'Resident Evil' Goes Back to Survival Horror in Terrifying New Trailer

Sony released the second trailer for Zach Cregger's Resident Evil this morning, and I have to say I am incredibly excited about this one. The film seems to have cracked the code on making a good adaptation of a story from this universe.

The games have never been about plot as much as they've been about characters in terrible situations. They're about the sound of something shuffling in a hallway you have to walk down. You have to.

Austin Abrams plays Bryan, a medical courier whose delivery run drops him into the middle of an outbreak. Bloody Disgusting has already pointed out that the trailer is loaded with Capcom callbacks like the typewriter, the first-aid spray, shotgun shells, plus a Raccoon City name-drop at the end.

Cregger directs from a script he co-wrote with Shay Hatten (John Wick: Chapters 3 and 4). It hits theaters and IMAX Sept. 18.

Check out the trailer below.

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Meet Bryan

This trailer gives us a lot more character work to start. Bryan is bumbling and clueless and motivated by a big payday while also coping with a contentious relationship.

He stumbles into a farmhouse after hitting someone (or something) with his car. Then, of course, everything goes downhill from there.

Adapting the Game's Vibes

Cregger didn't adapt a game one-for-one. He wrote an original story set during the events of Resident Evil 2, documenting the first night the T-virus got loose.

He told IGN, "Basically, my rule for this movie was to just try and make a movie that felt like my experience of playing the games that could live in the world of Resident Evil. So I feel like this movie takes place alongside the events of Resident Evil 2."

That's a smarter move than a recreation of one of the existing stories, because it frees him to chase the sensation of playing rather than the memory of watching a cutscene. We covered the first teaser back in May, where we also pointed out he's importing the domestic dread from Barbarian into a studio franchise.

Withholding Is the Whole Strategy

The trailer spends its runtime on Bryan, the protagonist. It shows you a man scrambling for weapons he doesn't know how to use, and shows you almost nothing of what's chasing him. That restraint is deliberate. In that IGN trailer breakdown, Cregger said, "This movie doesn't utilize zombies that much. It's much more focused on the weird creature stuff than the zombies."

He went further on why he's avoiding the obvious:

"I just feel like you have this opportunity for the T-Virus to do all these really fascinating things to the human body and to the world around you. And so to just limit it to zombies feels like a squandered opportunity. I tried to really vary it up."

If you're cutting your own trailer, take note of what they did here. Try selling the protagonist's problem, not just cool creature design.

Cregger has done this before. We broke down how Weapons controls emotional distance through camera placement, and the same instinct is at work here.

A Tight 95 Minutes

Per an AMC Theatres listing (via Bloody Disgusting), the film runs one hour and 35 minutes. For a franchise tentpole, that's pretty lean.

Weapons ran 128 minutes and still found success as original horror audiences showed up for it, so Cregger clearly isn't padding by default. A 95-minute survival horror movie has no room for a second act that idles, which is exactly the framework that makes this kind of premise so exciting.

Cregger has built a career on doing the unexpected version of a familiar setup. This trailer suggests he's found a franchise that rewards it.

Let us know what you think of the new trailer.