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When it was announced that Zach Cregger's next project would be a new "Resident Evil" film, a collective sigh could be heard throughout the film stratosphere (this is the nice way of saying Twitter). Cregger broke out with his sophomore feature "Barbarian" and followed it up with "Weapons," which went on to win Amy Madigan an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. These bold and original horror films announced the arrival of a new and exciting director (Cregger first directed 2009's lame comedy "Miss March") and the idea of him getting caught up in a whirlwind of IP felt like watching potential original films evaporate into thin air.

Cregger's "Resident Evil" is a slight piece of genre filmmaking, but it has good energy and a tight pace to support it. The disappointed reaction to this being Cregger's next project might have been overboard, but "Resident Evil" is still lacking the weight and originality of his previous two features - though that doesn't mean it's not a good time at the movies.

There will be many in the audience who come to the new film with knowledge of the material. But, if you have never seen the movies that began in the early aughts or played the video games (both hands are raised), "Resident Evil" works on a baseline level as a tightly-constructed, run-all-night horror movie that blends Cregger's signature of gore and humor.

Austin Abrams (who had a supporting part in "Weapons") stars as Bryan, a courier who is ready to punch out for the night. When he delivers his last item to a hospital, he is offered another job at a hospital far away in Racoon City. He's tired, it's freezing out and the roads are bad, and he is just ready to be home. The nurse informs him that because of the distance and the snowy conditions outside, the pay for the job is double. Suddenly, Bryan is ready to hit the road again.

As most horror movies would, the new delivery job sends Bryan on a dark and winding road where his car can barely handle going in a straight line, let alone make a turn or two. A woman suddenly appears in the road and Bryan is unable to stop quickly enough to avoid hitting her. Horrified, he gets out to check on her, which sends his night into true upheaval because that sets off a chain of events that causes him to spend the rest of his evening dodging zombies.

Video game adaptations have long been a thankless task in filmmaking. It seems like a cursed subgenre that rarely produces a good movie. Outside of a few POV shots, where the audience can only see a gun that's being held, "Resident Evil" doesn't feel like it's carrying the burden of being a video game adaption. The movie feels like Cregger's excuse to get a zombie flick out of his system and he has made an entertaining one, if not one that transcends the trappings of movies that have come before it.

As the hapless leading man, Abrams gets a breakout role perfectly tailored to Cregger's sensibilities. The director's horror films often blend humor with the grotesque - sometimes effectively, while other times disrupting the tone of a particular scene - and Abrams is able to balance some comedic line deliveries while running for his life. Two movies later, Abrams and Cregger could be an actor-director pairing worth seeing more of in future films.

No movie should be judged by its runtime, but the 90-minute movie seems to be going extinct. Sometimes filmmakers confuse a film's length with gravitas, like there is a heavy sense of importance that comes with a 150-minute runtime. Cregger has made a lean and entertaining 90-minute movie. Even when the story feels repetitive, Cregger's filmmaking keeps things entertaining and alive. Luckily, "Resident Evil" proved to not be a waste of a burgeoning director's established talents.