Horror fans just received some huge and exciting news.Zach Cregger, who made waves with Barbarian in 2022, and is already receiving great praise for his forthcoming coming film, Weapons, has signed on to direct a reboot of Resident Evil, according to The Hollywood Reporter. It's understandable that four big studios are said to be in a bidding war for the film, not only because Resident Evil is a popular IP, thanks to both the video games and the existing movie franchise, but because of what Cregger has shown he's capable of. Barbarian wasn't only a critical success, with a 92% on Rotten Tomatoes, but it was a decent box office hit as well, making $45 million worldwide. The Resident Evil film and TV franchise has, for the most part, been a disappointment which couldn't capture what we loved so much about the games. However, with Cregger's filming and storytelling style in Barbarian, he has proven that he's the one for the job.
The 'Resident Evil' Movies Were Very Different From the Games
The first Resident Evil game, released in 1996, was terrifyingly effective in its simple premise. Two task force police officers, Chris and Jill, are trapped in a mansion with a plethora of monsters, including zombies, created by the Umbrella Corporation. The game is filled with shadows and dark corners where monsters can jump out at any time, and the tension as a player waits to be attacked again is unnerving in such a confined space. The game was a massive hit and led to several sequels, so it was only a matter of time before a movie happened. George A. Romero, the creator of the modern zombie movie with Night of the Living Dead and more, actually wanted to make a Resident Evil adaptation, but his idea was rejected for being too different from the game.
In 2002, a Resident Evil feature film finally happened, directed by Paul W.S. Anderson and starring Milla Jovovich and Michelle Rodriguez. It made a good amount of money at the box office, taking in $102 million worldwide, which was good enough to lead to a six-film franchise, but these movies were not what gamers had become accustomed to. For one, Resident Evil and its sequels were action movies, where scenes of fighting were prioritized over scares. There were also changes to the plot, but the biggest change of all was the film's lead. Instead of focusing on Chris and Jill, a woman named Alice (Jovovich), who is not even in the game, becomes the focal point. Jovovich is often filmed to be sexy, with her hair done up and even wearing a red dress, and with the film's gloss of that early 2000s shine so prevalent at the time, Resident Evil might have been popcorn fun, but it was not the game, and it was not much of a horror movie.
'Barbarian' Has a Terrifying Monster and Unsettling Claustrophobia
The Resident Evil franchise, minus the seriously underrated Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City in 2021, is missing the fear and grit of the games. That's what makes Zach Cregger the perfect hire to fix it. According to The Hollywood Reporter, "Cregger’s take is described by sources as a revamp that will take the title to its horror roots and be more faithful to the initial games." That's such a relief to read. The last thing we need is another action-centered Resident Evil movie. It's time to make one that scares the shit out of audiences, and that's exactly what Cregger did with Barbarian.
The greatest trick the director ever pulled was convincing the world twists only happen at a movie's end.
Now, Barbarian is not a shoot-em-up movie filled with zombies, but it's impossible to not see the similarities. In Barbarian, Tess (Georgina Campbell), stays at a rental house in the worst part of Detroit, only to discover not only that someone else, a man named Keith (Bill Skarsgård) is already staying there, but that there is something very strange going on downstairs. The basement leads to a seemingly endless maze of dark rooms and tight hallways, creating claustrophobia and tense dread, just like the Resident Evil games do. When Tess and AJ (Justin Long) are searching those rooms, we can imagine them holding a gun and the undead coming lunging for them, with nowhere to retreat to. Out of one of those rooms comes not a zombie, but a horrifying woman who looks more monster than human. When it attacks Keith, it not only scares us silly, but it feels like a great jumpscare from Resident Evil. The rest of Barbarian then becomes a fight for survival for Tess and AJ, but it's not a movie that overdoes it on jumpscares. Barbarian works because it slowly unwinds, eventually showing us the horror many times, but not at a rapid pace like the Resident Evil movies. Instead, Zach Cregger made us sit in the quiet with the terror and take it in. Imagine if a Resident Evil film did that.
Zach Cregger Created Compelling Characters in 'Barbarian'
Image via 20th Century Studios
Like any great movie, none of Barbarian works without first creating characters we care about. This is especially necessary in horror, where the fear comes from putting ourselves in the characters' shoes and empathizing with them. We care for Tess because she's a three-dimensional person, and we're pulled in by Keith, waiting for the reveal that he's the bad guy, then feeling the heartbreak and discovering that he's simply a good guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. For the most part, the Resident Evil movies didn't have that. They were filled with caricatures and not characters, leaving a pixelated game feeling more lifelike than a movie with real people. Milla Jovovich's character felt more like a model with a gun. She might have looked cool, but there was little feeling beyond the visuals. What if we had a Resident Evil movie that reintroduced us to Chris and Jill, but rather than making them plot devices for the action, we spent a good chunk of the first act getting to know them first so that we didn't want to see them hurt? Cregger did that with Barbarian because he's not only visually innovative in his direction, but he wrote the screenplay as well. Having his insight on putting some actual heart and emotion in Resident Evil will do wonders.
This leads to another possibility for a Zach Cregger Resident Evil movie. Directors often like to work with members of their cast from previous films on their future projects. Justin Long and Bill Skarsgård are veterans of horror. Coaxing one of them into doing a Resident Evil movie isn't impossible. What if Skarsgård, who has played the monster so much, could be the good guy hunting the monsters this time in the role of Chris? What if Georgina Campbell, or Julia Garner from Weapons, could be Jill? With Josh Brolin and Alden Ehrenreich in Weapons too, the possibilities are endless. Horror used to be a looked down upon genre where it was a miracle to land one big star. Cregger is such a respected director that he has landed Hollywood's biggest names already. He inevitably will again with Resident Evil. Who knows what kind of story he will write for it, but you can bet that it's going to scare the hell out of you.
Image via 20th Century Studios
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