Austin Abrams Details 95-Minute Resident Evil Ordeal, Ending as Giant Monster

Q: What shocking twist in the final act of this R-rated Resident Evil reboot is leaving early audiences so divided?

The divisive final-act twist is that Austin Abrams’ Bryan does not survive as the hero—he becomes the movie’s final monster, and the cure is lost. After spending the film trying to deliver a key ingredient for an antidote to Raccoon City General Hospital, Bryan reaches the lab already infected and mutating. The scientists manage to create the cure, but he transforms before they can inject him. In a gruesome sequence, his body erupts into a tentacled, fused monstrosity that kills and absorbs the lab team. The shocking part, and the reason early audiences are split, is the film’s refusal to offer a conventional Resident Evil-style victory. In the final moments, the antidote syringe is knocked away and falls dozens of stories into the darkness, leaving no last-second rescue. Bryan, now fully mutated, is framed by arriving National Guard helicopters as the screen cuts to black. Reports and reviews describe the ending as bleak, nihilistic and intentionally cruel in a way that some viewers admire as bold survival-horror filmmaking, while others see it as mean-spirited and anti-climactic. Several commentators have compared it to an origin story for a Resident Evil boss creature: instead of defeating the monster, the audience watches the protagonist become it.

3 articles · Updated · Variety · Sep 19

Abrams said Bryan’s final transformation into a giant tentacled creature was meant to feel tragic, turning the film’s 95-minute survival story into an origin tale for how the virus spreads.
He described the monster work as a mix of performance capture, facial prosthetics and CGI, saying director Zach Cregger mainly pushed him to commit harder with notes like “more monster” and “more roar.”
Prague’s freezing shoot added to the strain: rain sometimes froze onto jackets, farmhouse scenes used real snow, and the maternity-ward sequence left him soaked in blood and goo.
One stunt he did not perform was the farmhouse jump, which the stunt team handled wire-free; Abrams said most other action was done in character, including the film’s constant running and screaming.
The interview expands on Abrams’ earlier account of a punishing stunt shoot, underscoring how Cregger’s game adaptation relied on physical performance as much as horror effects.