At Sony Pictures’ presentation at CinemaCon 2026, they pulled back the curtain on Zach Cregger’s new take on Resident Evil. The movie is set for release on September 18th, and the big message from Cregger was simple: the film will not rely on his typical complicated narrative acrobatics and time jumps. Instead, he said the film will follow one main protagonist moving from point A to point B. That may sound super simple, but for Resident Evil, it could be exactly what this series needs.

The footage shown to attendees focused on mood, tension, and dread. It begins with a man walking through the snow toward a house. He enters and finds no one inside. As he moves through the building, he keeps calling out, asking if anyone is there.

From there, things get stranger. He tries using the phone, only to get a dead response. He then calls his girlfriend, and the footage cuts to moments of him moving through Raccoon City. As you can imagine, the city looks grim and dangerous, and the tension builds as he goes deeper into the nightmare—everything taking place at night.

One of the most memorable moments shown was a large, pale zombie in the sewers—a giant, bloated figure resembling Stellan Skarsgård’s Harkonnen character from Dune. Soon after, even more zombies appear, spilling into the frame and chasing after him as the chaos ramps up.

What stood out most about the presentation was what Cregger did not do. The footage avoided obvious nods to the games. It’s been reported that “Aiming for an original story set in the world of the games rather than any of its well-known characters,” and “the writer/director is instead taking inspiration from the second through fourth installments.”

That approach could be a smart move with Cregger’s recent hits. Resident Evil has a built-in fanbase, but a straightforward survival-horror movie could help it connect with a wider audience, too. This reboot could do what the other Resident Evil movies and shows couldn’t: tell one tense, scary story without overcomplicating it.