10 Best Horror Movies To Watch After Resident Evil

Published Sep 21, 2026, 8:00 PM EDT

Shawn S. Lealos is an entertainment writer who is a voting member of the Oklahoma Film Critics Circle. He has written for Screen Rant,  CBR, ComicBook, The Direct, The Sportster, Chud, 411mania, Renegade Cinema, Yahoo Movies, and many more.
 

Shawn has a bachelor's degree in professional writing and a minor in film studies from the University of Oklahoma. He also has won numerous awards, including several Columbia Gold Circle Awards and an SPJ honor.

He also wrote Dollar Deal: The Story of the Stephen King Dollar Baby Filmmakers, the first official book about the Dollar Baby film program. Shawn is also currently writing his first fiction novel under a pen name, based in the fantasy genre.

To learn more, visit his website at shawnlealos.net.

While there were slight concerns before Zach Cregger's Resident Evil was released, its high quality and big box office totals eliminated those concerns quickly. Cregger based Resident Evil on the video game, but doesn't use any characters from the games or even many monsters used in those games. Instead, he directed a very funny and very terrifying horror movie about a guy trying to get into Raccoon City when the infection starts.

What resulted was a movie that broke the franchise's previous box office totals by a large amount and ended up with the best ratings of the entire franchise as well. Resident Evil's box office ended up at $108.3 million worldwide and $60 million domestically after its opening weekend. This continued a 2026 trend of horror movies outperforming expectations, following the immense success of films like Obsession and Backrooms.

What is even more impressive is that the reception has been very high. Resident Evil broke the trend of video game adaptations struggling to connect by scoring an impressive 95% critics' score and a 91% audience rating as of now. These numbers will change, but it is proof that Cregger's humor and horror mix is a considerable success. For anyone who wants to see something similar to Resident Evil, there are also plenty of options to choose from.

Resident Evil (2002)

While Resident Evil trumps every other movie in the franchise that came before it, that does not mean there aren't things about the previous films to enjoy. The main series before the first reboot turns into a fun post-apocalyptic action-adventure franchise similar to Mad Max. Those movies vary wildly in quality, but that isn't how it started. The first Resident Evil is similar to Cregger's film in that it is just a straight horror movie.

The film stars Milla Jovovich as Alice, a character not in any of the games. She wakes up in a mansion and discovers an infection that has been released, although it is still trapped in the Hive when the movie starts. While Cregger's movie has someone on the outside coming in, this movie features a woman above the Hive when the infection starts to spread. It is violent, scary, and gory, and is a solid horror movie in its own right.

Dead Alive (1992)

Released in 1992 by Peter Jackson, Dead Alive (originally released as Braindead) is a zombie comedy splatter film. It is easy to watch Dead Alive and see similarities with Cregger's Resident Evil in many ways. The two main similarities are the gory body horror effects and the humor that Jackson and Cregger both use to break up the terrifying or gross-out moments.

The movies also share the idea of a virus that spreads and turns people into monstrous, zombie-like characters that can often turn into grotesque creatures. With all the impressive creatures Cregger introduces in Resident Evil, it is easy to see a possible early influence from the creatures that Jackson created practically in his splatter-filled horror comedy.

28 Days Later (2002)

While it doesn't have any of the humor of Resident Evil, the 2002 zombie movie 28 Days Later has the same format when it comes to a hapless man being chased by relentless zombie-like creatures. In Resident Evil, it is a courier who is headed to a hospital in Raccoon City to deliver an important package related to the outbreak. In 28 Days Later, it is also a courier, but one who is in a coma when the outbreak started.

In fact, the big reversal is that Jim in 28 Days Later is in the hospital during the outbreak, while Bryan is on his way to the hospital. Despite that, both men are clueless as to what has happened and what is going on, and the movies are both massive chase scenes with the men trying to stay alive while attempting to get to safety.

The Thing (1982)

The Thing is John Carpenter's 1982 adaptation of Who Goes There by John W. Campbell Jr., which was previously adapted into the sci-fi classic The Thing from Another World. However, in Carpenter's movie, the action is a lot more graphic and gory than the previous sci-fi film, and the creature that eventually forms from the bodies of the men at the Antarctic station is very reminiscent of the creature that chases Bryan throughout Resident Evil.

This is body horror in a way that is both grotesque and impossible to look away from, something that Zach Cregger worked hard to achieve with his new movie. In both films, the creatures are unique and disturbing creations, using incredible practical effects. The Thing became a massive cult favorite after flopping at the box office, and while Resident Evil is a box office success, it has the same cult movie vibes running throughout.

Train To Busan (2016)

Train to Busan is a zombie movie from 2016 that helped reinvigorate the genre by bringing something different to the format. The movie follows a father and daughter who are on board a train to Busan when the zombie apocalypse begins, and then the two have to fight for survival, with the father trying to protect his child at all costs. The personal story helps the movie stand out among others in the genre.

While Resident Evil isn't built around a family relationship, the movie is still about one man who is trying to survive while achieving the ultimate goal. The goal is different, with Bryan trying to reach scientists with a cure, but it is still a man-on-a-mission movie. There is also a moment where Bryan deals with his broken relationship with his pregnant girlfriend, adding the personal touch that Train to Busan also had.

The Crazies (2010)

The Crazies is similar to 28 Days Later in that an infection spreads through a town, and the people turn into crazed killers rather than typical undead zombies. The original movie was released in 1973, directed by Night of the Living Dead director George A. Romero, and it is a biological weapon that infects the town. It is almost the same plot as Resident Evil, with the Umbrella Corporation accidentally unleashing a similar virus.

A remake, released in 2010 by director Breck Eisner, follows the same storyline, with a small town in Iowa infected with a virus that turns all the townspeople into mindless killing machines. Timothy Olyphant takes the lead as a local sheriff who has to protect his pregnant wife as they try to escape the crazed killers. When it comes to the cause of the virus, this movie is the closest comparison.

The Evil Dead (1981)

While Peter Jackson's Dead Alive shares a similarity with Zach Cregger's Resident Evil when it comes to the monsters and the horror counterbalanced by comedy, The Evil Dead does it all better. While most critics rank The Evil Dead II as the better movie, the first film by Sam Raimi has a charm that makes it a better watch since the director had to make do with what he had to create his innovative special effects.

The Evil Dead is also funnier than Dead Alive, and that is one of the things that helps Resident Evil stand out among many other recent horror movies. Over Cregger's three horror movies, the director has mastered balancing horror and comedy, and there hasn't been a better example of this in the past than the work of Sam Raimi.

Overlord (2018)

Released in 2018, Overlord is an often overlooked and underappreciated addition to the horror genre. Directed by Julius Avery, the movie features a paratrooper squad dropped into enemy territory on the eve of D-Day to destroy a German radio-jamming tower in an old church. However, when they arrive, they find a Nazi experiment to turn soldiers into unstoppable, monstrous killing machines.

The movie is different from Resident Evil in that the soldiers dropped in to face these monsters are highly trained. However, they are also completely unaware of what they are walking into, and the fight turns into a bloodbath. Both Resident Evil and Overlord have humans turned into grotesque monstrosities, who then unexpectedly attack the heroes of the movie.

Slither (2006)

Before James Gunn began his successful career making superhero movies, he wrote and directed a fantastic horror movie called Slither. Gunn got his start working for a company called Troma, and he brought a lot of those sensibilities into Slither, from the body horror gross-out effects to the decision to use humor to balance these scenes.

Cregger's Resident Evil has a lot of gross-out moments, from the infected throwing themselves off of buildings and splatting to the ground to the horribly obese monster in the sewers that explodes rats from his stomach. The biggest similarity is that the infected in Slither are created by worm-like parasites, which are similar to the tendrils that seem to have a life of their own and control the dead in Resident Evil.

Weapons (2025)

For anyone who loves Resident Evil, the easiest movie to recommend is Zach Cregger's previous film, Weapons. This movie is about a small town where an entire classroom of children, except for one little boy, disappears one night without a trace. When a strange woman named Aunt Gladys comes into the picture, the movie veers from a traumatic drama to a wild horror-thriller ride with the flip of a switch.

Amy Madigan won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for portraying Aunt Gladys in Weapons, and the movie earned critical praise and finished on several top-10 lists at the end of the year. The movie also perfectly balanced humor and horror, and Cregger proved, between Weapons, Barbarian, and Resident Evil, that no one in Hollywood is doing this better right now.