Zach Cregger’s RESIDENT EVIL Movie Reveals Creepy New Image of an Infected
Zach Cregger has become one of the most exciting filmmakers working in horror. After breaking through with Barbarian in 2022 and following it up with the Oscar-winning Weapons in 2025, he's now taking on one of horror gaming's biggest franchises with Resident Evil.
If the early marketing is any indication, he's not interested in delivering the kind of adaptation fans have seen before.
The first teaser trailer already hinted at the oppressive atmosphere and nightmare-fueled imagery Cregger has crafted for the film, but it kept most of its secrets locked away. There was very little revealed about the story, the characters, or the creatures lurking in the darkness.
Now, a newly released image offers fans their clearest look yet at one of Resident Evil's signature monsters, the zombies, or as they're referred to here, the "Infected."
Of course, anyone expecting the movie to revolve around nothing but zombies may want to adjust those expectations. Cregger has made it clear that the T-virus opens the door to much stranger possibilities than the walking dead.
"You have the opportunity for the T-virus to do all these fascinating things to the human body and the world around you, so to just limit it to zombies feels like a squandered opportunity, so I tried to vary it up," Cregger said.
That approach already seems to be reflected in the teaser trailer, which flashes disturbing creatures that go far beyond traditional zombies. Among them are a massive, hairless, grotesquely obese figure crouching inside a sewer and a horrifying multi-body creature lurking in a dark doorway.
According to Cregger, that nightmare fuel "changes and evolves over the course of the movie" as it relentlessly hunts Bryan.
In Empire's feature on the film, Cregger also addressed something longtime fans have been wondering since the project was announced. Rather than directly adapting one of the games or creating another spinoff, he's making an original horror story set within the Resident Evil universe.
"It's really a Zach Cregger movie that just happens to be a Resident Evil movie."
The story centers on Austin Abrams, who plays Bryan, a medical courier sent on what turns into the worst delivery route imaginable. He finds himself heading straight into the city where the deadly virus outbreak begins, completely unprepared for the nightmare that's waiting for him.
Cregger explained why Bryan isn't the typical action hero audiences might expect. "The concept here is that we’re following an idiot. Not that he’s stupid, but he’s 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’s going to take him into the heart of everything. It’s kind of like Frodo going into Mordor."
That perspective actually feels very true to the early Resident Evil games. Before the series leaned further into explosive action, the franchise was built around survival horror, where every bullet mattered and escaping alive often depended more on quick thinking than firepower.
Cregger says that's exactly the feeling he's trying to recreate. "It feels like one gigantic sequence. Things 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’m borrowing from the games directly in that rhythm, where you’re just running through a gauntlet."
That sounds like a movie that captures the pacing and tension fans experienced while playing the games. Instead of stopping for lengthy exposition, it promises a relentless series of terrifying encounters where every new location introduces another horrifying challenge.
The latest image of the Infected may only offer a small taste of what's coming, but paired with everything Cregger has revealed so far, it's becoming clear that this version of Resident Evil is aiming to embrace the franchise's survival horror roots while also pushing the T-virus mythology into some truly twisted territory.
If Cregger can deliver on that promise, horror fans and longtime Resident Evil players could be in for one seriously intense ride.