First Set Photos From Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil Movie Reveal A Snow Covered Raccoon City
Resident Evil fans, it is time to pull out your winter coats and viral antidotes. The first images from the set of Zach Cregger’s upcoming Resident Evil movie have surfaced online, showing Prague transformed into the snow filled streets of Raccoon City. The photos confirm what fans have been whispering about since production began. This new take on the classic franchise looks darker, colder, and much more terrifying than the previous adaptations.
The film is already deep into production and will shamble its way into theaters on September 18, 2026. Cregger, best known for the horror hits Barbarian and Weapons, is stepping into the infected shoes of one of gaming’s most beloved series. He has promised that his version will stay true to the lore of the games but tell a completely new story, avoiding familiar characters like Leon Kennedy and Jill Valentine. Those heroes, he says, have already fought their battles. This time, we are seeing a different side of the outbreak.
The snowy setting immediately gives this new Resident Evil a unique look. The franchise has dabbled in rain, fire, and biological goo, but never winter. It feels fitting for a filmmaker like Cregger, who has a habit of taking familiar horror concepts and twisting them into something unexpected. The frosty streets, abandoned cars, and eerie hospital signs glimpsed in the set pictures promise a version of Raccoon City that feels isolated and quietly doomed, the kind of place where you can hear something terrible moving just beneath the snow.
Cregger co wrote the film with Shay Hatten, who worked on Army of the Dead, and early reports suggest that the story goes back to the series’ survival horror roots. The plot follows Bryan, a laid back organ courier on a late night delivery to Raccoon City General Hospital. Along the way, he hits a mysterious woman with his car, and from there everything goes predictably downhill. What begins as a guilty conscience spirals into an outbreak of tentacled mutations and bio engineered monsters that make you wish you had just kept driving.
The cast includes Austin Abrams from Weapons in the lead role, joined by Paul Walter Hauser from Cobra Kai, Zach Cherry from Severance, Kali Reis from True Detective Night Country, and Johnno Wilson from I Love That For You. Cherry is playing a hospital scientist, while Reis takes on the role of an ex soldier originally written for a male actor. The mix of talent suggests a strong focus on character drama amid the chaos, something Cregger has always excelled at.
For those who have not been following Cregger’s career, his directorial debut Barbarian was a masterclass in tension. It began as a simple rental gone wrong and ended as a descent into madness that made audiences question every decision they had ever made. Weapons, released this year, proved that Barbarian was no fluke, showing a filmmaker who loves structure as much as shock. Cregger has said his Resident Evil will be nothing like those earlier films, describing it as a chance to switch off his brain and have fun, calling it “a rock em sock em Evil Dead II kind of ride.” Translation, more blood, less restraint, and a camera that refuses to sit still.
The Resident Evil franchise itself has had more lives than the average zombie dog. The first wave of live action films, directed by Paul W S Anderson and starring Milla Jovovich, ran from 2002 to 2016 and leaned heavily into action. In 2021, the live action reboot Resident Evil Welcome to Raccoon City attempted a more faithful adaptation of the first two games. Meanwhile, animated entries like Resident Evil Degeneration, Vendetta, and the Netflix series Infinite Darkness have kept the lore alive between reboots.
The games, of course, remain the franchise’s beating, infected heart. Since 1996, Resident Evil has terrified players with mansion corridors, viral outbreaks, and questionable lab experiments. Capcom’s series has reinvented itself several times, from fixed camera survival horror to full blown action and then back again, with Resident Evil 7 and Village pulling the saga into first person terror.
Cregger’s film looks ready to honor that long legacy while carving its own path through the snow. It is being produced and co financed by Constantin Film, with Robert Kulzer, Roy Lee, Miri Yoon, and PlayStation Productions all attached, and Nicole Brown overseeing for Sony’s Columbia Pictures.
The early visuals suggest this will not just be another zombie shootout. The snow, the isolation, and the grim stillness evoke the eerie calm before a viral storm. With Cregger behind the camera, there is every reason to believe that this time, Resident Evil might finally capture the feeling of the original game, that creeping dread that makes you double check every hallway.
Just remember, if you ever find yourself driving to Raccoon City in the snow, keep your headlights on and your windows rolled up. Nothing good ever happens on those roads.
