Don’t give me hope, PC Gamer’s Elie Gould expressed when Zach Cregger’s upcoming Resident Evil film got a teaser in April. They’ve been let down by Resident Evil movies before, as have we all, but that teaser did give the impression that it might be good.
Now the full trailer for Cregger’s take on Resident Evil is out, and I’m not sure if this counts as good news for Elie or bad news—but yeah, it really does look like this might be a winner.
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What’s interesting about the film, as Cregger explained in May, is that it “takes place alongside the events of Resident Evil 2,” but won’t include any of them, or anyone you know from the game: “It’s an alternate storyline that takes place on the periphery of the hero’s storyline, so it’s a story that could be happening without necessarily breaking the universe of the story the games are telling.”
Cregger said at the time that the film reflects what would happen if he were thrown into a Resident Evil situation in real life, utterly unprepared or unequipped for the situation: “I think it’s just fun to be following someone with no combat experience whatsoever as they’re walking through hell with a machine gun.”
You can see that kind of “fun” in the trailer, which has a very down-dressed Austin Abrams—average guy extraordinaire—suddenly up to his neck in awfulness. There’s a humor to it not present in that April teaser that reminds me a bit of the Evil Dead flicks: That zoom-in on the shotgun over the mantle is just about a dead lift from Sam Raimi’s groundbreaking splatter flicks, and Abrams’ reaction as he looks out the window and sees the zombie running toward the house, well, maybe it’s just me but I find it very funny.
I don’t think the whole film is going to be played for laughs—Cregger has previously said that what he loves about survival horror and Resident Evil specifically is the “overwhelming feeling of dread,” and individual moments of levity don’t mean that the experience as a whole isn’t going to be horrific. But I do think that by making a parallel addition to the mythos, Cregger has a chance to cook up something much more interesting than previous films—and maybe, one that’s actually good.
Resident Evil is set to hit screens on September 18.
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