‘Resident Evil’ Director Zach Cregger Officially Reveals His Unexpected Filmmaking Secret

Hannah covers horror, sci-fi, and games at Collider, where she writes news and features, reviews new releases, and interviews the people who make them. She’s helping build out Collider‘s gaming coverage, with Pokémon as one of her specialties. If she isn’t writing about a monster, she’s probably watching one on a tape from her VHS collection.

Between the basement in Barbarian and the empty bedrooms in Weapons, Zach Cregger has given horror audiences plenty of reasons to dread an ordinary doorway. His movies make looking around a corner feel like a decision you might regret, then leave you waiting long enough to reconsider whether you wanted to see what was there. That’s an appealing skill to bring to Resident Evil, where entering the next room can require a small act of courage.

Adapting the games also means working with an audience that knows the difference between watching someone walk toward danger and having to make them do it. Players can spend several minutes negotiating with themselves before opening a door. A filmmaker has to create that hesitation while controlling when the audience gets to move forward, making the anticipation as important as whatever finally appears.

Collider can exclusively debut a new behind-the-scenes video featuring Cregger discussing his approach to immersive horror and his work on Resident Evil. The short-form interview also explores how the iPhone has become one of his go-to filmmaking tools, offering a look at the practical side of developing the scares audiences eventually experience on screen. Our exclusive video arrives as Resident Evil becomes available to buy and rent through the Apple TV app. Watch our exclusive video below.

Four franchises, four completely different ways of getting underneath
your skin. This is the one built out of your particular fear, why it works so well on you, and what
it would leave behind.

Your nightmare does not wait outside the door. It waits for you
to close your eyes, which you are going to have to do eventually, because nobody has ever
won that particular argument.

• Freddy is horror’s cruellest idea: a threat that lives in the one place you cannot
  guard, cannot lock, and cannot avoid forever.
• You are the one who is fine during the film and wide awake at two in the morning. Your
  own head is where this does its damage.
• These films understood exhaustion as a horror engine. The kids on Elm Street do not lose
  because they are weak. They lose because they are tired.
• You can lock every door in the house. You still have to sleep.

Your nightmare is not really the doll. It is the face of the
person you tell, and the way they decide, very kindly, that you have imagined all of it.

• Chucky works precisely because he is absurd. That is the trap: the more accurately you
  describe him, the less anybody is going to believe you.
• You are the one shouting at the screen because the characters are not listening. You
  know that feeling from real life too.
• The franchise is at its best when the adults in the room are the real obstacle, and you
  have met those adults.
• By the time somebody finally believes you, you will have handled most of it on your own.

Your nightmare has your number, knows your name, and has almost
certainly been inside your house before. The worst part is that you already know them.

• Scream is the only one of these where the killer takes the mask off and turns out to be
  somebody who was at the party.
• You are the person who calls the twist out loud before it lands. You watch people the
  same way you watch films.
• The franchise made the rules of horror part of the plot, which means the survivors are
  the ones paying attention. You would be paying attention.
• Everybody is a suspect, including the person who just offered to walk you home.

Your nightmare is not really about you. It is about the people
asleep down the hall, and the feeling that whatever is here is not interested in leaving.

• The Conjuring films are domestic horror. The house, the family, the perfectly ordinary
  room that quietly stops feeling ordinary.
• Your instinct is to get everybody into one room. Your fear is protective rather than
  personal, which is rarer than it sounds.
• This is the one franchise where belief is the weapon. The people who come through it are
  the ones who are not alone and refuse to be.
• Whatever is here did not come for you. It came for the household, and you are the one
  standing in the hallway.

Zach Cregger Takes Fans Behind the Horror of ‘Resident Evil’

One of the most effective stretches of Barbarian follows Tess deeper into a space she has every reason to leave. Each discovery makes the situation worse, but it also makes looking away harder. Cregger understands the terrible appeal of needing an answer, even when the sensible response would be to get back in the car. That instinct has an obvious connection to Resident Evil. Exploring an unfamiliar location is a huge part of the games’ appeal, and the environments can frighten players before an enemy enters the picture. A hallway becomes more threatening when you’re already wondering how you’ll get back through it. The geography matters because you’re mentally planning an escape.

Hearing Cregger discuss immersion is therefore a useful way into his approach to the material. His use of iPhone adds another point of interest, taking the conversation beyond the finished images and into the tools he uses as a filmmaker. Our exclusive BTS video gives fans an opportunity to hear that process discussed by the director himself. For audiences who came to Resident Evil through Barbarian or Weapons, it’s also a chance to consider the filmmaking instincts connecting his horror projects. The settings and threats change, but the pleasure of watching someone investigate something they should leave alone remains a powerful invitation.

Resident Evil is available to buy and rent on the Apple TV app now. Stay tuned at Collider for more.

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