The Resident Evil trailer dropped this past week, hinting at what audiences can expect from the new horror movie when it debuts on September 18. There has been a huge amount of speculation surrounding the film, which is the latest project from celebrated horror director Zach Cregger.
The Whitest Kids U’Know alumnus burst onto the horror scene after a long career in comedy with the 2022 hit Barbarian, which he followed with the Oscar-winning 2025 smash Weapons. Because both of his breakout horror titles featured original stories, him taking on a video game adaptation for his third feature in the genre was something of a surprise.
Additionally, Resident Evil is far from a respected film franchise. In fact, not a single one of the previous seven live-action installments has earned Fresh scores on Rotten Tomatoes (they range from 2004’s Resident Evil: Apocalypse at 18% to 2017’s Resident Evil: The Final Chapter at 38%).
Before the trailer premiered, the question remained: Would 2026’s Resident Evil be a generic franchise movie or a Zach Cregger movie? From the looks of things, it is very much going to be the latter, giving it the potential to become the best movie in the franchise.
Resident Evil’s Trailer Shows Promise
Naturally, the trailer reveals that the movie features many of the trappings that anyone familiar with the Resident Evil franchise might expect, including hidden tunnels, the undead, and a variety of mutant creatures that pose a threat to the movie’s protagonist, Bryan (Weapons alumnus Austin Abrams).
However, it also showcases the fact that Zach Cregger is still very much playing into his strengths as a horror filmmaker, in a way that should make this new installment in the franchise feel very different from any of the Resident Evil movies that came before it.
Bryan Is a Proper Zach Cregger Character
One of the directorial trademarks that Cregger has developed during his brief but impactful time dabbling in the horror genre is a strong sense of character. While his first two movies have had compelling horror premises, the scares that they deliver are built upon a sturdy foundation of well-rounded, often quirky, characters.
Essentially, every person who appears on-screen in Barbarian and Weapons, no matter how minor their role, is compelling and dimensional. This is what has allowed both movies to be divided into chapters that have new characters step into the spotlight to showcase a completely different perspective on the ongoing storyline.
Currently, it is unknown if Cregger will continue that chapter-based, perspective-hopping storytelling approach in Resident Evil. However, the footage that has so far been revealed from the anticipated 2026 movie reveals that the character of Bryan has much more going on than merely running away from mutants and zombies. The majority of the teaser is devoted to a somber phone call he places to a romantic partner with whom he has a strained relationship, highlighting the fact that the character’s emotional journey will be just as important to the movie as the horror that befalls him.
Zach Cregger Is Harnessing His Greatest Strength
From the very first moment, the Resident Evil trailer proved that Zach Cregger is harnessing his greatest strengths as a horror filmmaker in the new movie. Even within the framework of his first big-budget franchise movie, he has found a way to tap into the same primordial domestic fears that made Barbarian so powerful.
Both Barbarian and Weapons have a nightmarish bedtime story quality, capitalizing on sequences that tap into audiences’ core childhood fears. He effortlessly captures the feeling of being home, alone, in the dark. In a Zach Cregger movie, nothing is scarier than the unknown that is hidden inside the familiar: what is lurking on the other side of closed doors, what could be casting that unfamiliar shadow, what lies in the murky darkness of a basement, and so on. The Resident Evil teaser pounces on those same fears with wicked glee.
‘Resident Evil’ (2026)Credit: Sony Pictures Entertainment
As much as the mutant monsters (and, presumably, the franchise’s iconic Umbrella Corporation) are propelling the horror of Resident Evil, the teaser editor knows that what is truly terrifying about Zach Cregger’s movie is all contained in the opening shot of Bryan walking up to an eerily empty, isolated house.
Bryan has found himself in a place that should feel domestic and comfortable, but is instead completely upsetting and wrong. Its empty coziness implies that this was once a cheery home, perhaps quite recently, but now something has gone terribly wrong. This sequence’s focus on windows and doorways, portals through which evil can intrude upon the comfortable domestic world, cements the fact that Cregger’s sensibility is still firing on all cylinders.
Resident Evil Promises to Be Zach Cregger’s Most Expansive Movie Yet
While Resident Evil is clearly harnessing Zach Cregger’s domestic sensibility, the video game adaptation is also giving him his biggest canvas ever. While the trailer largely takes place in the seemingly abandoned home and on its grounds, clips from other sequences show a much bigger world around the Barbarian-esque enclave.
‘Resident Evil’ (2026)Credit: Sony Pictures Entertainment
This includes shots of Bryan exploring the aforementioned system of tunnels and running down a city street full of parked cars as bodies fall from the windows above him. Given the franchise’s action-oriented origins, it seems likely that there will be quite a few more moments like these in the full feature.
This will allow the director to continue to expand his scope from the more insulated environments that he has so far brought to the screen in his horror movies. While Weapons already presented a story on a much broader scale than Barbarian (which primarily took place in a single house and the neighborhood around it), that movie was still set in a small town with a limited pool of characters and locations from which it could draw.
It ultimately remains to be seen exactly what Zach Cregger makes of his reported $80 million budget (which makes Resident Evil more than twice as expensive as Weapons). However, the brief glimpse that the teaser has given implies that he has spent it wisely, expanding his vision to incorporate more monsters, more scare sequences, and splashier setpieces, without ignoring the fact that horror is often at its most potent when it takes place in small, intimate moments that impact well-drawn, sympathetic characters.
