Zach Cregger has revealed fresh details on the making of the upcoming Resident Evil movie, including a scene where star Austin Abrams almost died from a falling zombie.

The Barbarian and Weapons creator spoke at a Resident Evil footage screening and Q&A, attended by IGN. There he discussed a scene in which main character Bryan, a medical courier played by Weapons star Austin Abrams, runs down a street as zombies leap down from the roof of buildings on either side. We see this scene briefly in the Resident Evil trailer, below.

During the Q&A, Cregger described how this was shot, and the near miss that might have actually killed the movie’s star.

“We had to basically design this thing where he’s just running and bodies are just falling and detonating all around him. I knew I didn’t want to do it with VFX because I felt like it would just look like VFX. So I was like, how do we do this where all these explosions are real?

“And the way to do it is to get a bunch of cranes and you have all these body-sized blood bags, and you rehearse the s**t out of how they’re going to fall and then how fast he’s going to run. And then you just shoot it and you chase him in the camera car. And he’s running and they’re releasing these bags and they're falling and hitting all around him and exploding.

“And one triggered too early and it missed him by inches. And these things are all like 150 pounds. It would’ve killed him. If he had been like one step to the right, he would have died. And it’s in the movie, so it’s f***ing worth it. I was like, pretty stoked! I was like, ‘Oh, could we do that again?’ They’re like, ‘No we can’t do that again, he almost died!”

If that wasn't enough to make Cregger think twice, during the shooting of another scene, which took place in the Czech Republic in the dead of night, he had a moment of genuine existential crisis.

"He goes to this farm and the first thing that happens is, he gets chased and attacked by a dog. And I’m out in the middle of nowhere, it’s freezing cold, I am wrangling a psycho dog to try and do what I want it to do,” he said.

“Working with animals is hard. And this thing was f***ing terrifying. And I was sick. And it was just one of those things where it was just like… I’d been nocturnal for months making a movie that takes place at night, and I'd just run out of gas. And I just remember thinking, I would rather be anywhere in the world but here in the freezing cold trying to get this dog to do what I want it to do.

“But, you know, I think everyone who makes a movie probably has a moment like that.”

Cregger has previously described his take on Resident Evil as "one gigantic sequence" that follows its regular guy protagonist Bryan as he undertakes a perilous journey "like Frodo going into Mordor." It deliberately avoids featuring characters from Capcom's beloved survival horror series, which means no Leon or Claire turning up to save the day. Bryan is the antithesis of the gun-toting, combat-tested characters who often are the protagonists of Resident Evil games.

Cregger has also spoken in the past about the reaction from some Resident Evil fans who had hoped to see a movie based on one of the games itself, or feature characters from the video games. "There’s so many people that clearly really want the video game, meaning the characters and story from the video game, and anything different than that is really not welcomed," he said in the wake of the trailer's release. "I didn’t realize how passionate some people were about that."

During the Q&A he explained why Leon, for example, isn't in the movie, insisting the video games tell the characters' stories better that he would. "I just wanted to make a movie that would celebrate everything I think makes those games so special," Cregger said, "but not cannibalize the stories that those games tell so well. Because I don't think I can tell Leon’s story better than the games tell Leon's story. That feels to me like kind of a losing endeavor.

"But to tell a story that lives in the world of Raccoon City, on the eve of the outbreak, and play by the rules where, like the Umbrella Corporation, the T-virus and all those things are there, but this story just kind of happens over here, that feels like a really fertile place to live."

Cregger's Resident Evil hits theaters September 18, 2026.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.