Resident Evil already unveiled three terrifying monsters for Zach Cregger's video game adaptation flick. Sony Pictures is heading into the third iteration of the Resident Evil franchise, following a widely panned six-movie saga and a 2021 reboot, Welcome to Raccoon City, that tried and failed to adapt the first two games' story. Next up, the studio has its best shot yet at taking the Capcom survival horror franchise to the big screen, as the director behind last year's Oscar-nominated Weapons is taking the wheel.
Instead of directly adapting any of the Resident Evil games' story or characters, Cregger will tell his own tale in this world on September 18. Weapons actor Austin Abrams is reuniting with Cregger to play Bryan, a medical courier making a delivery as the T-virus outbreak in Raccoon City unfolds, plunging him into a fight for survival in a surprising genre for Resident Evil that nobody expected.
All 3 Monsters in Zach Cregger's Resident Evil Trailer
'Gigantic, Obese, Naked, Hairless Man'
As part of a trailer breakdown with IGN, Resident Evil director Zach Cregger commented on the first T-virus-infused monsters revealed from the flick.
As the main character, Bryan, creeps through the sewers beneath Raccoon City, he glimpses a "gigantic, obese, naked, hairless man," as Cregger puts it:
"I just really love the idea like you're moving through a sewer, you have no idea what's in front of you, and you come around a corner, and you see a gigantic, obese, naked, hairless man just sitting in front of you."
Cregger cited Cormac McCarthy's 1985 novel Blood Meridian and its villain, the Western scalp-hunting mercenary, The Judge, as an inspiration for this terrifying figure, calling it a "little nod to one of [his] favorite books of all time:"
"Part of the inspiration for the look of this guy comes from the book 'Blood Meridian.' There's a character called The Judge in that book who's described as a seven-foot-tall, maybe albino hairless man, and I love the image of that guy, so this is just my little nod to one of my favorite books of all time."
Cregger also noted that this bald-headed creature could be considered a nod to Nemesis from Resident Evil 3, largely because of their mutual hairlessness. That said, he was clear that his take on Resident Evil and Raccoon City has no "gigantic hulking Terminator that's following you:"
"It's also like, I don't have a Nemesis in this movie as the games use - like this gigantic hulking Terminator that's following you - but this is also like a little bit of a nod to the Nemesis."
It's tough to tell how much this creature will be seen in Resident Evil, as it could be anything from a recurring foe to a single-sequence foe. Given how it is first creepily glimpsed as Bryan goes round the corner of a sewer, it seems more likely to be the latter, recreating the experience from RE2 and RE3 of exploring Raccoon City's sewer tunnels only to be jumpscared by terrifying creatures.
Hive-Mind?
At one point in the Resident Evil trailer, Bryan is left terrified by a six-limbed creature crawling out of the house, seemingly taking arms and legs from different human bodies to form this terrifying monster.
While Cregger wasn't eager to give away much about what's coming through the door, the director teased that it stems from a mechanic regarding the "way the infected interact with each other" in the movie. Notably, Cregger said that this creature chases Bryan and "changes and evolves" across the movie:
"I don't wanna give too much away about what's coming out of the door. But I will say that there's a mechanic that I've put into this movie that might be in some of the games, and I just can't remember it being in the games, but it's a way the infected interact with each other, and it's something that kind of pursues him throughout the movie. I don't want to say too much, but I'm really excited for how this creature changes and evolves over the course of the movie."
Based on the director's hint that this creature "pursues" Bryan throughout Resident Evil, this may be the closest thing to RE2's Mr. X or RE3's Nemesis that there is to be found. It may not be a "gigantic hulking terminator," as Cregger put it, but it seems that this could be the main threat pursuing Bryan.
The most obvious theory is that Cregger added some kind of hive mind or connectivity between the T-virus-infected (something that isn't in the games) that allows them to bind together into one, ever-growing monster.
Zombies (But Rationed)
The undead zombies who succumbed to the T-virus plaguing Raccoon City are perhaps the most common monsters padding out a Resident Evil gameplay experience and inconveniencing gamers as they get from A to B.
But it seems they won't be the biggest hurdle for Bryan, as Cregger confirmed that his movie is "much more focused on the weird-creature stuff than on the zombies." In fact, it seems the undead creatures that have sent many a player back to the typewriter in Resident Evil will only be in "two scenes, maybe three:"
"This movie doesn't utilize zombies that much. It's much more focused on the weird-creature stuff than on the zombies. There are only really two scenes, maybe three actually, where there's proper zombie stuff going on, and two of those three are in this trailer."
The horror veteran pointed out how Resident Evil and the T-virus can do "fascinating things to the human body and the world around," so he tosses the idea of just making a zombie movie up to being a "squandered opportunity:"
"I wouldn't call this a zombie movie. 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."
Limiting the zombies' presence in Resident Evil initially seems like a strange decision, given how integral they are to the video games. However, Cregger likes to keep his horrors unique, so cutting back on undead hordes makes a lot of sense to ensure Resident Evil doesn't just become another zombie movie.
Sneak a peek at one of Resident Evil's zombified scenes from the set last year.
