Director Zach Cregger Names 3 Movies To Watch After 'Resident Evil' 2026
Zach Cregger's Resident Evil (2026) has been making waves and breaking records as a near-perfect survival horror film in the spirit of the beloved games. Part of that is because of the many influences it has drawn from other successful films over the decades. From the pacing to the tone, great movies helped give Resident Evil its identity.
In a recent JustWatch interview with Zach Cregger, he and Austin Abrams discuss the movies that helped shape Resident Evil. Ranging from horror to a historical drama, there may only be three films, but they change the entire perspective of Cregger's adaptation and pair perfectly with it.
A sequel and complete tonal shift from what came before, Evil Dead II (1987) continues Ash Williams' time in the cabin after reading from the Necronomicon, unleashing violent demons. Ash starts the film as a scared survivor but eventually finds his courage, along with the hero in himself that he needs to be.
Cregger mentions that Evil Dead II's tone is similar to Resident Evil, and you can see it through Bryan. He starts his journey scared and trying to survive, but by the end, he finds his courage. He's still scared, but now he has learned enough of the ropes to fight back and move forward with a little less fear.
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) is one of the greatest action movies ever made and does so while being the fourth entry in a franchise. The film sees Max surviving a cult and working with someone trying to get their leader's brides away from him and to safety. As Max does his best to help these escapees, we get an entire film where the adrenaline never stops or loses momentum.
Resident Evil shares a similar DNA in how it never slows down. Survival is key, and moments of peace don't last long. It's a film about overcoming obstacles, and by the end, you realize the entire plot in Resident Evil is an obstacle in itself. It may not have the same energy as Fury Road, but it has the same heart.
Perhaps the strangest suggestion Cregger gave was pairing Resident Evil with 1917 (2019). The World War I film follows a man sent on a mission to save lives by being the only one with news that a proposed attack was a trap and had to be halted. To sell the stakes of his mission and the danger, we are given a single-take film of one man, with no weapon, evading German forces.
As Cregger and Abrams stated, the Point A to Point B elements of 1917 are what make it a perfect pairing with Resident Evil. Both films explore a story of someone completing a mission while seeming wildly unprepared. Yet, it's watching them overcome the odds and evade certain death that makes the leads so engaging and fun. 1917 is much more serious than Cregger's film. However, these simple elements have helped make them perfectly balanced.
