You want to know if the new Resident Evil movie has any post-credits scenes or not, right? Well, we’ll tell you right here: There are no scenes after the credits at all.
Full spoilers follow!
For years, filmmakers have tried to perfect the Resident Evil formula. Proud wife guy and perpetual video game adaptor Paul W.S. Anderson broke the box office with his six-movie Resident Evil series that evolved into blockbuster action slop (at least by The Final Chapter). Johannes Roberts stayed faithful to Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2 in his overheated and underperforming reboot, Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (which received no sequels). Then there’s Andrew Dabb’s Resident Evil show for Netflix, which I didn’t mind all that much, but it never caught on, and Netflix canceled it after a single season.
Enter Zach Cregger, who’s drawn ire from some Resident Evil fans who panicked when hearing that this fourth reboot wouldn’t feature anything resembling the games—no heartthrob Leon S. Kennedy; no Spencer Mansion; no Lickers. “We want what we already like,” some complained, completely ignoring Welcome to Raccoon City. Instead, we get a movie centered on Austin Abrams’ inept, expectant father and medical courier, Bryan, on his mission to deliver a package of grave importance to Raccoon City General Hospital.
What he doesn’t know is that Raccoon City is ground zero for a t-Virus outbreak that turns anyone into these tentacle-waving zombie mutants, and what he’s carrying is required for the cure.
The story is an all-out sprint from Point A to Point B that sets Bryan on a collision course with a host of t-Virus obstacles. First, it’s a farmhouse where an elderly couple and their dog introduce Bryan to a sample of the horrors to come. Then, after being bitten by an infected child, he’s connected with an Umbrella scientist (Paul Walter Hauser) who definitely didn’t drop the original batch of stabilizing agent required to complete a vaccine, before once again finding himself alone, surrounded by unspeakable horrors, his condition worsening. After being chased down alleyways by a rat-king zombie freak, through sewers by actual infected rats, and then down Raccoon City’s main road while zombies dive-bomb from rooftops above, he finally reaches the hospital. After a few more challenges—an acid-vomiting zombie, the maternity ward from hell, Bryan’s final battle with the rat-king-thing—he reaches the quarantined laboratory atop Raccoon City General Hospital.
Resident Evil Ending Explained
When Bryan reaches the silver laboratory door, it whooshes open, revealing Zach Cherry’s lead Umbrella scientist. Bryan is covered in blood, shoeless, and hiding his mutating body under a puffy winter jacket. But he’s got the goods, and Umbrella couldn’t be happier. Cherry’s lab-coated smartypants invites Bryan inside, since he’s come all this way and possibly just saved humanity. Bryan obliges as a courtesy, because secretly, he needs the antidote to reverse his condition.
As a throwback joke, he pulls out a document that requires the recipient’s signature—but drops it in the decontamination room when sterilizing mists blast from all angles.
Inside, Umbrella’s team of surviving scientists jump into action. Bryan sits in the corner, battered and bloodied, while the team uses the agent to finalize a t-Virus antidote. But as the process nears completion, Bryan gets antsy. He starts wheeling his chair closer, and that’s when one of Umbrella’s team notices his gnarly state and sends the room into panic mode.
Bryan is a ticking time bomb of a bioweapon. As he sat there, his figure morphed into a William Birkin-level Resident Evil boss. All the Umbrella scientists needed to do was send liquids through machines, pop out the cure, and get it in the right hands. Now, Bryan stands in their way, unable to control his extra appendages.
A particularly petrified lab assistant tries to use a syringe to extract the ultra-green formula from one of the contraptions the scientists are using. He does, as Bryan’s tentacles start whipping his colleagues around. Then, as his mutation worsens, a gigantic mouth appears from his stomach and starts eating the scientists one by one. A poor soul tries to deter Bryan with fire extinguisher vapor, but that clouds everyone’s vision as more mist seeps in from the ceiling after Bryan hurls someone, breaking pipes.
It’s not a Resident Evil movie in this moment. It’s more like the end of Re-Animator, but in a laboratory instead of a morgue. Yet sadness undercuts the brutal comedy of errors. Bryan pleads with anyone to inject him with the antidote, especially because, right before entering the laboratory, he finally reaches an emotional epiphany about how much he wants to raise a baby with his girlfriend. But any time one of the Umbrella employees sneaks close enough, they’re devoured by Bryan’s monster gut.
Not to mention, the scientists are terrible at holding onto the syringe, as it’s booted around the room with each violent death munch.
So the slapstick massacre continues until only one scientist is left, cowering by himself. Instead of injecting Bryan, he sprints to the door and hopes his access card will grant him freedom. The door shuts behind Bryan, as the doofus breaks for the elevator. But it’s a failed escape, as Bryan tackles the man out a window, dropping them onto a skybridge that connects hospital buildings.
Sadly, Bryan completely loses control. His mutation reaches peak evolution—tentacles whipping, massive eyeballs bulging from half his face, his humanity completely erased. Bryan, now lost to the infection, turns the man into his final snack as the syringe—civilization’s only hope—plummets to the snowy ground below.
As National Guard helicopters approach, they see Bryan’s terrifying form. We see it too, as the camera angles from their perspective. One final zoom brings the camera straight into Bryan’s eye—into his fully infected bloodstream, and WHAM, right into the credits.
Did the camera represent a bullet? A missile? [Shrug.] That’s it. It’s the introduction most other Resident Evil movies would start on. Umbrella’s only chance at containing the t-Virus was ruined by the only man who made it possible. Bryan’s arc ends in tragedy, since he’ll never live the happy family life he finally convinced himself he deserved. The syringe is smashed (presumably), the outbreak is unstoppable, and somewhere—nowhere near this film—the post-outbreak events of Capcom’s Resident Evil series are about to unfold.
Does Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil Have a Post-Credits Scene?
As noted earlier, don’t stay for a post-credits scene; there isn’t one.
Cregger has gone on record while promoting Resident Evil about how he didn’t expect such backlash from its fanbase. He’s obsessed with the games and made the Resident Evil he wanted to see. His logic? Because you can go play the right Resident Evil games if you want Leon S. Kennedy’s story—it exists. Why copy-and-paste an adaptation of video games that are already impressively cinematic? Cregger’s Resident Evil is his baby, his way, as an expansion of Resident Evil’s universe. He’s also said that he’s done with franchise films after this, so why would he set up a sequel with a post-credits scene?
And yet, the possibilities are endless for Resident Evil, even if different filmmakers come next. Don’t you want to see as many as we can?
