Resident Evil like you’ve never seen before. Coming off the success of Barbarian and Weapons, director Zach Cregger has taken on the latest adaptation of Resident Evil for his third horror feature film.
Resident Evil is one of the most popular horror video game franchises, and with that popularity comes the movie adaptations. There are seven Resident Evil movies, with the first one releasing in 2002 and the most recent one in 2021. For the upcoming 2026 adaptation, Cregger is doing something different, refreshing, and celebrating everything that makes the video games special.
The film will premiere on September 18, 2026. The Movie Couple, along with a group of journalists and creators, were invited for an exclusive preview of Resident Evil at the IMAX Headquarters in California, followed by a Q&A with Zach Cregger. During the event, we got to preview the first 18 minutes of the film.
What Footage Did We See?
This is unlike any Resident Evil film we’ve seen before. Right off the bat, it gives the feeling of dread and anxiety, and even from seeing only the first 18 minutes, we can tell that Cregger’s version will be relentless with scares and gore aplenty. Instead of telling the story through a titular character from the game, he focuses on what it feels like to play it.
The exclusive footage is presented by Zach Cregger. The story follows Bryan (Austin Abrams, Weapons), a medic courier who is tasked with an urgent organ transplant delivery to – you guessed it – Raccoon City General. Even though the road conditions are bad due to a winter storm, Bryan accepts the job as it pays double.
The story takes place on the eve of the outbreak, and if you’re familiar with the story, you’ll know that Bryan’s day is about to go from bad to worse.
To get a taste of what we saw, look to the official trailer for Resident Evil, where Bryan runs to a nearby farmhouse seeking help. The house seems abandoned, but he manages to find a shotgun to defend himself. In another room, he finds a box of shotgun shells in a desk drawer – Heavy Field Buckshot to be exact. On top of the desk sits a typewriter, which fans would recognize as a place for manual save points in the game.
Through the entire 18 minutes of preview, I was a ball of anxiety. By the end, I was on the edge of my seat and ready to see more. I enjoyed seeing the story follow a medic courier instead of a combat-ready game character. It gave me more dread and suspense, not knowing how it was going to go for Bryan, as he’s not trained for this kind of situation. Every decision he has to make in order to survive feels like something I’d have to do if I had a game controller in my hand, which is the gameplay feel that Cregger taps into.
Watch the Official Trailer:
Q&A With Zach Cregger
A Q&A was held following the footage presentation, moderated by Al Horner. Cregger spoke about how the project came to be, how being a fan of the game helped him in writing the script, and on working with Austin Abrams.
Cregger has been a longtime fan of the game, starting in high school when he watched his friend play Resident Evil 1. He was hooked and went on to play every game after that. “I’ve just been such a giant fan of those games. You know, since 2 came out and, and, you know, I played all of them, and, you know, I’ve fallen really deeply in love with 2 and with 4. And I really love 7, 8, 9. I’ve. I’ve lapped many of them, you know, before I left that game,” recalls Cregger, “Plus, get the infinite rocket launcher. Do it again. Get the infinite rocket.”
He also speaks to spending time inside the world of Resident Evil, and how the games are paced, “I love that it’s not survival action. It’s survival horror, you know, and it’s like this slow, creeping dread where you progress from set piece to set piece, and you’re, you know, you always feel like you have maybe, maybe just enough to survive, but probably not.”
Cregger wants to celebrate what makes the video games so special, and talks about why he’s not telling a story from a known character’s POV: “I just wanted to make a movie that would, like, celebrate everything I think makes those games so special. But not cannibalize the stories that those games tell so well, because I don’t think I can, like, tell Leon’s story better than the games tell the story, you know, that’s that feels to me like kind of a losing endeavor.”
“I don’t think I can, like, tell Leon’s story better than the games tell the story, you know, that’s that feels to me like kind of a losing endeavor.”
He continues, “But to tell a story that lives in the world of Raccoon City, you know, on the eve of the outbreak, you know, and play by the rules where, like, the Umbrella Corporation, the T-virus, and all those things are there. But this story just kind of happens, you know, over here that that feels like, you know, a really fertile place to live. And so that was kind of the thinking behind us.”
The Visual Language of a Video Game Movie
Cregger’s love for video games can be seen in his previous films Barbarian and Weapons, such as over-the-shoulder shots and third-person perspectives. ” I feel like people my age and younger who are like, raised playing a lot of video games, we have kind of inherited this, visual language from the game. So this is kind of third-person perspective where you know you’re following
the character, but you’re seeing the world around them. And as they turn and look right, we swing and we look right.”
When it comes to shooting the film’s protagonist Bryan, Cregger explains, ” When Austin looks up and says, we we kind of drop the camera down. We have to make sure that everyone is kind of choreographed together, the operator and the actor, so that we’re shifting our attention at the right time. You know, that is all. That’s something that the games do so well, you know, this sort of third person, visual language, it’s really effective at immersing you in a location and in a place.”
Cregger doesn’t think he’s intentionally using game language, but rather that he’s been raised to think about these things because of his love for video games. A lot of first-person perspectives will be seen in the movie as well, “it just feels like that’s what this wants to be.”
Cregger Didn’t Anticipate He’d be Directing This Movie
When he first wrote the script, he did not anticipate directing the film as well, and was able to write freely, digging deep into his love for the video game property, “Yeah, I’d only made a $4 million movie. I knew that this was going to be way more expensive,” Cregger recalls. “Resident Evil has value as a brand. And I was like, ‘they’re not going to trust me with something like that.’ And so I was able to write it kind of like, who gives a shit? I’m not making this movie. So I’m just going to write my favorite Resident Evil thing. You know, sucks to be the dude that has to figure out how to chew all this stuff. But I’m just going to write it and I don’t care. Which is the best attitude you can have when you’re writing is to not care.
As he worked on the script, he began to fall in love with what he was writing and hoped to be the one to direct the movie. Luckily, the studio felt the same way and tapped him as the director.
Practical Effects in the movie
During the trailer, there’s a scene where Bryan runs down a street between two tall buildings. The infected on the roof leap down and crash (and explode) around him. Cregger didn’t want to use VFX for this scene and opted for practical effects. To do this, they rigged body-sized blood bags and dropped them down as Austin Abrams runs down the street. “I was like, how do we do this where all these explosions are real? And the way to do it is you get a bunch of cranes, and you have all these body-sized blood bags, and you rehearse the shit out of how they’re going to fall and how fast he’s going to run and then you just shoot it.”
With all stunts and practical effects, there are always risks. And it just so happens that one of the bags fell too early, barely missing the actor during the shot. Cregger remembers, “And he’s chasing the camera car, and he’s running, and they’re releasing these bags, and they’re falling and hitting all around him and exploding. And one triggered too early, and it missed him by inches. And these things are all like 150 pounds. It would have killed him. If he had been one step to the right, he would have died. It’s in the movie, so it’s fucking worth it.”
“He’s chasing the camera car, and he’s running, and they’re releasing these bags, and they’re falling and hitting all around him and exploding. And one triggered too early, and it missed him by inches. And these things are all like 150 pounds. It would have killed him. If he had been one step to the right, he would have died.”
What Does Zach Cregger Want the Audience To Take Away from This Movie Experience?
Cregger wrote this movie as a fan of the video games, and wants those who watches it to feel the same way – that it’s a celebration of the games and the feeling one gets while playing, “I want this to be a big rollercoaster ride. I want people who love the games the way I love the games to feel like they’re getting a Resident Evil movie. That is deliberate. I want people to feel seen. Because I love these games and I am making this to celebrate these games. So that is something I really hope.”
What about those who have never played Resident Evil? Don’t worry, you can enjoy the movie completely cold, “I also think if you’ve never played a video game and you’ve never heard the words Resident Evil, you don’t even worry. There’s no information you need to know. You can enjoy this movie completely cold and you’re going to get it. It’s not complicated. It’s a fucking blast. I just want people to be scared and laugh every once in a while and walk out and be like, that was fucking awesome.” said Cregger.
About Resident Evil
From the mind of visionary filmmaker Zach Cregger (Weapons, Barbarian) comes a thrilling — and terrifying — reinvention of the Resident Evil franchise. In an all-new story, Resident Evil follows Bryan (Austin Abrams), a medical courier who unwittingly finds himself in an action-packed, non-stop race for survival as one fateful, horrifying night collapses around him in chaos.
In theaters on September 18, 2026.
