The zombies and mutants are lurking in the first teaser for the new Resident Evil film adaptation from Weapons director Zach Cregger.
The new teaser offers a glimpse at the simple set-up Cregger has crafted for the film: Bryan, a young medical courier, played by Austin Abrams, wanders into an abandoned house, needing to use a phone. “Hey babe, look, um, I’m really sorry we got disconnected earlier,” he says nervously while leaving a message. “But some things have happened. I’m in like a seriously fucked up situation right now and it looks like there’s a chance that we might not get to talk to each other again.”
As Bryan speaks, the clip teases some of the mayhem to come: Breathless sprints, frantic searches for supplies, and some absolutely terrifying creatures wreaking havoc in Raccoon City. “I just wanted you to know, I love you,” Bryan says, these last words paired with footage of what look like bodies falling out of the sky and exploding on a snowy street.
In an interview with the Playstation blog, Cregger explained that his film isn’t a direct adaptation of one of the installments in the storied video game franchise. Rather, he said, he wanted to “tell a story that could take place in the Resident Evil world” and “celebrate everything I love about the games by telling a story that could exist on the sidelines of one of the games.”
That said, he noted that the film takes place in the “world” of Resident Evil 2, with some shifts for creative reason. “It’s just following a different person who’s on a mission in this horrible night when things are going wrong in Raccoon City, and they’ve got to get something from point A to point B,” Cregger said. “And as they go, they encounter all of the same sorts of things you would encounter in the games. I wanted to keep true to like [in the games], you start with a pistol, you graduate to a shotgun, and then eventually you find an MP5. You’re always worried about how many bullets you have, and you’re getting injured and all those things. So it was such a fun challenge for me to try and write a game as a movie.”
Along with Abrams, Resident Evil will co-star Paul Walter Hauser, Zach Cherry, and Kali Reis. The film is set to hit theaters on Sept. 18.
Eric Rojas*
