maternity ward blood sack filled set pieces. It's just, it's very, very deft, I think, in doing that. Yeah, I mean, you have to be able to puncture the horrors somewhat. And the egg blood sack, right? And the egg blood sack. Yeah. That

maternity ward scene is going to haunt me for a while. For how much, Roxanna, you were kind of saying, like, well, it really is on the comedy side of horror comedy. There's some real horror in that maternity ward. Yeah. Yeah, the movie starts very kind of tense and small. And yeah, it is kind of more about like what's in the shadows and what's that weird shape we see on the horizon. And it just kind of ramps up like a video game does. And I think, you know, you have this kind of starting level with fairly basic enemies and fairly basic weapons.

and then by the end, the blood sacks are exploding and the monstrous absorbing people into its orifices. So, yeah, it does feel like a video game in that way. And I think that's kind of smart. Instead of, like, you know, peppering it with cameos from video game characters and trying to cram in all this fan service. It's like, what if we try to mimic the feel of it? And I think that's a really fun, smart way at it. Yeah, without giving anything away in the ending, I do think the final boss. fight gets a little goofy.

Sure. I didn't necessarily think this movie totally stuck its landing. Without giving too much away, but I did appreciate somehow it manages to use its video game origins as a source of strength instead of weakness. And I think so many movies based on video games kind of get into this kind of rote gameplay mode where it kind of, well, sometimes it'll give you the worst of both worlds. And this, I felt, like, gives you kind of the best qualities of video games with, like, the pacing of a director who really knows what he's doing. I think for me, the video game quality comes through most in perspective.

And this goes back to something Jordan was saying about how it starts, sort of small and tense. But I think in terms of how it is shot and framed and composed, there is a very clear insistence always on what is the protagonist, Brian seeing. So what is his perspective down this snowy road to Raccoon City, which he probably shouldn't have done, but he's doing it? What is his perspective when he comes upon this seemingly abandoned rural farmhouse? What's his perspective through the window? And then when you get to sort of the third act, which is in this tower hospital, we get the best elements of like an assault on a tower movie, which is things around the corner of the staircase. And if you're in an elevator car, that's a very claustrophobic space. What are you seeing or not seeing? So I really appreciated that.

I think there was a lot of care put into if this is going to be a video game movie and if we're going to evoke gameplay, how do you evoke gameplay through what you see and don't see? And so when you get that first glimpse of someone running weapon style, that That, I think, is a very clever way for Kregor to be like, hey, remember my hit. And to be like, human bodies are disgusting and weird and seemingly very innocuous things can resonate in like a very scary way. I just think it's, again, there's like a real, we keep saying like fluidity and deafness. But there is a real balance, I think, to all of that, which helps those 90 minutes go super quickly. Absolutely.

I wanted to ask a lot in this film. hinges on the performance of Austin Abrams. This is not a movie with a long list of credits. I was, like, scanning the, like, credits at the end, and I think somebody who played Pedestrian was Fifth Build. So this is not a movie with, you know, with tons and tons of name actors. But Austin Abrams, who had a very memorable role in weapons, comes back here and is really, he really has to carry this film.

And he brings this kind of squirre. twitchy everyman energy where he really to me felt like a real guy. Yeah, he sure did. You know, there's maybe a little bit of Jesse Pinkpin in the performance. I was kind of waiting for him to say zombies bitch. But yeah, I mean, he kind of has his own version of that a little bit later. I thought it was fun and it was lived in and he was a real guy. I think there's a worst version of this character where he plays up hapless stoner.

But this guy just kind of seems like in Everyman. with a crummy job. Yeah, in a fun way. And I think that, like, focusing on him is so smart. I think a few months ago, we chatted about Mortal Kombat 2 on this podcast. That's like the other version of video game movie, right? Of like, let's see how much video game stuff we can cram in this. And we have to have a story for Johnny Cage, but also Catana and Baraka and all of these. But it's also portentious. Right. Sure. And listen, did I love Mortal Kombat 2. Yes, a perfect movie. But I did think this was a smarter version of just like, hey, let's focus on one character. We'll have a little fan service. And I think that, you know,

they did find a really strong actor to do that. I think his exasperation is key. And I think what made the character work for me because there isn't a ton there. We got a little bit of a backstory. And for me, the clumsier moments are when the character has to say things like, so they can die. Those are not, you know, those are not so effective. But I think just this growing irritation with

I took this job and this job is taking me to places I did not expect that grounded gig economy frustration I think was the perfect way to like put us in here. And it also solves the problem of having a character

who is too good at things. Like if it is That is not a problem here. Right. It's not a problem here. So we do get all of the tension of, does he know how to even attach a magazine of bullets to a gun? Like, does he even know how to do that? So, again, I think it's a very smart way to let, like, the viewer into this by aligning him or her or them with this character.

And the other thing that I will say is that, yes, the credits are very few. but the cast as small as it is is solid because when Paul Walter Houser shows up, I just started laughing because, you know, cast members like him and Zach Cherry, they do occupy that sort of deadpan comedic space, which also helps here. I really appreciated. I was kind of bracing myself for the moment when they tried to make this elevated horror, and it never really comes. Because, you know, I think you do associate Zach Kregger with, you know, what they would call elevated horror, you know, something to make a brainiac feel good about seeing a dumb movie.

And I think this movie does have some emotional stuff in it that I think works pretty well. And I do think it has social commentary that works pretty well. But there's never a moment of, you know, ah, the zombies, they are really about generational trauma. Like, you don't get that. The real enemy here is man. Sure, yes. T'was toxic masculinity all along. You don't get that in this movie. I think it does want to have an emotional story and it does want to have commentary, but it also is just mainly concentrated on being fun, and I think that's to its strength. Absolutely. Well, I think we agree. This is a fun one. If you can do horror, try this one. Up next, what is making us happy this week? Welcome back. If you're not following Pop Culture Happy Hour yet, hit that follow button on your preferred podcast app and stay plugged in on all things PCHH adjacent. Now it's time for our favorite segment of this week and every week. What's making us happy this week? Jordan Morris, what's making you happy this week, buddy?

Hey, if you saw this movie and you liked the scares and the gore, I'm going to recommend a new comic book series that is on shelves now. It is called Fixation. It is written by Amy, Chase with art by Savannah Mayor. It is set in a little small town that was the shooting location of a fictional movie series called Blood Mountain that might remind you a little bit of twilight. It's kind of a sexy vampire series that might remind you of Twilight. And the story is about these two super fans who win this kind of trip to a big kind of anniversary fan event. And wouldn't you know it, real murders start to take place at this.

Super fan event. It's really, really fun. It's very scream. It's got a little twin peaks thrown in there. I think it'll probably be collected at some point where you can get it in a bookstore. But right now, it's just individual issues coming out in local comic shops. I just read issue one, and I'm totally hooked. It's called fixation. Nice. Thank you, Jordan. Roxanna Hadati, what's making you happy this week? What is making me happy this week is a seminal piece of cinema that I think will, you know, live on forever. in our time and future times if the world lasts that long. And it's called Sean the Sheep, the Beast of Mossy Bottom. I love Sean the Sheep. This is an Ardman Animations series, which is about a sheep named Sean. With you so far. Good.

All of his zany antics on the farm. And there have been a couple movies, and this is the latest one. And it is Halloween-themed, the general premise, is that Sean, and, you know, his sheep family are looking forward to doing a big Halloween celebration, but then their farmer accidentally destroys their pumpkin patch. So Sean goes mad scientist to, like, grow one pumpkin seed back into a pumpkin so Timmy can make a jack-lantern. And of course, things spiral out of control in zany and unexpected ways.

And it really is just a very beautiful homage to, like, classic. horror in a way that I thought was very fun and very lighthearted. And also, I think, for kids, and this is a kids movie that adults can enjoy, but also for kids that like really wonderful mix of this is spooky, but I'm having a good time. So it comes out in theaters. I think it is a perfect, like, family Halloween choice. And I also think that these movies are completely suitable for adults who just love stop motion. Nice. So what you would say is that this is a perfect companion to Resident Evil.

I'm like not even kidding when I say yes. I do think that you could see Resident Evil and be like, oh, I'm spooked. I was scared. And then you just like walk over to another theater to see Sean the Sheep. Nice. So that is Sean the Sheep, the Beast of Mossie Bottom in theaters now. Thank you, Roxanna Hadati. So, yeah, like Roxanna, I decided to do a shot chaser.

thing, Resident Evil is the shot. Carly Ray Jepson is your chaser. That'll make it go down smooth. She has a new double-length album out today. Nearly 15 years after Call Me Maybe. This is a supersized 24-song, 85-minute super-album called Day and Night. It is split into a day-half and a night-half. So you get 12 songs that are engineered for sundapled days and 12 songs that are

engineered for strobe-lit nights and as prolific as Carly Ray Jepson continues to be. She's also so consistent. There's not a whole lot of filler on day and night. Highlights are strewn throughout. And I think my early favorite is a song called Versailles, which is about a very Carly Ray Jepsenian topic, wanting to feel all the feelings all the time. If you listen to this show because you're psyched about the new Resident Evil, allow me to all also point your attention to the new Carly Ray Jepson. Once again, it is called Day and Night, and that is what is making me happy this week.

That brings us to the end of our show. Roxanna Hadati, Jordan Morris. Thanks so much for being here. Thank you. Yeah, thanks for having us. This episode was produced by Mike Katzif, Caden Mills, and Lenin Sherburn, and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy.

Hello, Come In, provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. And if you liked what you're hearing, please make sure to follow. follow the show on your favorite podcast app. I'm Stephen Thompson. We will see you all next week.