Austin Abrams Opens Up About Resident Evil’s Dark, Shocking Ending

Actor Austin Abrams is discussing the bleak conclusion of Zach Cregger’s ‘Resident Evil’, a horror film that pushes the franchise in an unexpectedly grim direction.

Abrams plays Bryan, a medical courier who gets caught in a nightmare when an Umbrella Corporation outbreak ravages Raccoon City. What starts as a routine delivery becomes a desperate fight for survival. Cregger, who wrote and directed the film, takes inspiration from the video game series while crafting an entirely new story with original characters.

As Bryan races toward Raccoon City General Hospital carrying a mysterious medical package, he discovers the contents could be crucial to developing a cure for the virus spreading through the city. There’s one problem: he’s already been infected after a bite earlier in the film.

When Bryan finally reaches the hospital lab, his condition deteriorates rapidly. He transforms into a grotesque creature as scientists scramble to finish the cure. The climactic sequence grows increasingly violent as Bryan loses control and turns on the very people trying to save him.

Abrams said he was struck by how willing Cregger was to go to such dark places with the story. The director’s willingness to reject a neat, happy ending is bold in an era when most blockbusters opt for safer resolutions.

But Cregger’s ending isn’t simply about turning Bryan into another monster. Abrams has emphasized that he wanted to keep Bryan’s humanity visible throughout the transformation, making the finale far more tragic.

Even as a creature, Bryan continues fighting for survival. His desperate bid to obtain the cure resonates emotionally because audiences can still recognize the man he was before the infection consumed him.

Ultimately, the completed antidote crashes to the hospital floor, leaving Bryan’s fate and the outbreak’s future in limbo. The film closes with his monstrous form confronted by arriving National Guard helicopters.

This ending represents Cregger’s larger vision for the film. Rather than delivering a conventional hero’s triumph, he steers the story toward visceral body horror and an unsettling final twist.

Unlike previous Resident Evil movies, this one doesn’t adapt a specific game from the franchise. Instead, Cregger borrows the games’ atmosphere, survival mechanics, and escalating dread to construct his own narrative around Bryan. His approach has given the new film authentic ties to the source material through its creature designs and horrifying imagery, with Bryan’s final mutation earning comparisons to grotesque monsters from the video game universe.

The film deliberately leaves several threads dangling: What becomes of the cure? Could Bryan’s transformation trigger broader consequences for Raccoon City?

No sequel has been officially greenlit, though Cregger has hinted he has ideas about where the story might go if the studio decides to continue this new version of the franchise.

For Abrams, the ending gives Resident Evil something distinctive: rather than wrapping up with a clear-cut victory, the movie sends audiences home with a grim truth that survival doesn’t always mean escaping the horror.

‘Resident Evil’ is now in theaters.