Zach Cregger isn’t trying to faithfully recreate a specific Resident Evil game with his movie adaptation, yet his plot is tied very closely to one of the franchise’s best entries. At a virtual roundtable with members of the press, including Polygon, the director of Weapons and Barbarian explained the idea behind his next film.
“I wanted to construct a story that could live in the world of Resident Evil and kind of be on the periphery of the events of Resident Evil 2, where Raccoon City is having its big night, but tell just another story that could be happening in parallel, that really honors the vibe and the pacing you get when you play the games,” Cregger said.
Resident Evil follows Bryan (Weapons breakout star Austin Abrams), a medical courier encountering nightmarish creatures as he tries to make a delivery to Raccoon City. Just like many video game players see themselves in the characters they’re controlling, Cregger calls Bryan an avatar for how he imagines he’d behave if he was dropped into the world of Capcom’s long-running zombie franchise.
“I am not a badass at all. I don’t know how to use guns very well,” Cregger said. “I miss 99% of the shots I take, and I would be running in terror and cussing my face off at every encounter. I think it’s going to be really fun to be following somebody through this gauntlet that is not like SEAL Team Six-level prepared.”
The juxtaposition is just part of why he invented a new protagonist rather than deploying police officer Leon S. Kennedy. Beyond the fact that the franchise mascot wasn’t a good fit for the story Cregger wanted to tell, he was also wary of messing up a fan-favorite character.
“I’m just going to tell another story that feels like playing a game in the world of the game, but I’m not stepping on the toes of any of Leon’s storyline,” he said. “I’m not recasting Leon, God forbid. I’m letting Leon stay Leon and I feel like that’s the most respectful thing I could do.”
While Resident Evil should be accessible to audiences who haven’t played any of the games, Cregger did load the film with Easter eggs and sequences that follow the franchise’s rules. For instance, early in the game Bryan will use a pistol. He later graduates to a shotgun, and he’s wielding a machine gun by the end of the film. Cregger also paid tribute to Resident Evil 4, his favorite game in the franchise, by including the Green Herb and First Aid Spray healing items.
“I don’t spend a whole lot of time talking about stuff that’s only in the games,” Cregger said. “It’s more like [Bryan’s] going to open a room and see a typewriter on a desk. Anybody who plays the games is going to know exactly what he’s looking at, anyone who doesn’t play the games is going to be like What’s the big deal? It’s a typewriter on a desk. I’m putting a lot of objects from the games all over the world.”
Back in December, Polygon also got a feel for how Cregger is channeling the games during a visit to the film’s set in Prague. Cregger wanted to avoid using visual effects as much as possible so the film incorporates several massive sets. Bryan’s destination is a skyscraper hospital in Raccoon City, inspired by London’s Guy’s Tower, and he navigates the building through a working elevator, a skybridge, and an emergency staircase that were all built on a massive studio lot dubbed T-Stage. In one sequence, Austin steps off the stairs and into a hallway with six doors. Production designer Tom Hammock said this subtle detail is meant to evoke the same sort of dread as playing the games because it’s unclear where the next threat is going to come from.
“One of the things Zach really cleverly noticed when doing all the analysis of the Resident Evil gameplay trying to get the feel of the games into the movie, is that Resident Evil has way more doors than it should,” Hammock said. “We kind of leaned into that.”
Along with focusing on a new character, Cregger is also introducing all new threats. A mood board at the studio was packed with images of tentacles, teeth, and signs of viral infection from Resident Evil 4 and 6 along with horrors from nature like parasitic wasp eggs and the hooks on giant squid tentacles. The first teaser trailer provides a glimpse of a particularly disgusting monster lurking in the sewers that was created by Legacy Effects, the practical effects studio that has worked on the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Jurassic Park franchise.
“I also wanted to make sure it all felt very much like these were a product of the T-Virus,” Cregger said. “I love [Resident Evil] Village, but I was a little bummed out by the straight up magic of that game where people turn into birds and fly away and then come back. It’s just too magical for me. I wanted to just keep this a bit more like Resident Evil 2 and a little bit more grounded than even that.”
Cregger’s ultimate goal with this movie is to replicate the feeling of sitting in the dark and being completely petrified while playing Resident Evil 2 for the first time.
“You didn’t know what was going to happen,” Hammock said. “He’s trying to recreate all the scares, the flashlight work, the amount of darkness, the tension as you move through these spaces.”
Resident Evil releases in theaters on Sept. 18.
Disclosure: This article is based on a press event held in Prague. Sony provided Polygon’s travel for the event. You can find additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.
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