The Resident Evil franchise is being rebooted on the big screen once again, but this upcoming adaptation feels significantly different from those we’ve seen before. The film’s teaser trailer just dropped, suggesting this could be the version audiences have been waiting for.
Rather than adapting a specific game, the film will tell an original story set in the Resident Evil universe. However, co-writer/director Zach Cregger has clarified that it unfolds parallel to the events of Resident Evil 2, one of the franchise’s most beloved installments. Understandably, this has raised concerns among fans of the video game series, but if there’s anyone I can trust to make this work, it’s Cregger.
The filmmaker is coming off Weapons, a critical and commercial success that led Amy Madigan to a Best Supporting Actress Oscar. The film before that, Barbarian, was one of the most unpredictable theatrical experiences I’ve ever had, constantly subverting audiences’ expectations at every turn.
If those two films showed anything, it’s that he excels at crafting multifaceted and terrifying horror, and this trailer leans right into his style.
The trailer opens with Bryan, played by Austin Abrams, who also starred in Weapons, a medical courier wandering through the snow, visibly desperate for help. He enters an uninhabited home and finds a landline phone, greeted by an out-of-order tone that serves as an eerie audible thread through the rest of the teaser. As he calls again and leaves a voicemail for what sounds like his girlfriend, we see shots of him running through Raccoon City, frantically searching for weapons to survive whatever is after him. There’s one point where he’s in a cave and comes across a massive pale figure reminiscent of Baron Harkonnen in Dune, followed by increasingly bloody visuals that lean fully into horror.
It’s an effective teaser that firmly establishes its dark tone and atmosphere. It may not do much yet to establish itself in the Resident Evil universe, aside from zombie-like creatures appearing. Still, based on Cregger’s comments thus far, there’s reason to be optimistic ahead of its September release.
“…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,” said the film’s director in an interview with PlayStation.Blog. “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.”
With his last two films, and what this trailer teases so far, Cregger is one of the most exciting directors today. He’s a filmmaker who consistently keeps audiences on their toes. No matter how many stories have been told in this universe before, Resident Evil will be no exception.
Sony Pictures is releasing Resident Evil through its Columbia Pictures label only in theaters on September 18th.
