Rather than try to faithfully adapt the video game franchise that inspired it, Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil takes a more loosey-goosey approach to the survival horror source material.
The script follows medical courier Bryan (Austin Abrams), who must deliver a package to Raccoon City, not realizing the town has been infected by a mutagenic virus.
His desire to pick up a little extra money and avoid having an uncomfortable conversation regarding parental responsibility with his pregnant girlfriend leads to the worst night imaginable. Bryan’s terrifying odyssey goes from bad to downright f–ked when he’s infected with the pathogen and transforms into a monster worthy of John Carpenter’s The Thing.
Certainly a downbeat ending for a character who didn’t deserve such a fate, but that’s also why it works.
Resident Evil Star Austin Abrams Reacts to Movie’s Surprise Ending
“I’ve been living with it for a while now, but I thought it was crazy and shocking when I first read it,” Abrams recently confessed to The Hollywood Reporter. “I love that Zach takes those risks. You follow this one guy the whole time, so hopefully you’re enjoying watching him and rooting for him. Then to have him not make it is really risky and gutsy, which is what I love about all of Zach’s work. So I was surprised by it, but I also loved that he would take that chance.”
Had another director been at the helm, they probably wouldn’t have been allowed to get away with it. But the industry momentum of Barbarian and Weapons has allowed Cregger to pretty much write his own ticket as a modern genre auteur.
“With a lot of movies nowadays, they’re a little too afraid to do something like that—to kill off a character you really like,” Abrams continued. “And if they do, the blow is softened in some way so it doesn’t hurt too much. Whereas a lot of older films don’t do that; they just rip your heart out. We’re here to feel, man. We’re here to go through something. So I’m just appreciative that Zach is willing to take a risk like that.”
The only silver lining one can extract from the tragic conclusion of of Resident Evil (2026) is the smallest hope that Bryan’s girlfriend might one day hear the emotional phone recording in which he tells her he’s ready to be a father. After all, how hard can it be to raise a child after facing off against an entire city of genetically altered freaks?
“She thinks he doesn’t want to have this baby, when he actually does,” Abrams said. “He realizes, ‘No, I love her. Having a kid isn’t as scary as I thought, and I want to do it with her.’ So the fact that she’ll never know that is pretty damn tragic. He changed and got better, but no one will ever know about it. There’s something really beautiful and tragic about that.”
Resident Evil is now in theaters. Click here for tickets.
