{"id":501453,"date":"2026-06-29T18:25:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T18:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/501453\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T18:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T18:25:09","slug":"zach-creggers-resident-evil-just-happens-to-be-a-resi-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/501453\/","title":{"rendered":"Zach Cregger\u2019s Resident Evil \u2018Just Happens To Be A Resi Movie\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

You\u2019d imagine that, in the wake of Barbarian<\/a> and Weapons<\/a> \u2013 two of the best and buzziest horror films in recent years \u2013 all kinds of franchises came calling to filmmaker Zach Cregger. But as it turns out, Resident Evil<\/a> was entirely his choice. For his third feature as director, Cregger is presenting his own story set in the world of the video game saga he loves, with all-new characters and spooky setpieces \u2013 and he was the one who approached the rights owners.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were kind enough to hear me out and let me run with it,\u201d Cregger tells Empire, promising a film that is very much him, wrapped up in a beloved IP. \u201cIt\u2019s really a Zach Cregger movie that just happens to be a Resident Evil movie.\u201d As a major fan of the games<\/a>, Cregger is dialling in on what it feels like to play them \u2013 with Austin Abrams\u2019 medical courier Bryan as an audience surrogate \u201cThe concept here is that we\u2019re following an idiot,\u201d says Cregger. \u201cNot that he\u2019s stupid, but he\u2019s not your typical game character, with no combat skills whatsoever and completely inept at survival. Bryan is very much an everyman who happens to be burdened with this kind of sacred mission that\u2019s going to take him into the heart of everything. It\u2019s kind of like Frodo going into Mordor.\u201d<\/p>\n

The result, he promises, should feel relentless \u2013 a non-stop horror thrill-ride, lighter on the twisty-turny perspective-shifting narratives of his previous two films. \u201cIt feels like one gigantic sequence,\u201d he says. \u201cThings pop off about five minutes in and it basically stays like that until the end. What I love about the games is that you move from set-piece to set-piece. Every location has a unique challenge. So again, I\u2019m borrowing from the games directly in that rhythm, where you\u2019re just running through a gauntlet.\u201d Game on.<\/p>\n

\"Empire<\/p>\n

Read Empire\u2019s full Resident Evil story in The Odyssey issue<\/a>, on sale Thursday July 2. Pre-order a copy online here<\/a>. Resident Evil comes to cinemas on September 18.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You\u2019d imagine that, in the wake of Barbarian and Weapons \u2013 two of the best and buzziest horror…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501454,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[156,409,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-501453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}