The full trailer for Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil has finally dropped, and I genuinely can’t wait for this movie.
I’ve loved both of Cregger’s previous films. Barbarian completely blew me away, and I thought Weapons was one of last summer’s biggest surprises. Honestly, I think it deserved to do even better at the box office. Because of that track record, I’ve got a lot of confidence going into Resident Evil.
The reaction online already seems split. You’ve got the Resident Evil purists saying, “This isn’t Resident Evil,” while everyone else is just excited to see what Cregger does with the franchise. Personally, I think people are jumping to conclusions way too early. We’ve seen two trailers that, if anything, feel like they’re deliberately hiding almost everything. We don’t know enough about the movie yet to declare that it isn’t a proper Resident Evil film.
What really stood out to me is how much this feels like playing a survival horror game.
Austin Abrams appears to be playing an ordinary organ delivery driver who’s just trying to finish one last job before calling it a day. He gets offered one final delivery that pays double, heads into Raccoon City, and from that point on, it looks like the worst day of his life begins.
Instead of constantly cutting away to different storylines, the movie seems structured as one long, relentless journey. He’s moving from one location to the next, trying to survive, scavenging for supplies, checking drawers for ammunition, looking under beds, grabbing whatever weapons he can find, and simply trying to get the hell out of Raccoon City. That progression feels incredibly reminiscent of the gameplay loop from the Resident Evil games—and even something like The Last of Us.
That’s what excites me most.
It doesn’t necessarily look like Cregger is trying to recreate one specific game beat-for-beat. Instead, it feels like he’s trying to capture what it feels like to play a Resident Evil game. To me, that’s far more interesting than simply recreating familiar cutscenes or checking off a list of iconic characters.
And speaking of characters, I’ve already seen complaints that Leon, Jill Valentine, or other fan favorites don’t appear to be front and center. Honestly? That doesn’t bother me at all.
If the movie nails the atmosphere, the horror, the tension, and the feeling of surviving in Raccoon City, that’s what matters. It doesn’t need to be a one-for-one adaptation of a video game.
Abrams also looks like a fantastic choice for the lead. He was one of the standouts in Weapons, and he’s really good at playing the everyman who’s suddenly thrown into impossible situations. This trailer makes it look like the entire movie is essentially his desperate attempt to survive one nightmare after another, and I’m completely on board with that.
Paul Hauser pops up briefly, but this definitely looks like the Austin Abrams show.
Another thing I love is how restrained the marketing has been. Just like Weapons, these trailers feel like they’re intentionally holding back the biggest reveals. I don’t think we’ve seen the craziest creature moments, the biggest zombie sequences, or whatever horrifying “final boss” Cregger has waiting for us. That’s exactly how I want a trailer to be. Save the insane stuff for the actual movie.
I actually think I preferred the first trailer just a little more. The use of the phone’s busy signal woven throughout the teaser created an incredibly creepy atmosphere, especially since it looks like Abrams’ character keeps trying to call his girlfriend throughout the film. That trailer felt a little more unsettling, while this new one focuses more on the action and the overall journey.
That said, this latest trailer only made me more excited.
It looks like a fast-paced, brutal survival horror ride with gruesome creature effects, intense scares, and the kind of relentless momentum that Cregger has already proven he’s great at delivering. Barbarian had sequences that genuinely terrified me before things got a little goofier later on, so I have no doubt this movie is going to be gross, scary, and completely unhinged in all the right ways.
Maybe I’m not a Resident Evil purist because I didn’t grow up playing every game, but from where I’m sitting, this looks like it’s capturing the spirit of the franchise rather than obsessing over recreating every single detail.
Sometimes that’s exactly what an adaptation should do.
September can’t get here soon enough.
