If you’ve played a Resident Evil game, you know the feeling of being low on ammo, low on hope, staring down a pitch-black hallway where something awful is definitely waiting.
According to Barbarian director Zach Cregger, that’s exactly the kind of atmosphere his upcoming Resident Evil movie is aiming to capture. And it’s going to be unlike anything we’ve seen from the franchise before.
Cregger said during Sony’s CinemaCon 2025 presentation: “There are moments in every Resident Evil game where you find yourself standing in the mouth of a dark passageway. One shot in the gun is left. You know that something horrible is waiting for you in that darkness, that awful moment where you have to will yourself.
“That’s something that every Resident Evil game has perfected and has kept me and millions of other players returning to the series for decades. My movie will be built in the spirit of those games and follows one central protagonist from point A to point B, as they descend deeper into hell.”
So far, Resident Evil movies have been a mixed bag. Paul W.S. Anderson’s early 2000s run leaned heavily into original characters, over-the-top action, and wild lore. 2021’s Welcome to Raccoon City swung the other way, trying to cram in storylines from the first two games, but didn’t quite stick the landing.
Cregger seems to be taking a different route that is narrower in scope, more personal in its horror, and rooted in what made the games so terrifying in the first place.
Right now, details are scarce, but we do know Euphoria’s Austin Abrams is set to star. Cregger, fresh off wrapping his next horror project Weapons , which stars Abrams, Alden Ehrenreich, Benedict Wong, Julia Garner, and Josh Brolin, seems to be staying firmly in his dark, unsettling wheelhouse.
That film tackles “police corruption, generational trauma, witchcraft, blood rituals, and religious abuse in a small Florida community”.
Resident Evil hits theaters on September 18, 2026.
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