The new Resident Evil movie has dropped a director’s featurette and two eerie new posters, with Weapons and Barbarian filmmaker Zach Cregger talking up his survival-horror approach to the reboot. Watch the featurette above, then read on for what to know.
Zach Cregger Wants Resident Evil to Feel Like Survival Horror, Not Action
The featurette puts Cregger front and centre as he makes one thing pretty clear: this is not being pitched as a run-and-gun action movie.
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“Resident Evil is kind of a flagship for survival horror. Horror. It’s not action,” Cregger says in the video, laying out the tone he’s aiming for with the new film.
For longtime players, that distinction matters. The Resident Evil games have certainly had their action-heavy phases, but the series’ strongest identity has often come from dread, limited ammo, locked doors, nightmarish creatures, and the grim realisation that you probably should have saved one more shotgun shell.
Cregger seems very aware of that. “What I love about survival horror games and Resident Evil mostly is… is this overwhelming feeling of dread,” he says. “Where it’s like I have to go down this long dark passageway. I have two shotgun shells. I know there’s a lot of [bleep] in there waiting for me, and it’s all really bad, but I have to go.”
The Featurette Shows Off More of Resident Evil’s Player-Like Approach
Most of the footage in the featurette appears to come from material already glimpsed in the trailer, but there is one very funny, very familiar little beat: Austin Abrams’ Bryan attempts to shoot a padlock off a locked door and completely misses.
Anyone who has panicked, wasted a precious bullet, and immediately regretted it while playing a Resident Evil game may feel personally attacked.
That moment also ties neatly into Cregger’s broader idea for the film. This version of Resident Evil is not following a polished hero who knows exactly how to handle every weapon, monster, and nightmare thrown his way. Instead, Bryan is being positioned as a more ordinary figure dropped into a nightmare scenario, which sounds very much in line with Cregger’s earlier comments about wanting the character to feel like an avatar for the player.
“So I had this idea, for a story in the world of Resident Evil, but it’s kind of like me,” Cregger says in the featurette. “Like if I was dropped into a Resident Evil game, I’m terrible with guns. I wouldn’t know how any of them work. I would miss 99% of all of my shots.”
The film follows Bryan, a medical courier who finds himself caught in the early stages of a nightmare in Raccoon City. Rather than directly retelling one of the games, Cregger’s film is telling an original story set within the Resident Evil universe, with the outbreak unfolding around Bryan as one terrible night keeps getting worse.
New Resident Evil Posters Tease Snow, Shadows, and Raccoon City Chaos
Take a look above and below at the two new, atmospheric posters that have been released. The one above shows a vehicle on a snowy road, headlights cutting through the darkness as a long, ominous shadow stretches toward it. The other below takes the horror into a ruined cityscape, with Bryan walking through a frozen, smoke-filled street while figures loom on rooftops and wreckage burns nearby.
They’re stylish, icy, and nicely grim. More importantly, they suggest the film will be moving through a range of locations rather than sticking to just one haunted corridor. That fits with what has already been teased about the movie’s structure, with Bryan forced through different environments as the danger escalates.
Cregger also uses the featurette to underline just how deep his connection to the games goes. “I love the games,” he says. “I’ve played the games, I don’t know how many thousands of hours, but too many.”
He adds that the film gives him “an opportunity for me to be loyal to the games in spirit and in tone and build a story that just puts you in that scenario again and again and again with increasing stakes.”
Resident Evil Cast, Creative Team and Release Date
Resident Evil is directed by Zach Cregger, who co-wrote the film with Shay Hatten. The cast includes Austin Abrams, Zach Cherry, Kali Reis, and Paul Walter Hauser.
The film is produced by Robert Kulzer, Roy Lee, Miri Yoon, Carter Swan, and Asad Qizilbash. Behind the camera, the creative team includes cinematographer Dariusz Wolski and production designer Tom Hammock.
Resident Evil is set to open in Australian cinemas on September 17 and in the U.S. on September 18.
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