Zach Cregger Says His Next Movie Isn’t Actually Horror, Even Though It’s “Disturbing”

Genre labels rarely stick well to filmmakers who spend their careers deliberately breaking convention, and few directors have made a habit of it quite like Zach Cregger. After building a reputation on unpredictable structural gambles with both “Barbarian” and “Weapons,” the writer-director now has audiences and critics alike associating his name almost exclusively with horror.

That reputation has only grown following the massive success of his “Resident Evil” reboot, which is currently playing in theaters to some of the strongest reviews of Cregger’s career. With that project now out in the world, the filmmaker has shifted his attention to explaining what comes next, and his latest comments suggest fans expecting more straightforward horror might be in for something different.

Speaking with Men’s Health, Cregger described his next directorial project, “The Flood,” as a sci-fi thriller that follows a crew on a remote space station who discover an alien object capable of distorting time, reality, and the human mind. Despite containing scenes he called genuinely “disturbing,” Cregger was firm that he doesn’t consider the film a horror movie in the traditional sense.

When asked which science-fiction films might serve as a north star for the project, Cregger pointed directly to Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” as an influence, while being careful not to draw too close a comparison to a film widely regarded as one of cinema’s greatest achievements. “I just love the story, dude,” Cregger told Men’s Health. “That movie is about something in a real way that’s important to me. It’s another bizarre narrative structure in the way that ‘Weapons’ and ‘Barbarian’ are, but it’s not jumping perspectives.”

The ALIENS (1986) 35mm trailer is a gorgeous little piece of film history. There’s something special about seeing it in that original format. pic.twitter.com/31PAEnStzM

— cinesthetic. (@TheCinesthetic) August 12, 2026

Cregger’s comparison to Kubrick’s landmark film isn’t just about visual scale or setting. He specifically praised “2001” for asking big philosophical questions, suggesting “The Flood” aims to engage with similarly weighty ideas rather than simply delivering scares in a space-station setting.

That ambition tracks with earlier reporting on the project, which has previously drawn comparisons to Ridley Scott’s “Alien” for its premise of a crew encountering a mysterious, non-human entity while isolated off-world. Combining those two influences, Kubrick’s philosophical scope and the claustrophobic dread of an “Alien”-style deep-space thriller, suggests Cregger is aiming for something tonally distinct from the more grounded horror of his previous two films.

2001: A Space Odyssey Official Re-Release Trailer (2014). pic.twitter.com/j62DzsVoKe

— Best of Kubrick (@KubrickPoint) February 18, 2026

“The Flood” first entered public conversation when it was announced at CinemaCon as an original sci-fi thriller produced alongside Steven Spielberg, with Cregger promising the pairing would “deliver an unforgettable theatrical experience.” Cregger has previously described the project with an almost protective intensity, having once said he would go to extreme lengths just to see the film get made.

Shooting on “The Flood” is expected to begin early next year, with the film currently targeting an August 2028 release date. That timeline places it well after Cregger wraps his current victory lap with “Resident Evil,” giving him space to fully shift creative gears before diving into the new project.

Given how thoroughly Cregger has reshaped audience expectations with each of his last three films, his insistence that “The Flood” isn’t horror despite its unsettling content fits a now-familiar pattern. Whether genre labels ultimately matter once the film reaches theaters remains to be seen, but Cregger’s track record suggests skepticism might be misplaced.

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