Zach Cregger Says His ‘Resident Evil’ Reboot Is “Most Violent Thing I’ve Done…You Gotta Go Grotesque!”

Seeing writer/director Zach Cregger dipping his toes into the studio IP with a new “Resident Evil” feature film coming to theaters in September, and he’s certainly making horror fans salivate with the footage shared, gives the impression he’s taking some extreme care with the scary stuff, when previous installments have mainly focused on cheesy action sequences.

The director is making quite the bold claim for his video game adaptation, stating to Empire Magazine that his latest horror flick “definitely the most violent thing I’ve done,” which is really saying something considering that both “Barbarian” and “Weapons” aren’t without their gore-fest sequences.

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“You gotta go grotesque!” Cregger told Empire in their latest issue. “I wanted to go all the way. So it’s gnarly. It’s brutal. A very bloody affair…Fleshing out what [the Umbrella Corporation is] up to, and how the T-virus works, that’s not what this movie is. This movie is about one dude’s journey on foot, fighting monsters. I don’t give a fuck about checking boxes,” he grined. “All I cared about was just telling a fun story. [One in which] we step on the gas at about eight minutes in and never take our foot off the floor.”

That’s not all the movie is offering audiences, though: personal, character-driven beats will be in the new movie as well. Cregger reveals that he has something of a personal connection to Austin Abrams’ out-of-his-depth Bryan, a medical courier battling a slew of horrors on his way to a Raccoon City hospital, while learning that his girlfriend is pregnant (heard on the other side of his phone conversations in the trailers).

“People will be able to tell what I’ve been dealing with. It’s still autobiographical,” Cregger explains. His take on Raccoon City becomes a way of asking: “[Is it right to] bring a child into a world that just seems to be getting worse and worse?…We’re wrestling with that question. Only for this character to find out it’s even worse than he’d imagined.”

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As you might imagine, Cregger is a busy filmmaker with his “Weapons” prequel “Aunt Gladys” on deck alongside his sci-fi horror movie “The Flood” on the way, both pics secured by New Line Cinema.

“Resident Evil” creeps into theaters on September 18, and we cannot wait for the hell that Abrams’ Bryan is put through with this T-virus gauntlet of gore.