On Sept. 18, Zach Cregger’s “Resident Evil” hit theaters across the United States. Like several films before it, Cregger’s new film is an adaptation of the survival horror video game series “Resident Evil.”
Rather than adapting one of the games’ pre-existing protagonists, the 2026 movie centers on an original character, Bryan Hodukavich, an organ courier. The film follows Bryan as he is sent to deliver a package to Raccoon City General, only to become caught in the middle of a zombie outbreak.
Since its inception, zombie-based media has been used to explore larger societal fears, such as the loss of bodily autonomy in a post-slavery nation, worldwide pandemics and concerns surrounding overconsumption.
However, Cregger’s film uses the zombie to represent its protagonist’s journey toward accepting fatherhood rather than focusing exclusively on a larger societal issue.
The movie begins with Bryan on the phone with his girlfriend, Michelle, receiving the news that she is pregnant. While it is clear that Bryan loves Michelle and wants to be there for her, he is distracted.
Busy transitioning from delivering one package to the next, Bryan focuses on navigating a busy hospital and icy roads rather than Michelle’s news, taking a passive role in their exchange.
Rather than fully accepting the pregnancy, Bryan asks Michelle whether the pregnancy test might be a false positive.
Once she confirms that it is not, he withholds how he feels about the pregnancy, instead leaving the decision about what they want to do in Michelle’s hands.
His response understandably leaves Michelle unsure about their relationship. But before he can reassure her, their phone connection is cut off, and Bryan is soon plunged into an icy, zombie-filled landscape.
The dynamics of this conversation, and Bryan’s overall reluctance to accept fatherhood, are reflected in his interactions with the undead throughout the film.
Bryan’s distractedness marks the beginning of his problems with zombies.
Focused on repairing his phone connection, Bryan is not watching the road and ends up hitting a woman with his car.
He decides to help the injured woman, unaware that she is a zombie, by driving her to the same hospital where he must deliver a package.
As he drives, the zombie repeatedly reaches for Bryan in an attempt to infect him. Still distracted, he brushes her off without a second thought and focuses instead on driving.
As a result, he fails to notice the signs that something is very clearly wrong with her.
In much the same way, Bryan’s distractedness causes the downward spiral of his phone call with Michelle.
Michelle had been emotionally reaching for him after discovering that she was pregnant. But because Bryan is distracted by his job and trying to solve the problem of how best to support her, he unintentionally brushes her off.
In the process, he avoids confronting his fear of fatherhood and deprives Michelle of the honesty she is asking of him.
This theme of distracted avoidance continues in a scene featuring one of the film’s most notable jump scares.
At this point, Bryan has realized that the woman he hit with his car is a zombie and has seemingly defeated her, destroying his car engine in the process.
Seeking refuge in a farmhouse up the road, Bryan explores what appears to be a hastily abandoned safe haven.
As he looks out the upstairs window of the master bedroom, Bryan spots a new threat: the undead woman he thought he had defeated earlier, sprinting toward the farmhouse.
Immediately, every cinematic aspect of the scene, along with Bryan himself, becomes hyperfocused on the approaching danger.
The camera zooms in on both Bryan and the approaching monster, leaving everything else out of focus as he struggles to load his newly acquired shotgun.
Yet, bursting from the shadowy, unfocused background of the room, the greatest threat to Bryan is actually a zombified man, not the woman approaching from outside.
This scene perfectly characterizes Bryan’s refusal to accept that he is going to be a parent.
As revealed later through photographs in the farmhouse, the man and woman were a married couple before becoming infected.
This undead pair symbolizes Bryan’s denial about how he truly feels.
Bryan notices only the danger posed by the zombie woman and her screaming approach, despite numerous signs throughout the house that another zombie is present.
He is so distracted by the woman that he fails to recognize the real threat posed by the zombified man until it is too late.
He does exactly the same thing with Michelle.
Bryan identifies the challenge of parenthood as something that lies solely with Michelle. He believes all he needs to determine is what she wants and how best to support her.
Yet, as the reality of becoming a parent approaches, everything he does to overcome this challenge only results in him fumbling the conversation and upsetting Michelle further.
He does not realize that the first and most important hurdle is deciding whether he is willing to accept that he, too, will become a parent.
From the shadows, his internal fears prevent him from preparing for the more apparent future.
Cregger continues to create moments with symbolic weight as the film progresses.
After Bryan kills the undead married couple, the two zombies merge in a way I can only describe as “grotesquely sensual.”
The tentacles of the zombie virus merge the couple’s bodies in a morbid representation of sex, with the husband’s head absorbed into the cavity where his wife’s head once was.
This new combination of husband and wife — a metaphorical baby, if you will — rapidly grows as it chases Bryan almost to the film’s final scene.
Throughout the movie, Bryan systematically conquers the family unit as he accepts and overcomes his fear of fatherhood.
But how does this representation, seemingly specific to the film’s protagonist, fit into the larger historical symbolism of zombie media?
One possibility is that the movie represents an emerging attitude toward having children.
In recent years, younger generations have increasingly expressed a desire not to have children.
Worldwide fertility rates have also declined to 2.2 births per woman as of 2024, while the U.S. rate stood at approximately 1.64 births per woman.
Considering that Cregger’s “Resident Evil” is set in the modern day and symbolically centers on a wavering willingness to accept parenthood, this interpretation initially seemed plausible.
However, the more I considered it, the more something felt off.
Bryan’s internal struggle, while centered on having children, stems more from a hesitation to accept fatherhood than from a desire not to have children at all.
This distinction between the protagonist’s experience and the emerging social attitude seemed significant enough to undermine the theory entirely.
That is, until two scenes from the beginning of “Resident Evil” came to mind.
In the moments before Bryan hits a zombie with his car, Michelle asks him to explain what he thinks about her pregnancy.
Instead of giving her a straightforward answer, Bryan tells her, “I think it is your body and your choice.”
The political slogan “my body, my choice” is not new, with its origins dating to the 1970s.
Its use, however, gained renewed prominence in the years leading up to the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade, which eliminated the federal constitutional right to abortion recognized under that precedent.
Since then, several states have enacted bans and restrictions affecting reproductive health care, including access to abortion, pregnancy care, miscarriage management and treatment for dangerous pregnancy complications.
Investigations have also documented preventable pregnancy-related deaths in cases involving restrictions on reproductive care.
Cregger’s inclusion of language associated with reproductive autonomy in a movie so closely tied to parenthood suggests that his use of zombies may represent more than the protagonist’s personal struggles.
Another moment near the beginning of the film points toward a different form of social commentary.
After learning of Michelle’s pregnancy, Bryan initially intends to finish work for the day so he can discuss the pregnancy with her at home.
What prevents him from doing so is an offer to deliver another package for double payment.
In other words, the decision largely responsible for the film’s entire plot stems from a desire to protect himself against financial instability.
According to Urban Institute research, approximately 49% of Americans lacked the resources necessary to achieve economic security in 2023.
This financial struggle reflects the disproportionate increase in the cost of essential goods and services compared with wage growth.
Tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump’s administration have added further financial pressure.
Harvard Business School researchers estimated that tariffs contributed to price increases of 5% to 6.6% for imported goods and 2.5% to 3.8% for domestic goods in 2025, based on an analysis of approximately 350,000 products.
Faced with financial insecurity, many people take on additional work to protect themselves against economic hardship, just as Bryan does in the opening scenes of “Resident Evil.”
Cregger’s “Resident Evil” uses zombies not only to examine growing reluctance toward having children but also to suggest why that reluctance may exist.
In a political and economic climate marked by financial instability and restrictions on reproductive autonomy, it is not difficult to understand why some younger Americans may be hesitant about parenthood.
It may not simply be that people do not want children. They may instead be reasonably deterred by the uncertainty of the future.
And while Bryan ultimately overcomes his internal struggles surrounding parenthood, can — or, more importantly, should — young Americans be expected to do the same?
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