Zach Cregger's Resident Evil, which is playing in theaters now, gives the franchise a fresh start in more ways than one. It's a true reset for the decades-old horror franchise, complete with an original tale, a new protagonist, and a fresh look at the unique horrors of the Umbrella Corporation. For anyone who wants a walk-through of the snowy, tentacle-strewn terrors of the new film, The Direct has you covered.
The Resident Evil franchise is a long-running one, with a six-film arc beginning in 2002, followed by Johannes Roberts' 2021 reboot attempt, Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City. With Cregger coming off the successful duo of Barbarian and Weapons, Sony no doubt hopes the high critical praise and complex horror-comedy tone will fuel a renewed franchise.
2026's Resident Evil Movie Plot Spoilers Breakdown
Bryan Finds a Package, a Zombie, & a Gun
We first meet Bryan (Austin Abrams) as a medical courier rushing through a hospital to make his delivery. It's his last of the day, but he's offered an extremely time-sensitive but mysterious new delivery to Raccoon City General before leaving. Though he's ill-prepared for the snowy, mountainous journey, he can't say no to the fare and sets out.
Bryan can barely see in front of his car as he slides around the snowy mountain roads. While trying to finish an intense conversation with his girlfriend about her pregnancy, he can’t react quickly enough when he suddenly hits a woman emerging in front of his car. He stops and tries to find her but finds only her footprints. He follows them into the woods. She’s in bad shape, and he takes her back to his car.
As luck would have it, he sees police lights behind him. Bryan persuades the arriving officer of the importance of his transport job to Raccoon City General, where he'll also take the woman. The cop allows it but takes her in his cruiser. A short time later, the officer's car swerves, tumbles, and crashes. Bryan walks up to the crashed cruiser, but while the cop is deceased, the woman is nowhere to be found.
She comes out attacking from the darkness. Austin grabs the officer's gun, kicks her away, and eventually is forced to shoot her during one of her advances with a pistol he pulls from the dead officer. The bullet seems to kill the woman, but the shot went through her and into the engine of his car, which he is no longer able to start. Bryan sets off on foot.
Bryan's Zombie Troubles Escalate
The panicked Bryan hears a dog, then sees the angry canine rush toward him out of the darkness. It chases him into the barn, where Bryan climbs up, traps the dog inside, and drops out of the barn from above. It shoves its face through the barn's side, and as Bryan gets closer, the dog's face splits open suddenly. It’s a shocking scare for him, and he shoots it and flees towards the nearby house.
Bryan enters the unlocked home and finds no one around, taking a shotgun from its mount on the wall. He sneaks around the house in search of ammunition when he’s attacked by the zombified man who lives there. We discover the house is also home to the zombified woman he encountered, as she runs full speed toward it.
The zombified man attacks him as he hears the woman enter, and he manages to shoot both. Tendrils emerge from the hole where her head used to be, and they slither across the floor to find the zombified man's corpse, pulling the corpses together as a monstrous hodgepodge of limbs. Brian flees and attempts to steal the couple's truck, but he can’t find the key to the gate's padlock and wrecks the truck trying to drive through. He proceeds on foot.
Bryan travels until he reaches a dark tunnel filled with abandoned cars. Sneaking carefully forward, he's stopped by a jackknifed RV blocking the tunnel. He opens the RV door and exits towards the back, hearing rumbling from behind the bathroom door. It’s a scared little girl he initially wants to save, but her foot has been transformed into a bouquet of tentacles from a zombie bite.
Bryan Gets Bitten, Allies, & Some Answers
The girl attacks and bites Bryan, and he is forced to shoot her with the shotgun. In further shock, he exits out the back, emerging into a dark and snowy pathway. He catches a glimpse of the merged zombie from the house in the surrounding forest, now a larger, rolling pile of limbs that hunts him.
He sees headlights before encountering a car, which stops for him. Driving the car are Maxine (Kali Reis), an Umbrella enforcer, and scientist Paul (Paul Walter Hauser). They’re looking for the package Bryan has been carrying, and the trio drives into Raccoon City. They explain that he's been carrying a key part of an antidote to the pathogen causing these zombie mutations.
They stop the car after seeing a woman being chased by a gaggle of early-stage zombies. Maxine exits the car and casually shoots each zombie before disappearing out of view for some time. Realizing they're stranded without her keys, Paul convinces Bryan to go look for her. Bryan notes the submachine gun in the car and grabs it before heading out.
Bryan sneaks along the line of bodies but sees no sign of his temporary companion. Approaching a dark entrance, he sees Maxine's legs sticking out of the shadows with her keys attached to her camo pants. Every time he reaches for her keys, she's pulled further into the shadow by a set of tentacles. He gives up, hearing a car's horn, and runs back to see Paul being pulled away from the car by more zombie tentacles.
Bad Times at Raccoon City
Bryan books it through the streets of Raccoon City and into the sewers in an attempt to escape the zombies' pursuit, the growing, limbless zombie close behind. He passes a bloated albino zombie that explodes into vermin. Bryan unloads the submachine gun at them and climbs up. He runs through city streets, noticing zombies staring down from adjacent rooftops.
One leaps down in pursuit of him, smashing against the street below, then another, and another, and then several as he runs to Raccoon City General. When he arrives, the hospital is locked. He shoots the padlock and breaks into the parking garage below. Unable to access the elevator and feeling the growing infection from the little girl's earlier bite, Austin weeps and leaves a message for his partner.
Bryan hears a voice on the intercom while he’s sobbing openly, and the voice is excited to hear that he has the parcel they’ve been waiting for. The hospital is overrun with zombies, but Bryan is encouraged to use the stairs... all the way to the research facility on the building's 28th floor. He tries but gets exhausted after four floors and boards an elevator.
Resident Evil Ending Explained
Immediately after the elevator starts its ascent, acid starts burning a hole into it, spit by a zombified patient above. Bryan tries to avoid the acid in the decaying elevator, as he also notices the tentacle zombie is still in pursuit and climbing the elevator shaft. Bryan climbs his way behind the acid-spitter and aims it at the other zombie. The acid knocks that zombie down the shaft, and Bryan kills the acid-spitter, too.
He makes his way to a maternity ward that's overrun by infection, with tentacles and blood cocoons everywhere. He accidentally wakes a zombified baby, and eventually, the whole room becomes alerted to his presence. They chase him out and into a courtyard with a blown-away floor, and he barricades the door shut with a broom handle. He sees the tentacle zombie climbing the hospital's exterior and shoots the broom, pouring the room's zombies into it. The fall kills the zombies.
Bryan finally brings his delivery to the research floor, where he meets Umbrella scientist Carl (Zach Cherry). They immediately use the medical material to synthesize a cure, which Bryan wants to hopefully stave off his growing infection. His zombified flesh goes rogue, attacking the scientists.
Many scientists die, and Carl tries to convince his coworkers to stab Bryan with the syringe to cure him. As zombified Bryan continues killing them, the vial falls to the final scientist, who panics. Zombified Bryan pursues and captures him, but the scientist pulls the syringe from his lab coat pocket. He hesitates too long, and Bryan kills him, the syringe falling to the floor below. Now fully zombified, Bryan stands, facing the newly arrived National Guard helicopters, and roars.
