Weapons director Zach Cregger’s upcoming Resident Evil film has gotten a bit of blowback from fans of Capcom’s horror series who felt it was shaping up to be Resident Evil in name only, considering it doesn’t feature characters like Leon Kennedy and Chris Redfield. Though the existence of the film has been circulating online for months, up to this point the actual trailers and glimpses we’ve gotten of it haven’t established any clear connections between the movie and the games. That changes with the latest trailer, which finally namedrops Raccoon City in its closing stinger.
A lot of what we see in this trailer is expanding on what we saw in the first one. Bryan, played by Euphoria and Weapons actor Austin Abrams, is a courier delivering life-saving organs for transplants between medical facilities. His next delivery is going to pay him double his usual rate, and it’s going to Raccoon City. Well, it’s supposed to, before he hits a speed bump on the way there that derails his whole night. According to Cregger, Bryan’s fight for survival is supposed to be happening parallel to the events of Resident Evil 2, though its commitment to that game’s ’90s setting is questionable when my guy has a smartphone.
Wherever it fits in the Resident Evil timeline, it’s got a lot of creepy crawlies and Bryan does a lot of running around looking for bullets in drawers. So the vibes are right, at least.
Resident Evil is coming to theaters on September 18.