One of the hottest horror directors on the planet adapting the world's most popular scary video game series? On paper Zach Cregger and Resident Evil are the perfect unholy alliance. The film-maker was widely praised for his original, imaginative work on horror hits Weapons and Barbarian and is a long-time fan of the video game series.
But in the lead-up to the film’s release, Cregger’s spent a lot of time defending himself against complaints he’s cashing in on the Resident Evil name. Speaking to BBC Newsbeat, the director says he was "not prepared" for what came his way. First launched in 1996 on the original Sony PlayStation by Japanese developer Capcom, Resident Evil was a sensation.
Rather than casting players as super-powered characters, as was the case with most video games in the 90s, it forced them to survive with limited resources. Thanks to smart reinventions and remakes, the series has managed to stay relevant, selling a total of 213 million copies since its debut. Some of its characters are among the most well-known in video games, and there are whole communities dedicated to discussing the lore of their universe.
Cregger's Resident Evil follows the story of Bryan, an original character played by Austin Abrams who worked with the director on Weapons. He's a courier who agrees to deliver a package to a hospital in Raccoon City - a key location from the games. As Bryan makes his way to the drop-off, it becomes apparent he is caught in the middle of some sort of viral outbreak, with the infected becoming monstrous creatures.
When the first trailer appeared online, many users swamped comment sections to complain about what they'd seen. Where were the beloved characters? Cregger says he had little interest in simply retelling the story of the Resident Evil games, but that didn't seem to calm some fans.
"I think I was expecting people to be excited to see a Resident Evil movie that felt in the spirit of the games. "What I was trying to do is make a movie that really honoured the experience of playing them." According to most reviews, Cregger has achieved what he set out to do. In its three-star review, NME , externalasked whether it was "the first great horror movie game adaptation".
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