‘Resident Evil’ Will Make You Count Every Bullet, Zach Cregger Reveals

Zach Cregger doesn’t want you simply watching Resident Evil.

He wants you playing along in your head.

Last night, Sony Pictures screened the opening 30 minutes of Cregger’s Resident Evil for fans in Los Angeles, Dallas and New York, followed by a live Reddit AMA with the filmmaker ahead of the film’s September 18 theatrical release.

And Cregger revealed another fascinating way he’s translating the experience of playing Resident Evil into a movie.

Asked how he approached the games’ famous resource management mechanics, Cregger explained:

“I love the resource management aspect of the games and it was really important to me to bring that to the movie,” he explained. “You will know how many bullets are in his gun. YOU will care when he misses a shot.”

Fuck yes.

Cregger added that he wants audiences to remain “keenly aware of his health as he progresses,” teasing that there’s another game-inspired mechanic built into the movie that he isn’t ready to fully reveal yet.

That’s really fucking cool.

As we’ve previously reported here on Dread Central, Cregger isn’t directly adapting any particular Resident Evil game, nor is he pulling its famous playable characters into his story. Instead, he’s been obsessed with translating the actual experience of playing Resident Evil into a movie.

Resident Evil follows Bryan (Austin Abrams), a medical courier whose trip into Raccoon City becomes a nightmarish fight for survival.

We’ve already heard Cregger talk about structuring the movie like the games: entering new environments, encountering barriers, scavenging items and gradually acquiring better weapons. We’ve also previously reported that , further borrowing from the visual language of the franchise.