Resident Evil (2026)
Resident Evil is a 2026 horror movie directed by Zach Cregger, with a running time of 1h 35m. It stars Austin Abrams, Paul Walter Hauser and Kali Reis.
Bryan drives medical packages around Raccoon City on an ordinary night shift. The outbreak reaches him while he is still on the clock, and his delivery route becomes the only plan he has.
Zach Cregger directs from a screenplay he co-wrote with Shay Hatten, the second attempt at rebooting the film series built on Capcom's games. The frame comes from Resident Evil 2, the 1998 game, moved to the present day and told as an alternate version of that night: same city, same viral collapse, a different person caught inside it. Austin Abrams heads the cast as Bryan. Zach Cherry, Kali Reis, Paul Walter Hauser and Johnno Wilson play supporting roles.
Putting a courier at the center keeps everything at street level. Bryan is an employee on a route, and the virus finds him mid-shift. The film carries both genre labels, science fiction and horror, and the infection is the hinge between them. Players who know Raccoon City will recognize its geography and the rules the monsters follow. Anyone arriving cold gets a contained outbreak story that runs across one night in one city. It has not been released yet, so the premise, the cast and the creative team are what there is to go on.
Cast
Similar movies
Explore Resident Evil guides
Resident Evil in our writing
- play this first: The Only Resident Evil You Need Before Friday
- original vs remake: Ghost in the Shell's Hollywood Remake Missed the Point
A few thoughts on Resident Evil
The novel Resident Evil: City of the Dead covers the same Raccoon City night from the game this film reworks, so it doubles as a map of what is being changed. Survivor Song is the closest book in spirit: a doctor driving through a fast-moving outbreak across one compressed day, told through someone with a job to finish. For a game, State of Decay puts survival back into logistics, scavenging routes and rationing daylight while the streets get worse. On television, Black Summer runs an outbreak at ground level with almost no exposition, which is the register a courier story lives in, and All of Us Are Dead does the same trick inside one school building. The Walking Dead in its original comic form is the long version, for readers who want more than a single night.
Outbreak movies that stay inside one city
Resident Evil keeps Bryan on his delivery route while Raccoon City collapses around him, so the map stays small and the clock does the work. These picks share that shape: a single town, a single night or a few days, and characters who can only move through the thing instead of away from it.
Survival horror games to play before the movie
Cregger builds from Resident Evil 2, a game about scarce ammo, locked doors and a route you learn by walking it. These carry the same pressure to the controller: scavenging that matters, zombies that outlast your bullets, and maps you memorize out of necessity. Start here if the film sends you looking for that feeling in playable form.
Outbreak fiction worth reading on paper
Resident Evil takes the 1998 game's Raccoon City night and retells it around an ordinary delivery driver. Novels and comics have been working that angle for decades: one civilian, no training, a virus already ahead of the news. These follow people with jobs and errands when the infrastructure quits, including a tie-in novel set in the same city.
Horror brands restarted with a new director
This is the second try at rebooting the Resident Evil films, with Zach Cregger writing and directing instead of continuing the older series. Horror keeps doing this: same title, new crew, a fresh reading of the source. These are recent restarts and remakes of names that already had films, if you want to see how the swap tends to go.