You’d imagine that, in the wake of Barbarian and Weapons – two of the best and buzziest horror films in recent years – all kinds of franchises came calling to filmmaker Zach Cregger. But as it turns out, Resident Evil was entirely his choice. For his third feature as director, Cregger is presenting his own story set in the world of the video game saga he loves, with all-new characters and spooky setpieces – and he was the one who approached the rights owners.
“They were kind enough to hear me out and let me run with it,” Cregger tells Empire, promising a film that is very much him, wrapped up in a beloved IP. “It’s really a Zach Cregger movie that just happens to be a Resident Evil movie.” As a major fan of the games, Cregger is dialling in on what it feels like to play them – with Austin Abrams’ medical courier Bryan as an audience surrogate “The concept here is that we’re following an idiot,” says Cregger. “Not that he’s stupid, but he’s not your typical game character, with no combat skills whatsoever and completely inept at survival. Bryan is very much an everyman who happens to be burdened with this kind of sacred mission that’s going to take him into the heart of everything. It’s kind of like Frodo going into Mordor.”
The result, he promises, should feel relentless – a non-stop horror thrill-ride, lighter on the twisty-turny perspective-shifting narratives of his previous two films. “It feels like one gigantic sequence,” he says. “Things pop off about five minutes in and it basically stays like that until the end. What I love about the games is that you move from set-piece to set-piece. Every location has a unique challenge. So again, I’m borrowing from the games directly in that rhythm, where you’re just running through a gauntlet.” Game on.
Read Empire’s full Resident Evil story in The Odyssey issue, on sale Thursday July 2. Pre-order a copy online here. Resident Evil comes to cinemas on September 18.