“I feel like there’s been so many people taking what I say about this exact thing out of context and saying: ‘He just wanted to make the movie that he wanted to make, and then slap Resident Evil on it, so he could get a bigger budget.’ Which is not the case. It was conceived to be a Resident Evil story. And when you watch the movie, you’ll know that’s the case, because it’s undeniable.”…
… So while Cregger was – and is – a big fan of the games, the films? Not so much. When I ask what the relationship is of his film to the rest of the series – a sequel? Prequel? Universe-expanding retro-reboot? – he shrugs and says, somewhat proudly: “I couldn’t really say. I’ve never seen one.”
Still, as Cregger appreciates, video game adaptations are tricky for a reason: they are expected to serve the play-experienced aficionados and the clueless noobs. Cregger’s big idea for bridging this gap is to create a moviegoing experience that feels like a 90-minute session on the PlayStation, even for those audience members who may never have previously heard of Resident Evil. Narratively, this means following a single character, medical courier Bryan (Austin Abrams), as he attempts to deliver a cooler containing a transplant organ from hospital A in the flatlands to hospital B in the remote mountains near Raccoon City, Colorado, where – unbeknown to Bryan – a zombie outbreak is now under way. As in the game, Bryan regularly switches environment, progressing from snowy road to deserted farmhouse to sewage tunnel. In each new place, he must find the resources to survive. Shooting the film in a rural part of Czechia was, therefore, an appropriately gruelling experience for Cregger. “It was dark. It was cold. It was unrelenting,” he says. “I had pneumonia for the first half of the movie, and a horrible bacterial infection for the back half … It sucked.”
It may have sucked, but it worked. Judging by the 30-minute preview made available to press, Cregger’s film is exhilarating and immersive. He utilised the over-the-shoulder camera angles now synonymous with third-person shooters to mimic gameplay, and Bryan’s dialogue is mostly a soliloquy of disjointed profanities. “That’s how I talk to myself when I’m sitting on the couch playing Resident Evil,” says Cregger. “I mean, I basically only say ‘fuck’ and run away from things.”