Resident Evil movie star Austin Abrams has recalled his initial reaction to the film’s finale, which he believes is “crazy and shocking.”
Warning: spoilers for Resident Evil follow…
Zach Cregger’s enjoyable Resident Evil film follows Abrams’ everyman courier Bryan as he transports a bag of medical supplies into a deadly zombie apocalypse. Unfortunately, as you’ll know from watching the film, Bryan ends up not making it out of Raccoon City alive.
It’s a particularly sad ending for Bryan as he’s never able to reconnect with his pregnant girlfriend, or make amends with her after an earlier argument. Despite fighting off waves of undead and recording a message of reconciliation for her, Bryan succumbs to his injuries and turns into a monster, just as a cure is produced.
Cregger’s ending is certainly a bold choice, and one that differs from the heroic end featured in every Resident Evil game. But Abrams himself is clearly a fan of this story’s finale, and described the ending as a “risky and gutsy” decision by Cregger, in an era where downbeat endings are now rarer to avoid bumming out audiences and killing a movie’s chance for word-of-mouth recommendations.
“I’ve been living with it for a while now, but I thought it was crazy and shocking when I first read it,” Abrams told 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.
“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,” he concluded. “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.”
With all of that said, however, we learned this week that Cregger still tweaked the film’s ending in post production using material he’d already shot — if anything to make things even more tragic. There’s details here of how things would have originally planned out.
Tom Phillips
News Editor
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
