Weapons and Barbarian director Zach Cregger plays on the periphery of Capcom's esteemed series, and the resulting horror-comedy chaos, while slight, is a huge amount of fun.

There's a bit somewhere in the middle of the rubbish Doom movie, where the perspective suddenly switches to first-person. Look, it seems to say, it's just like you playing the video game! But what Zach Cregger's new Resident Evil movie gets is that, really, it's nothing like me playing the video game. Back on my side of the screen, I might be sitting in a digital space marine suit, gliding around gloomy corridors as monsters leap at my face, but I'm certainly not behaving like one. I am shrieking; I am cringing, I am swearing; I am fumbling the controller, and I'm firing stray bullets at the roof. And while, yes, I might occasionally allow myself a quick celebrity whoop, the power fantasy is hardly a total one.

That, I think, is what makes Cregger's movie take on Resident Evil so enormously fun. It perfectly captures that relatable joy of video game cack-handedness, the laughable errors of judgement, the misplaced overconfidence, and, ultimately, the can-do spirit that, usually, just about carries us through. Here, our player stand-in is Bryan, a charismatically rumpled medical courier and everyman (wonderfully played by Austin Abrams), who finds himself embroiled in Raccoon City's T-virus outbreak one unfortunate snowy evening.

It's a journey that begins in a busy hospital and ends, as is series tradition, in a corporate lab, taking in a whole bunch of other familiar Resident Evil touchpoints - an eerily abandoned farmhouse, the city's zombie-infected streets, a brief detour down into the sewers - along the way. Creggers also structures his movie like a video game; he sends Bryan forth on a plot-light, action-heavy misadventure that - after his initial quest is set - plays out more or less in real-time, merrily bouncing from enemy encounter to set-piece to boss fight and back again. He even gets some drawer-rifling ammo-hunting in.

Throughout it all, Bryan pluckily bumbles his way forward with resigned - and, in a winning bit of characterisation, obliviously selfless - determination, monologuing near continuously with a stream of 'fucks' and 'shits'. Oh, and fear-racked gargles so exotic, I'm fairly certain they constitute entirely new sounds. As someone who just spent the last week playing Silent Hill: Townfall, emitting a very similar stream of vocal diarrhea, I can't tell you how wonderful it is to be so accurately represented on screen.

In the wrong hands, this kind of metatextual approach would suck, but Cregger - who co-wrote the script with Shay Hatten - is unquestionably the right man for the job. He's already proven his horror and comedy chops in the marvellous Barbarian and Weapons, and his distinctive sensibilities serve Resident Evil (a series perpetually operating in the register of camp, even if it's managed to do it with a straighter face in recent times) extremely well. As much as I adore the games and their pantheon of high-cheekboned heroes, their silly stories are B-movie at best, and I'm more than happy for someone to have a bit of fun with the series on the big screen.

And Cregger's Resident Evil is so much fun, swinging wildly from jumpscares and genuine tension to slapstick ludicrousness in a way that, while still unmistakably Cregger, can't help but bring Sam Raimi to mind. Raimi's Drag Me to Hell is, I reckon, the pinnacle of horror-comedy, and a masterful display of horror tension management as it constantly undercuts its scare gags with actual gags then undercuts those in turn, each switch amplifying the impact of the next one. By comparison, Cregger's Resident Evil leans far harder into gross-out comedy than straight-up horror, but it still finds a rhythm that helps each half land harder. And there are plenty of moments that hit that sweet spot, stranding you somewhere between incredulous laugh and strangled gasp when they come (hi dog!).

Resident Evil might be running on the flimsiest of plots, but that balance, Abrams' endlessly likeable presence, some silly running gags, and a succession of stellar set-pieces keeps it buzzing along. And as far as the latter goes, Resident Evil has some treats. It's got roly poly creatures that give Arcadian's horsey horrors a run for their money, a supremely silly car runaround, the world's worst elevator ride, and a breathlessly orchestrated zombie rainstorm that still impresses, even if you did have it spoiled by the trailer (I really should've learned my lesson by now). Honestly, it's hard to pick a favourite. And throughout, those brilliantly gloopy body horror monstrosities: mostly new creations, but perfectly Resident Evil all the same.

What I'm saying is I had a great time. Cregger's Resident Evil film might not be every fan's cup of tea with its abundant silliness, its slender throughline, and its lack of Leon, Claire, et al, but it's easily the best video game adaptation of playing a video game I've seen. And in its daft subversiveness - in doggedly, wisely sticking to the periphery of the Resident Evil series' wider world - I think Cregger also captures the spirit of his source material better than most other game-to-movie adaptations do. As Bryan puts it at one point in a rare moment of triumph: "Video gaaaaaaaames!"