Director Zach Cregger has proven one of his generation’s most exciting horror filmmakers, having debuted with the wildly unpredictable Barbarian and then following that up with the somehow even crazier Weapons. Given the success those two films achieved it’s no wonder that he was offered the chance to reboot a franchise. It is also unsurprising then that his Resident Evil has proved to be one of the best video game adaptations of all time.

Bryan (Austin Abrams) works as a medical courier, transporting donated organs to patients in need. One snowy night he accepts a late delivery of the highest priority to Raccoon City, despite his girlfriend Michelle’s (Sara Paxton) protests over the phone that he come home to discuss her newly discovered pregnancy.

His car is woefully underprepared for the heavy snow blanketing the wooded roads he has to drive through and his ongoing conversation with Michelle means he is driving distracted when a woman emerges from the trees directly into his path. He strikes her with his car and then gets out to assess her condition only to find a bloody trail leading into the forest. Wracked with guilt—and not all that bright—he follows the footprints, locates the injured woman, and guides her back to his car for transport to the hospital, despite her eerily erratic behavior.

Anyone familiar with the Resident Evil franchise in either video game or movie format will know that she is infected with a virus that escaped from an Umbrella Corporation lab which quickly turns its victims into mutated zombies. Of course, Bryan would have no way of knowing this and so resumes his journey through an odyssey of mayhem and carnage.

If Abrams isn’t a full-blown star yet he should be after this. Nailing the tightrope walk between action hero and bumbling idiot the role requires of him, and largely the only character on screen, he ably carries the film.

The movie proves funnier than one might expect (another cut purportedly exists with even more jokes that I would love to see), smartly deploying laughs to give release from the otherwise relentless tension. And once it gets going this movie is a wild, grisly rollercoaster ride. This time working with co-screenwriter Shay Hatten, Cregger continues to show that his sketch comedy past has gifted him with an impeccable sense of timing and an almost unmatched sense of morbidly visual humor, leading to some truly unforgettable set pieces.

With masterful pacing and camera control—props to editor Joe Murphy and cinematographer Dariusz Wolski—Cregger only shows us what he wants us to see when he wants us to see it. This means every space is dripping with dread and every jump scare proves highly effective. It doesn’t really seem to have any deeper message as so much horror does these days, but sometimes all we need is a bit of bloody fun. By nailing the tone and feel of playing one of the games without feeling beholden to any one of their stories, Resident Evil delivers one of the year’s most purely entertaining bits of cinema. ★★★★½

Rated R for strong bloody violence, gore, and language throughout.