All 5 Zach Cregger Movies Ranked, Including Resident Evil

Over roughly the past decade, a notable number of horror’s most exciting new filmmakers have emerged from comedy. That trend makes sense: comedians understand timing, misdirection, and the power of a perfectly placed punchline. Filmmakers such as Curry Barker, Josh Ruben, and Jordan Peele have successfully carried those instincts into horror. Still, the group would be incomplete without Zach Cregger, whose run of acclaimed genre movies has established him as one of the most talked-about horror directors of the 2020s.

Cregger’s career began gathering momentum in the mid-2000s, when he met comedian Trevor Moore and helped create the sketch troupe The Whitest Kids U’Know, or WKUK, alongside Sam Brown, Timmy Williams, and Darren Trumeter. Their boundary-pushing television series lasted five seasons and is now widely regarded as one of the finest sketch comedy shows ever made. Cregger and Moore were especially close collaborators, even making their feature directorial debuts together with 2009’s “Miss March.” They later reunited as co-directors, writers, and stars of the WKUK sketch film “The Civil War on Drugs.”

After the 2020s began—and following Moore’s death—Cregger increasingly turned toward genre filmmaking with projects including “Barbarian,” “Weapons,” and “Resident Evil.” Although his movies are filled with disturbing images and deeply unsettling characters, comedy remains an important part of his creative voice. With that in mind, here is a ranking of all five films in Zach Cregger’s filmography, based on how effectively each one showcases his abilities as a filmmaker.

“Miss March” occupying the bottom spot will hardly surprise anyone familiar with the critical backlash it faced on release. The 2009 raunchy sex comedy has even been labeled one of the worst films of its kind, while The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw memorably suggested that it gave off “pure evil” vibes. The movie probably does not deserve a full critical rehabilitation, but it is not quite as toxic as its reputation suggests. That said, it is still far from a good film.

Cindi Whitehall (Raquel Alessi) and Eugene Ball (Zach Cregger) publicly promote abstinence, but Cindi eventually decides that she is ready to have sex with her high school boyfriend. Eugene, however, drinks several shots at a post-prom party to steady his nerves, then falls down a basement staircase and slips into a coma. Four years later, his friend Tucker Cleigh (Trevor Moore) wakes him by striking him in the face with a baseball bat. Eugene soon discovers that Cindi has become a Playboy centerfold. The pair hit the road in an attempt to reunite the former couple, all while trying to avoid Tucker’s understandably furious girlfriend, Candace (Molly Stanton), and her gang of axe-wielding firefighters.

The opening stretch of “Miss March” suggests it might become something in the spirit of “Freddy Got Fingered,” a movie that seems to turn its own studio-funded production into the joke. A handful of gags genuinely land, but Cregger and Moore never take the premise far enough into absurdity to overcome the familiar formulas of a 2000s sex comedy.

Some sequences in “Miss March” resemble the humor Cregger and Moore developed on WKUK, but the movie was not officially connected to the television series or the troupe. WKUK has produced only one feature-length project, and even calling it a conventional movie requires some qualification. “The Civil War on Drugs” began as a collection of sketches broadcast during the show’s fifth and final season. Those segments were later uploaded individually to YouTube before Cregger and Moore assembled them into a 79-minute film during the global pandemic. For the purposes of this ranking, it still counts as a movie.

Sam Brown and Trevor Moore play two friends who give up drinking after discovering the supposed advantages of marijuana. Soon afterward, war breaks out between the Northern and Southern factions of the United States. Permanently stoned, the pair assumes the Civil War is actually being fought over weed. Hoping to legalize it, Sam and Trevor travel through—and occasionally become part of—major events in American history, remaining oblivious to the conflict’s real cause.

The main weakness of “The Civil War on Drugs” is that it feels exactly like what it is: a series of sketches connected into a feature-length movie. Viewers unfamiliar with WKUK’s style may find it especially difficult to sit through, and several jokes fall flat. Even so, the film stays entertaining because its central gag repeatedly returns to Sam and Trevor condemning the country’s unjust systems, despite completely misunderstanding what they are fighting against.

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“Barbarian” is built around the unsettling idea that we can never truly know what horrors other people conceal, particularly behind closed doors. Writer-director Zach Cregger expands that concern in “Weapons,” a horror film about the fear spreading through a Pennsylvania community. On one seemingly ordinary night, every student in third-grade teacher Justine Gandy’s (Julia Garner) class—except for Alex (Cary Christopher)—gets out of bed, leaves home, and vanishes without explanation.

Suspicion initially falls on Justine, but the damaged lives of grieving father Archer (Josh Brolin), volatile police officer Paul (Alden Ehrenreich), burned-out James (Austin Abrams), and weary principal Marcus (Benedict Wong) suggest that Maybrook is hiding far more than anyone wants to admit.

“Weapons” benefited from the mystery surrounding what kind of film it would become. The answer—a “Magnolia”-influenced horror fairy tale about child abuse, paranoia, and mob mentality that is also consistently funny—is an impressive achievement. The movie occasionally loses momentum whenever it changes perspective, but the payoff makes the unusual structure worthwhile. Its humor rarely diminishes the impact of Cregger’s scares, many of which linger long after the immediate shock has passed. Amy Madigan also delivers her well-deserved Oscar-winning performance as Aunt Gladys, a sinister manipulator who delights in controlling people until she gets what she wants. She is easily one of the most memorable horror villains of the 2020s.

Much like audiences reacted to Jordan Peele’s “Get Out,” many viewers had a collective “Where did this come from?” response when Zach Cregger released “Barbarian.” The film begins with an immediately compelling setup: Tess (Georgina Campbell) arrives at an Airbnb during a dark, stormy night, only to find that a man named Keith (Bill Skarsgård) has already booked the property. With few alternatives, the strangers set aside their suspicions and agree to share the house. The following day, Tess becomes trapped in the basement, where she discovers a hidden door leading into a labyrinth that seems to descend straight into hell.

Cregger spends considerable time establishing one story before abruptly introducing Justin Long as a sleazy actor attempting to navigate sexual assault allegations. The shift is jarring, but the arrival of a quieter, more pathetic form of evil eventually restores the film’s momentum. “Barbarian” unfolds like a Russian nesting doll of corruption, revealing one layer of malevolence after another and continually making the audience question whether the floor beneath them is about to collapse.

Fortunately, the film’s surprises remain effective even after the larger picture comes into focus. Its central theme—the refusal to accept responsibility for causing harm—drives a cycle that eventually reaches an unavoidable breaking point. “Weapons” may be the more streamlined movie, but “Barbarian” has a vicious streak that makes its most frightening scenes even more potent. It also features one of the most cursed basements in horror history.

It can be disappointing when a filmmaker celebrated for original ideas moves into an established franchise, since the demands of brand recognition can limit creative freedom. Zach Cregger’s “Resident Evil,” however, is a rare example of an IP-driven project with a clear, focused identity. Rather than simply setting up future sequels, the film prioritizes telling one complete story shaped by the director’s own sensibilities.

The third theatrical “Resident Evil” reboot functions as a spiritual adaptation of Capcom’s video game series by recreating the feeling of playing one. Bryan (Austin Abrams) is a medical courier delivering a vital package to a hospital in Raccoon City, but the assignment quickly becomes a violent gauntlet filled with obstacles, mutations, and the constant pressure of limited ammunition. Cregger embraces an “all gas, no brakes” approach, placing viewers in a world where survival takes priority over everything else. The only path forward is to keep moving, making it thrilling to experience the worst night of Bryan’s life alongside him.

With a relatively small cast of characters, “Resident Evil” depends heavily on Abrams, and he handles the responsibility with confidence. Bryan becomes a new-generation Bruce Campbell, constantly torn between heroic instincts and an uncanny ability to make spectacularly bad decisions. Watching him repeat those mistakes is part of the film’s dark pleasure. Cregger and co-writer Shay Hatten pack the brisk 95-minute thriller with gore, imaginative monsters, and well-timed humor. “Resident Evil” is, to date, Zach Cregger’s strongest film.