Even though he has only two solo movies under his belt, filmmaker Zach Cregger has established a few key interests. He’s afraid of what goes on in quiet houses. And he likes running. Both of those qualities are on full display in the first trailer for Resident Evil, Cregger’s follow-up to Weapons. Both of those qualities also fit well within the survival horror genre, which the Resident Evil video games helped define.
Throughout the trailer, we see Austin Abrams cross a snowy yard to an isolated house. Upon finding it abandoned, he enters, makes a call to a loved one, and then begins rummaging for supplies. In fact, throughout the trailer, Abrams grabs a shotgun and keys, items that he has to use strategically if he’s going to make it through his ordeal against zombies. Because the trailer features lots and lots of zombies.
The emphasis on scavenging and running represents a real break from previous adaptations of the video games. Thus far, the series has been most associated with schlock auteur Paul W. S. Anderson, who made six movies in the franchise with his wife Milla Jovovich in the lead as Alice. Although those films rarely do well with critics, and even though they deviate markedly from the source material, they’ve garnered a strong cult following.
Less well-loved was the 2021 reboot Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, written and directed by Johannes Roberts. That film leaned more heavily on the video game lore, featuring characters from the franchise such as Claire and Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine, and Albert Wesker, and recreating the source material’s plot about the evil Umbrella Corporation and the zombies it creates. Yet, despite its fidelity, Welcome to Raccoon City failed to garner an audience, opening the way for Cregger’s film.
According to early reports, Cregger’s film does involve elements from the game. Not only does it have zombie variants familiar to players, some of which are featured in the trailer, but Abrams plays a delivery worker who must bring a package to Raccoon City Hospital. However, Cregger has also said that even though he is “the biggest worshiper of the games” and that his movie is “obedient to the lore of the games,” it is “a different story,” one that is “outside of the characters of the games.”
Instead, Cregger has compared his movie to Evil Dead II, which jibes with the footage shown in the trailer. After all, most of Sam Raimi’s movie takes place within an isolated house (well, cabin), under siege by humanoid monsters. Attendees to Resident Evil test screenings have called it a horror version of Mad Max: Fury Road, which also matches the trailer footage, given how much it involves Abrams running from one place to the next.
Based on these responses, it sure sounds like Resident Evil will be a solid video game movie and a compelling horror movie. But most importantly of all, it sounds like it will be another Zach Cregger movie, and that’s a very good thing.
Resident Evil arrives in theaters on September 18, 2026.
