Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil Film Focuses on Survival, Not Just Superheroes

A new teaser trailer has given us our first look at the upcoming Resident Evil film, directed and written by Zach Cregger (Barbarian).

In a recent Q&A with the PlayStation Blog, Cregger made it clear that he isn’t interested in a straight retelling of the games. Instead, his film tells a parallel story set during the chaos of the Raccoon City outbreak, focusing on the dread and resource management that defined the original series.

The film stars Austin Abrams as Bryan, a “normal guy” who serves as an avatar for the average player. Unlike the tactical experts we usually see, like Leon Kennedy, Bryan is a hapless survivor forced to navigate the nightmare of the Novoreich-controlled (or in this case, Umbrella-devastated) city. Cregger emphasized that he wanted to “write a game as a movie”, incorporating mechanics like weapon progression – starting with a pistol and graduating to a shotgun – and the constant anxiety of counting bullets.

Thus, expect plenty of nods for the fans, including healing items modeled directly after Resident Evil 4, all while maintaining the slow, deliberate tension of the early games.

Resident Evil is set to hit theaters on September 18.