The first 30 minutes of Zach Cregger‘s original take on Resident Evil that was screened for the press bears many familiar earmarks of the video games, from the intense first zombie encounter to the search for weapons and ammo.

Fans of the games know that means the nightmare is only warming up for Austin Abrams‘ Bryan, as the T-Virus outbreak in Raccoon City is sure to unleash all varieties of mutated creatures. 

Being that this is an original story set during the initial outbreak, courtesy of Umbrella, of course, just what Cregger has in store remains to be seen. Even the marketing is playing it close to the vest.

What we do know, though, is that Cregger is taking a practical approach and has enlisted major talent to bring his monsters to life on screen: Legacy Effects and SFX legend Shane Mahan (Godzilla: King of the Monsters, The Shape of Water, Underwater), Resident Evil‘s creature designer. 

While the monsters themselves will remain a surprise for theatergoers to discover, Cregger shared what it was like working with Mahan on the film and his decision to emphasize practical effects.

“Well, we had to have some original stuff in this movie, right,” Cregger says of the film’s original creations. “You don’t want to go a movie in the theater and see all these things you’ve before, so it was really fun to invent new things that fit into the world of the T-virus and Resident Evil, but were new. And Shane is just a genius. For people who don’t know, this is the guy who did Aliens and Terminator II and so many of the creatures that we’ve grown up loving, Shane has had his hands in, so it was a real thrill to have him go all in on this movie.”

Cregger does tease at least one monster, and it’s huge. 

“There’s one puppet that [Mahan] built in LA that’s like 2000 lbs and takes four people to operate, that we shipped in pieces over to Prague where we were shooting.

“That was a treat because you’re acting with the thing; it’s not a tennis ball on a stick that you’ve got to imagine what it’s going to be. That’s it. Even some of our things that ended up VFX, Shane built the practical thing, and we filmed it that way. Then we would use VFX to help with the animation. It gives everything this real tactile, perfect sitting in this space kind of quality when you do it practically first.” 

“It’s such a big difference,” Austin Abrams adds.

Cregger agrees, “It really is, and Shane’s design sense is really top tier, so I was very honored to have him on the movie.”

Resident Evil infects theaters September 18.

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