This was the week Zach Cregger stopped being a horror director and started being a horror studio. That is not the only thing that happened, but it feels like it isn’t being stated enough.
The Resident Evil Teaser Is Here
The first footage from Zach Cregger‘s Resident Evil dropped Wednesday, and it does not look like anything this franchise has produced before. Austin Abrams plays Bryan, a medical courier who arrives at an empty house in the middle of a snowy night and spends the rest of the teaser discovering what he is actually surrounded by.
The footage is dark and still and operates as if something has already gone wrong before anything technically has, which is the same register Barbarian and Weapons lived in and that the games, at their best, have always understood.
Cregger Is Also Making a Weapons Prequel
While everyone was watching the Resident Evil teaser, Variety reported that Gladys, the prequel to Weapons, is moving forward at Warner Bros. with Cregger co-writing alongside Zach Shields. Weapons grossed $270 million worldwide and earned Amy Madigan a best supporting actress Oscar.
Gladys is set for September 2028. Cregger is currently writing a Resident Evil reboot and a Weapons prequel at the same time, which is either the most productive stretch a horror director has had in recent memory or the setup for a very good documentary.
Nicolas Cage Has Unfinished Business
Variety confirmed that Nicolas Cage and Osgood Perkins are making a new Longlegs film at Paramount. Not a sequel, but something set in the Longlegs universe, which is a distinction that raises more questions than it answers and is therefore exactly the right way to announce it. The original made $128 million on a $10 million budget. No release date has been set.
Hokum Opens Today
Hokum, the new film from Damian McCarthy, is in theaters today via Neon. Adam Scott plays a novelist who retreats to a remote Irish inn to scatter his parents’ ashes and finds that an ancient witch has opinions about that.
The film premiered at SXSW in March and sits at 89% on Rotten Tomatoes. McCarthy made Caveat in 2020, which was underseen and excellent. Hokum is his argument that the haunted house film still has architecture left to explore.
Shudder Is Having a Moment
The full May lineup breakdown is here, but the essentials are: Tales from the Crypt, all seven seasons, begins streaming today after years off the market. The Terror: Devil in Silver, the third installment of AMC’s horror anthology series, premieres May 7 with Dan Stevens. Heresy, a folk horror set in a medieval Dutch village, also drops today as a Shudder exclusive. It is the strongest programming month they have announced in a while, and May is only one day old. What a week.
Someone Let Ti West Near a Christmas Carol
Ebenezer: A Christmas Carol, written by Nathaniel Halpern, directed by Ti West, and starring Johnny Depp as Scrooge, has a release date: November 13, 2026 from Paramount. Robert Eggers is also developing a Christmas Carol adaptation. Two of the most formally precise horror directors working today have independently decided this is the assignment. There is no version of that sentence that is not exciting.
That is the week. May is already delivering.