Watch the Trailer for Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City

Sony Pictures Entertainment has released a trailer for Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, which will premiere in theaters on November 24. It was one of those trailers that presents a teaser of itself before showing the audience the proper trailer for the film, which could be a bit disorienting, or at least redundant. Coming a few months off the heels of another successful Resident Evil videogame, Resident Evil: Village, this apparent reboot seems perfectly comfortable with leaning into schlock and jump scares. The short trailer features the iconic hit by the band 4 Non Blondes, “What’s Up,” some gruesome, visceral monsters made from both CGI and special effects makeup, as well as some very on-the-nose dialogue about the “roots of evil” and the Umbrella Corporation’s experiments. It lets you know what you will be getting into, which appears to be a fun horror film with helicopter explosions and swarming zombie-like creatures.

The trailer starts with a voiceover by lead actress Kaya Scodelario (star of the 2019 alligator-hurricane natural horror film Crawl), who plays Claire Redfield (a protagonist of Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil: Code Veronica, before we’re introduced to Robbie Amell (star of Amazon sci-fi comedy series Upload) as her brother Chris Redfield (protagonist of the original Resident Evil and Resident Evil 5), and Avan Jogia as Leon Kennedy (co-protagonist of Resident Evil 2 videogame and standalone protagonist of one of the franchise’s most critically-successful entries, Resident Evil 4). Tom Hopper (Game of Thrones, Umbrella Academy) will appear as recurrent series antagonist Albert Wesker, while Donal Logue appears in the trailer as the RPD police chief, Brian Irons. Hannah John-Kamen (Ghost from Ant-Man and The Wasp appears as Jill Valentine, a protagonist of the original Resident Evil and most recently featured in 2020’s remake of Resident Evil 3.

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City will be director Johannes Roberts’s 10th feature film, the ninth of which he has written. His films have found somewhat middling critical response (floating between 40% and 60% on Rotten Tomatoes), but have engaged viewers enough to mostly turn profits relative to the small budgets he has been tasked with. Roberts has worked on slashers, scifi horror, supernatural horror, and survival horror. Belgian Italian cinematographer Maxime Alexandre (mostly known for horror but also responsible for the WB/DC hit Shazam!) worked with Roberts behind the camera on this film.

This will be the first film in the franchise’s history to not star Milla Jovovich. Her husband, Paul W.S. Anderson, wrote, directed, and/or produced each of the previous six films, and is executive producing this one.

You can watch the trailer below: