Zach Cregger, director of the upcoming Resident Evil film, has revealed more details of the upcoming horror flick, including some scenes from the new trailer.
Following today’s release of the Resident Evil teaser, which provided a first look at the movie reboot, IGN released a video with Cregger – who previously directed popular horror flicks Barbarian and Weapons – commentating over footage of the trailer.
Cregger explained that the film takes place in Raccoon City during the events of Resident Evil 2, but focuses on another character entirely – not touching on canon elements such as Leon Kennedy, Claire Redfield, or the RPD whatsoever.
“I like to think that everything that’s going on in the police station could be happening in this world. This is just another dude on another mission on the other side of town,” he said.
He added that the events of the movie take place during “day one” of the Raccoon City outbreak, and won’t cover the city’s destruction by a government-launched missile.
One standout moment of the trailer has main character Bryan (played by Weapons star Austin Abrams) run into an obese, presumably infected man in the sewers.
“I just really love the idea of you moving through a sewer, you have no idea what’s in front of you, and you come around a corner and you see a gigantic, obese, naked, hairless man just sitting facing you,” Cregger said.
“What is about to go down? I just like the question there. And what does go down, I am also pretty happy with.”
For this character/creature, Cregger said he took inspiration from the novel Blood Meridian.
“There’s a character called the judge in that book who’s described as a seven-foot tall, maybe albino hairless man. And I love the image of that guy. And so, this is just my little nod to one of my favorite books of all time,” he said.
The director said that the film doesn’t have a relentless stalker-type enemy that many of the Resident Evil games have – such as Mr. X, Jack Baker, or The Girl – but noted that the giant sewer man is “a little bit of a nod” to Resident Evil 3’s Nemesis.
Cregger then touched on another visually striking moment of the trailer, which sees humanoid limbs thrusting out of the edges of an open doorway.
“It’s a way the infected interact with each other and it’s something that kind of pursues [Bryan] throughout the movie,” he explained.
“I’m really excited for how this specific ‘creature,’ for lack of a better term, changes; and how it evolves over the course of the film is really fun.”
Despite zombies being a key enemy in the Raccoon City era of Resident Evil, Cregger stated that his film doesn’t utilize them all that much.
“It’s much more focused on the weird creature stuff than the zombies,” he said.
He explained that there’s only around three scenes in the film that involve zombies, with most of the movie focused on other viral-riddled creatures.
“I wouldn’t call this a zombie movie, necessarily,” Cregger said.
“I just feel like you have this opportunity for the T- virus to do all these really fascinating things to the human body and to the world around you. And so to just limit it to zombies feels like a squandered opportunity. So, I tried to really vary it up.”
Elsewhere in the video, Cregger points out where he snuck ia Green Herb in the corner of a shot, discusses his love for Resident Evil 4, and how he introduced many elements from the classic games – such as numerous locked doors requiring keys, and Bryan steadily acquiring more powerful weaponry as the film progresses.
Resident Evil will be released in theatres on September 18th. It’s a reboot of the film series co-written by Zach Cregger and Shay Hatten, starring Austin Abrams, Zach Cherry, Kali Reis, and Paul Walter Hauser.
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Written by Reece Heather
A veteran Zelda Universe editor and First-class journalism graduate, Reece emerged with a Nintendo 64 and a lifelong obsession after a narrow escape from Santa’s Naughty List in 1998. Outside of games, he’s reading Punisher comics, being bossed around by his cocker spaniel, and cornering innocent bystanders to rant about the importance of game preservation.
