Zach Cregger is bringing his vision of Resident Evil to the big screen, and that vision is lifting a specific point of view from the games. The Weapons director has been clear about what he wants to bring to the adaptation. He isn’t trying to recreate one of Capcom’s hit games scene for scene. The director is attempting to recreate the tension of playing them. The small details will matter in this film. Limited ammo, upgrading weapons, and navigating a labyrinth of a city on fire will all feel familiar to players of the game. In interviews, Cregger has repeatedly stressed that survival horror is the priority of his adaptation. That already separates his approach from the previous action-heavy iteration of Resident Evil. But that doesn’t mean he’s deleting the details of the game that players love. Now a new look at the movie shows one very literal way he’s translating the experience from the console to the screen.
In a new promotional clip released on X, fans got their first look at Easter eggs from the game Cregger has hidden throughout the film. The footage features classic items like the medicinal spray and green herbs. The classic typewriter save point even makes an appearance. But the part of the clip getting the most attention is the shot where the camera slips into a first-person point of view as a pistol is raised. Switching to first-person pov when aiming has been a mechanic in the RE games since their inception. Instead of just watching a movie, players may find themselves flashing back to the dread of running out of ammo and realizing they forgot to save at the typewriter.
“I happen to worship these Resident Evil games and pull a lot of inspiration from the experience of playing them,” Cregger says. “I try to keep the environment changing every seven or eight minutes, like the games, you know? You’re always kind of moving into another level, as it were. The games always kind of have this progression where you start with a pistol and then you graduate to a shotgun. And then you graduate to a machine gun. There’s a lot of items from the games. This is an opportunity for me to be loyal to the games in spirit and in tone and build a story that just puts you in that scenario again and again and again with increasing stakes.”
Not the First First-Person POV
Hollywood has put audiences behind the gun before, and two movies show both the appeal and the risk. The much-maligned 2005 adaptation of Doom is still positively remembered for its brief first-person finale. The movie rewards viewers who survived the drudge of the previous 70 minutes and adopts the perspective of the classic game for its final demon onslaught. Hardcore Henry took the idea even further by shooting almost the entirety of the film from the protagonist’s point of view. At its best, the format made action feel immediate and refreshing but it mostly barraged and exhausted the audience. Cregger appears to be splitting the difference. Making the POV a tool, not a gimmick.
The Resident Evil franchise has navigated multiple approaches to adapt its specific brand of apocalypse. The CG-animated films continue the continuity of the game while hitting very specific beats. The Jovovich live-action movies built their own anthology around familiar moments from the game, but within worlds the filmmaker wanted to explore outside Raccoon City. Cregger is trying something different. This is the first real attempt to tell an original Resident Evil story while making the experience feel like playing the games. His inclusion of classic monsters and inventory items from the game will be comfort food for die hard fans. We just hope that doesn’t include the soul-crushing feeling of seeing the “You Are Dead” animation for the 76th time.