Zach Cregger says he cut humor from Resident Evil after test screenings

Director Zach Cregger told The Hollywood Reporter that he removed much of Resident Evil's humor after test screenings, trimming jokes to refine the film's tone. Test audiences had liked the film as screened, but Cregger says cutting comedic material made not only the audience enjoy the movie more but also made him like the movie more. The 2026 reboot, directed by Cregger and running roughly 95 minutes, centers on Austin Abrams's Bryan, a medical courier plunged into a snowbound city of bioengineered terror. A review singled out Paul Walter Hauser's late-arriving comic-relief character as a moment that slightly deflates the film's escalating, ruthless survival-horror momentum. Cregger's edits aimed to keep the film relentless in scares and pacing, shifting it away from survival-horror-comedy toward a tighter horror focus and improving overall audience response at screenings.