Resident Evil has now existed in some form for nearly 30 years. The series began as a 1996 video game by Japanese creators Shinji Mikami and Tokuro Fujiwara. The games focus on an environment inhabited by zombies or other non-human and mutated creatures. Six years after the release of the first game, the Paul W.S. Anderson movie adaptation of Resident Evil was released. It starred Milla Jovovich in the lead role and had several sequels. The most recent installment, 2021’s Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, rebooted the franchise.

At the beginning of this year, another Resident Evil reboot was announced. The film is set to be directed by Zach Cregger, who is best known for his horror film Barbarian. It later set a release date of September 18, 2026, making it roughly one year away. The movie is also reportedly eyeing Austin Abrams as one of its main stars. While there is a lot of information still to come regarding the Resident Evil reboot, the team has made the right choice with its director.

Barbarian Is Actually Scary, Which The Resident Evil Movies Lacked

This Justifies The Big Price Tag For Cregger

In many ways, Cregger is a huge risk for the franchise. Though he is releasing Weapons later this year, he only has one theatrically released movie that was directed solely by him. This movie, Barbarian, was also made on only a $4.5 million budget, whereas the Resident Evil film will have a much higher budget as a more mainstream horror movie. Cregger is reportedly being paid $20 million for his work as a writer, director, and producer on Resident Evil, which is over four times Barbarian‘s entire budget.

However, there are plenty of reasons for the studio to take this chance on Cregger. With Barbarian, the director showed not only that his films had the capacity to turn a large profit, but that he could make something genuinely scary. Barbarian really delivers on its horror promise, maintaining a sense of mystery while also being genuinely terrifying. Cregger’s upcoming film Weapons also looks scary based on the trailer, which further speaks to the director’s propensity for strong horror.

The original Japanese video game series was always heavily focused on the horror elements of Resident Evil. The movies, however, lacked this sense of fear, despite including the constant threat of zombies. Instead, the films leaned a lot more heavily on their action elements, focusing instead on creating thrilling set pieces that also happen to feature zombies. Cregger is unlikely to tone down the violence and gore of Resident Evil, but his ability to create genuine fear will give the movies something they have been missing.

Barbarian Features The Kind Of Unsettling Monster That’s Perfect For Resident Evil

And Cregger Should Mimic This

Though it keeps its antagonist secret for much of the film, Barbarian does feature a monster character as its main villain. Played by Matthew Patrick Davis, this character is The Mother. Living in the tunnels beneath a Detroit rental house, she is a deformed and violent woman. While this monster is ultimately a human character, unlike the antagonists of Resident Evil, her history makes it such that she has an extremely off-putting look. Her rotting teeth, thin hair, and filthy body make The Mother unsettling, really showing what Cregger is interested in monster-wise.

A monster like this would be perfect for Resident Evil. Zombies, by nature, are twisted versions of human beings, and thus have to have some human qualities while still being warped in some significant way. Both the video game and movie franchises have existing models for what the zombies might look like, but Cregger has the opportunity to make them his own. If he designs the zombies to look anything like The Mother did in Barbarian, audiences are in for a treat in the Resident Evil reboot.