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Zach Cregger’s ‘Resident Evil’ Reboot Is Already Winning Over Skeptical Fans Before It Even Hits Theaters, According to First Reactions

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Video game adaptations have earned a rocky reputation in Hollywood, and few franchises carry that baggage quite as heavily as this particular survival horror series. Between tonal missteps and adaptations that struggled to capture what made the games so beloved in the first place, fans have learned to approach each new attempt with a healthy dose of skepticism.

That skepticism only intensified back in July when the first trailer for Zach Cregger’s take on ‘Resident Evil’ dropped, sparking immediate debate among longtime fans over just how faithful this new version would actually be to its source material. Cregger, fresh off the critical and commercial success of ‘Barbarian’ and ‘Weapons,’ had already signaled this wouldn’t be a straightforward retelling of any single game.

Now, with the film’s September 18 release rapidly approaching, early reactions to advance footage are suggesting Cregger may have actually cracked the code. Sony screened the film’s opening 30 minutes for press and audiences across Los Angeles, New York, and Dallas on September 1, and the response has been overwhelmingly enthusiastic.

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The recurring theme across social media reactions has been one of pleasant surprise, with viewers who arrived curious or outright doubtful leaving convinced Cregger had genuinely nailed the assignment. One attendee described the footage as feeling exactly “like a game,” counting roughly five legitimate jump scares within the half-hour screening and calling the experience “terrifying.”

JoBlo’s JimmyO, who attended one of the press screenings, called the opening stretch “one of the best set-ups to a horror flick I’ve seen in a while,” praising how the footage balanced “horror with laughs and chills and thrills” while describing the visual approach as “moody, creepy, atmospheric, and funny.” That blend of dread and dark comedy tracks closely with the tonal signature Cregger established in his previous genre hits.

Cregger himself addressed the inherent skepticism surrounding the project directly, telling IGN that his goal wasn’t to simply slap the franchise’s name onto an unrelated story to secure funding. “This is not me just telling a story and slapping ‘Resident Evil’ on it so I can get a budget. This is me telling a ‘Resident Evil’ story. I understand the resistance, I do, because I have it myself. It is coming from a true place of love,” he said.

Rather than adapting any single existing game directly, Cregger built an entirely original narrative featuring new characters, centered on Bryan, a medical courier played by Austin Abrams, whose ordinary night spirals into chaos when he becomes trapped in an outbreak-fueled fight for survival. Speaking to Empire back in June, Cregger described the project’s underlying philosophy plainly: “It’s really a Zach Cregger movie that just happens to be a ‘Resident Evil’ movie,” explaining that he personally approached the franchise’s rights holders to pitch the concept.

That approach hasn’t come without behind-the-scenes adjustments. Cregger has revealed that early test screenings actually flagged the film as leaning too far into comedy, prompting him to trim some of the humor to better balance the horror elements audiences are now praising. He’s also confirmed this marks the most violent film of his career to date, a claim that lines up with the R rating and the visceral, gore-heavy reactions already circulating online.

With the strong opening act now generating exactly the kind of word-of-mouth buzz studios dream about, and Cregger himself teasing that the film’s tension only escalates from there, ‘Resident Evil’ appears genuinely positioned to break the franchise’s long streak of underwhelming screen adaptations. Whether the full film sustains that momentum remains to be seen, but for a franchise this often burned by Hollywood, these early signs are about as encouraging as fans could have hoped for.

How do you feel about Zach Cregger's Resident Evil reboot after the early reactions?

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