This 2026 Zombie Movie Is Korea’s ‘Resident Evil’ But Scarier

Zach Cregger's Resident Evil (2026) is bringing viewers a reimagined take on the iconic survival horror video game series. It's also reminding us why zombie movies are so scary and how chaotic an outbreak can be in a city. But there's another film that is already doing that and is even scarier: Colony (2026).

A film from the same director as Train to Busan (2016), Colony reimagines the zombie craze by putting a twist on the traditional idea of infection changing people into monsters. But for fans of Resident Evil, the new and terrifying South Korean monster movie shares many similarities.

‘Colony’ Borrows a Lot of Ideas From ‘Resident Evil’

Colony is about a scientist threatening to unleash a slime mold virus that turns people into zombie-like monsters covered in a white slime and who communicate through a hive mind. While the threats aren't listened to, these terrors are eventually unleashed in a building that is forced into lockdown as the survivors must navigate their way through the monsters to survive.

In many ways, what made Resident Evil so popular is what helps to make Colony stand out. For starters, the threat of bioterrorism serves as the foundation of the game franchise and the catalyst for Colony's entire plot. But the virus itself is what makes the similarities so abundant.

Resident Evil's various ailments that are used as weapons not only kill humans but also change them in grotesque ways. The virus used in Colony does the same thing, making people lose who they are and instead become an undead cog in a machine with only one master. It's a story about power and using that power for evil or personal gain, which is exactly like what fuels the Resident Evil franchise.

‘Resident Evil’ Put a Terrifying Twist on Bioterror in Games and Film

Unfortunately, bioterror is something that the real world must always consider a potential danger, but Resident Evil takes this concept in a more outrageous direction. The Raccoon City Outbreak and the events of Resident Evil 6 are some of the biggest examples of bioterror in the franchise, where viruses are transported by rats or bombs to infect a large group of people in a densely populated area.

Whether they become zombies or mutated monsters is entirely up to the genes of the infected, but both sow chaos all the same. These events became the backbone of the Resident Evil franchise, as organizations like the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance (BSAA) are tasked with stopping these threats before they happen.

The new Resident Evil film may not be set in the same timeline as the games, but the Raccoon City outbreak has always been the first major event in the series. With that in mind, there may be no BSAA to aid the relief effort, so we will see everything unfold with no easy way to stop it. Much like Colony, Resident Evil is about an unknown threat getting out of hand and how survivors can do their best to fight back.

‘Train to Busan’ Proves Why ‘Colony’ Is a Must-Watch

Director Yeon Sang-ho introduced audiences to his first zombie film, Train to Busan, which couldn't have come at a better time. Before Train to Busan, zombie films had more or less run their course. The trend had become predictable, and people started to care more about the evil humans do to one another than the zombies.

Train to Busan did a few simple things that led to success. First, it kept a zombie outbreak relegated to a train; then it created an emotional story about a father and daughter as the foundation. Finally, it ensured the zombies were scary, as the heroes had no real weapons to fight back. What we got was a zombie movie with utterly terrifying monsters, wild violence, and a new reason to be scared of these films again.

The emotion in Train to Busan makes the zombies the ultimate enemy, as we root for the father to protect his daughter as they try to get to safety. But the movement of the zombies, their jerky actions and behavior, all turn the common genre into something unsettling again, and this is all brought to life and enhanced by Colony. While Resident Evil is a great start for a video game adaptation, Colony will easily fill in the blanks.