Having just finished the latest Resident Evil game, Resident Evil: Requiem, I had in my head what a Zach Cregger Resident Evil might be. But I was completely wrong. This is way smaller. Way weirder. Way scarier.
Monday night, the director of Barbarian and Weapons came to CinemaCon 2026 and showed the first footage from his upcoming adaptation of the iconic survival horror series. First, though, he explained how much he loved the series. How he’s played all the games. How much he loved the gore, the fear, the resource management, all of it. His movie, a wholly unique story, would be true to the spirit of those games in terms of pacing and atmosphere. But, unlike his previous two films, this one would have no “narrative acrobatics.” It’s a protagonist going from point A to point B while all hell breaks loose.
In the footage, we follow a man played by Austin Abrams (who played James the druggie in Weapons) who is walking to an old farmhouse in the middle of a snowy field. He knocks on the door and yells that he had a little problem on the road and would like to use the phone. No one answers, but the door is open, so he walks in. It’s a very welcoming house. He goes to the phone, but it’s not quite working. He tries again and gets his girlfriend’s voicemail. The rest of the footage plays out as we hear him leave a voicemail, as well as some creepy phone noises. He’s scared this is the last time he’s ever going to speak to her.
He runs to a barn on the same property and closes the door quickly behind him. We see him find and load a shotgun. There’s a dead body on the ground with a pair of keys hanging off his belt, which he grabs. He enters some kind of tunnel and sees a very obese bald man with white skin kind of hanging in midair. He jumps over a car, and a head slowly pops out of it.
Later, he’s running down a city street filled with abandoned cars and looks up. There are zombies lining the roofs of all the buildings, and they jump down, smashing into the street and cars as he runs past. “I just want you to know I love you,” the voicemail ends.
Most Resident Evil games and movies are about law enforcement investigating big, evil corporations, and maybe this is that. But from the trailer, it certainly looked like it is much more grounded, with lots of little winks and nods to make you know this is Resident Evil.
Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil opens September 18, so expect a full trailer soon.
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