Key Takeaways

  • Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil got its first official trailer ahead of his Comic-Con Hall H appearance, and it looks like a legitimately scary horror movie, not just an action shooter with zombies.
  • Austin Abrams stars as a medical courier who gets trapped in Raccoon City General during one chaotic, infected night, with Paul Walter Hauser and Kali Reis rounding out the cast.
  • The movie hits theaters September 18, and after Barbarian and Weapons, Cregger might be the guy who finally breaks the video game movie curse.

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What Sony Just Showed Us

I’ve been burned by video game movies my whole life, so I went into this trailer expecting the usual. Instead Sony dropped the first official look at Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil ahead of his Comic-Con panel, and it’s not messing around. No wink at the camera, no forced one-liners. It plays like a horror movie first and a game adaptation second, which is exactly the order those priorities should be in.

Deadline covered the reveal and called it Cregger “coming for you,” which honestly tracks with everything else he’s made. The trailer leans hard into dread and claustrophobia instead of spectacle, and that’s the smartest choice anyone’s made with this franchise on the big screen in twenty years.

Why Zach Cregger Was the Right Call

If you only know Cregger from Barbarian, you already get why this casting made sense. That movie took a simple setup and turned it into one of the most unbearably tense theater experiences in recent memory. Then Weapons proved Barbarian wasn’t a fluke.

Resident Evil as a franchise has never struggled for source material. It’s struggled for directors who treat the horror seriously instead of turning it into a Milla Jovovich action vehicle. Cregger is a guy who understands that dread works better than explosions, and based on this trailer, Sony gave him the room to prove it.

It’s the same pattern I’ve been watching play out across horror lately. Internet-era horror filmmakers keep getting handed real budgets because studios finally noticed their movies actually work. I wrote about Kane Parsons landing a $65 million deal off Backrooms not long ago, and Cregger going from a low budget haunted house movie to directing a major studio’s flagship horror IP fits right into that same shift.

What We Know About the Story and Cast

Austin Abrams leads as Bryan, a medical courier headed for a routine drop-off at Raccoon City General. Naturally, routine goes out the window fast, and he spends the rest of the night trying to survive as the hospital and the city around it collapse into chaos. Paul Walter Hauser and Kali Reis and Zach Cherry round out the cast, and Cregger co-wrote the script with Shay Hatten, who’s no stranger to genre work.

Setting it in Raccoon City General instead of retreading the mansion or the police station from the games is a smart move. It gives Cregger a contained space to build tension in, which is exactly the kind of setup he’s already proven he can wring the most out of.

Resident Evil hits theaters September 18. If you want the trailer straight from Sony’s channel, here it is.

The official Resident Evil trailer, directed by Zach Cregger and starring Austin Abrams.

Can This Break the Video Game Movie Curse

I’ve been a PlayStation guy my whole life, and I’ve sat through enough bad video game adaptations to be permanently skeptical. But something’s shifted in the last few years. Studios finally figured out the winning move isn’t chasing the games beat for beat, it’s hiring filmmakers who understand tone and letting them make an actual movie.

Resident Evil as a game franchise has always been about atmosphere and helplessness more than firepower. That’s a horror sensibility, not an action one. Handing it to a director whose entire reputation is built on dread instead of spectacle is the first time this series has been treated like what it actually is.

I’m not saying it’s guaranteed to be great. But this is the most confident I’ve felt about a video game movie since the first Sonic trailer got fixed after fan backlash, and that’s a low bar Cregger has a real shot at clearing by a mile.

Frequently Asked Questions

When does Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil movie come out?

Resident Evil is scheduled to hit theaters on September 18, 2026.

Who stars in the new Resident Evil movie?

Austin Abrams leads as Bryan, a medical courier caught in the outbreak at Raccoon City General. Paul Walter Hauser, Kali Reis, and Zach Cherry also star.

Is the new Resident Evil movie connected to the older films?

No. This is a new take on the franchise directed by Zach Cregger, separate from the Milla Jovovich film series and the more recent Welcome to Raccoon City reboot.

Who wrote the Resident Evil script?

Zach Cregger co-wrote the screenplay with Shay Hatten.