Zach Cregger isn't joking around anymore - and he's perfectly fine with that. The filmmaker behind the new Resident Evil says he's made peace with the idea that his comedy days might be behind him, even as his horror instincts have turned him into one of the most in-demand directors in Hollywood.
Resident Evil hit theaters on September 16, 2026, and it's already making noise with audiences. The film, distributed by New Line Cinema, plunges viewers into a single, unrelenting night of terror: Austin Abrams plays Bryan, a medical courier who stumbles into a fight for his life as the world around him dissolves into chaos. It's a lean 95 minutes, and by all accounts, it doesn't waste a second of them.
The movie's ensemble includes Zach Cherry as Dave, Kali Reis as Pauline, Paul Walter Hauser as Carl, Johnno Wilson as Max, and Shaun W. Loeser as Puker, with Cregger himself lending his voice to a role. Behind the camera, Cregger is the sole credited director, and the film has struck a chord - it currently sits at a 7.806/10 rating on TMDb, a strong showing for a horror release in a crowded fall season.
The project marks a significant pivot for Cregger, who first made his name in comedy as a founding member of the sketch group The Whitest Kids U' Know before transitioning to horror with 2022's Barbarian. That film was a critical and commercial surprise, and it opened doors that led him - eventually - to the Resident Evil franchise. But the shift in genre hasn't been a temporary detour. According to Cregger, it might be permanent.
Why Cregger Doubts a Comedy Comeback
In a recent conversation about the film, Cregger was candid about where his creative head is at these days. He explained that the kind of comedy he grew up making - the sketch-driven, anything-goes style that defined his early career - doesn't call to him the way it once did. The horror space, by contrast, has given him a new set of tools and a new way of thinking about storytelling.
"I don't know if I'll ever go back to comedy," Cregger said, reflecting on how his interests have evolved. He didn't rule it out entirely, but he made clear that his current focus is on tension, dread, and the mechanics of fear - the stuff that makes an audience grip the armrest.
That mindset is exactly what he brought to Resident Evil, a property with a famously complicated history on screen. The franchise has been adapted many times before, often to mixed results, and Cregger approached the material with a clear-eyed sense of what he wanted to avoid. Rather than trying to recreate the video games beat for beat or imitate what previous films had done, he zeroed in on a single, intimate survival story: one courier, one night, and a horrifying collapse of order.
A Lean, Mean 95-Minute Nightmare
The decision to keep the film tight - 95 minutes, no wasted subplots - fits that philosophy. Cregger has said he wanted the movie to feel like a single sustained plunge, with Bryan's desperation driving every scene. Austin Abrams, best known for roles in Euphoria and Wolfs, anchors the film as the unlikely hero, while the supporting cast brings a mix of menace and oddball energy that Cregger's fans will recognize from his earlier work.
There's comedy in the DNA of Resident Evil, of course - Cregger's sensibility doesn't disappear entirely - but it's filtered through horror now, used to disarm audiences before the next scare lands. It's a balance he's learned to strike, and one he seems in no hurry to abandon.
For now, Resident Evil is in theaters, and Cregger is riding a wave that has taken him from cult sketch comedy to franchise filmmaking. Whether he ever returns to his roots is an open question - but if he doesn't, he's made it clear he won't lose any sleep over it. The scare business, it turns out, suits him just fine.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
