Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil Trailer Feels as Disturbing as the Games

3 min readIt may not look like the Resident Evil video games that fans know and love, but Zach Cregger’s movie sure is feeling like it. A new trailer for the upcoming new story set in the Resident Evil universe is here, coming September 18 from the director of Barbarian and Weapons. It proves why it’s titled Resident Evil at all despite having little connective tissue with the games’ established universe.In stark contrast to the high-octane Milla Jovovich movies, and the 2021 film Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City that strove for canon accuracy, Cregger’s new Resident Evil seemingly departs from almost anything to do with the games except for its setting in the fictional Raccoon City.But what Cregger’s movie does right, at least based on the trailer, is replicating the feeling of playing the games. The freezing isolation of being cut off from any nearby help, the terror of unexplainable monstrosities, and clinging to the shotgun whilst feverishly searching every drawer for bullets. And of course, there’s a bigger mystery afoot, and it seems Cregger’s new protagonist—an ordinary medical courier named Bryan, played by Austin Abrams—will slowly piece together what the hell is going on.You can watch the new trailer below.The new movie may not have Leon Kennedy wearing his sick jackets or Jill Valentine rocking thigh holsters, but Cregger has already stated his intention was to produce the feeling of the Resident Evil games more than retread stories fans have already experienced. In an April 2026 interview with PlayStation, Cregger said:“I wanted to do a movie that was following a character from point A to point B, because that’s what those games do so well. You go on this crazy journey, and you go through all these different environments, and things just seem to be escalating and escalating. That feels so cinematic to me. So I wanted to tell a story that could take place in the Resident Evil world, but wasn’t telling a story that the games had already told. To me, I would feel like there’s kind of no winning there if I were to tell Leon’s story, because the games do such a great job. It would just be kind of redundant, and ultimately, I think, disappointing. So I would rather just kind of celebrate everything I love about the games by telling the story that could exist on the sidelines of one of the games.”In that same interview, Cregger also confirmed that the movie takes place adjacent to the events of Resident Evil 2, albeit with some changes “for dramatic license.”“It’s just following a different person who’s on a mission in this horrible night when things are going wrong in Raccoon City, and they’ve got to get something from point A to point B,” Cregger said. “I wanted to keep true to like [the games]. You start with a pistol, you graduate to a shotgun, and then eventually you find an MP5. You’re always worried about how many bullets you have, and you’re getting injured and all those things. So it was such a fun challenge for me to try and write a game as a movie.”We’ll find out if Cregger succeeds in his mission on September 18. Until then, if you’re feeling antsy, you can get the current-gen remakes of Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 3, and Resident Evil 4 for pretty cheap, while the new Resident Evil Requiem—which is basically Resident Evil 9—is a hell of a good time.