Jeff Wolfe’s “Outbreak” (2024) is a low-budget metaphor-laden commentary on a massive virus outbreak that has engulfed a Californian locality. The film proceeds as a generic outbreak thriller. However, the ending problematizes our entire understanding of the information being given to us in bits and pieces, or at least what we tried so hard to establish from the incomplete shreds.
Outbreak (2024) Movie Synopsis & Plot Summary:
Why does Neil act so distracted and aloof?
The film opens with a 911 dispatcher reporting a rabid dog attack at a construction site amid the arid Californian desert. Mourning Rock park rangers, Neil, Gibson, and their chief Mike Cortez, are en route to gun down the rabid dog. In the showdown between the rangers and the dog, Neil fumbles and fails to shoot the dog, leading to Cortez getting attacked by the animal. Finally, Gibson manages to pull the trigger and kill the dog. Neil’s absentmindedness and indifference towards his real state get noticed by his peers.
Neil has recently lost his seventeen-year-old son, Ben Morris. Ben’s disappearance has caused Neil and his wife to spiral down a miserable dark funnel. Neil’s wife, Abby, tries to wash down her bottled-up grief with alcohol and remains locked inside their cabin with the shades of the windows drawn.
Neil’s first encounter with the monsters
Once when Neil steps out of his cabin to have a smoke and reminisce his memories with Ben, Neil spots a girl drowning in the lake in the woods. Neil saves the girl. However, he doesn’t realize that he has unknowingly invited trouble until she is brought to the land. The girl’s half-decomposed monstrous face shocks Neil. She begins attacking him in an attempt to feed off him. Neil manages to pin down the woman and smashes her skull with a stone.
As Neil runs back to his house, two similar figures follow him through the woods. The two zombies attack Neil. Fortunately, Neil manages to put an end to them, too. Abby, unbeknownst to the carnage due to the drug influence, gets dragged out of the house by Neil to flee. The couple does not realize that they are in the midst of some sort of outbreak until they hit the road. Seemingly healthy people are getting attacked by numerous other zombified figures. Healthy humans are turning into predators.
Why is everyone turning into monsters?
Neil fears that the entire population of Mourning Rock is slowly getting infected by an unknown virus. It could be the reason why there has been a spike in reports of dogs being infected with rabies. Neil decides to take shelter at Mike’s house. On their way to Mike’s house, at a pit stop deserted gas station, Neil sets another zombie ablaze. At Mike’s house, everyone has already turned zombies. Mike, in his zombie form, does not recognize Neil and attacks him. Mike goes after Abby. Due to falling off from an elevated land mass, Neil loses consciousness and loses track of Abby.
As he proceeds through the woods, Mike shows up staggering. Neil has to put an end to Mike or whatever is left of him. Neil spots Abby loading their truck. However, Abby being in contact with Mike, is now infected with the lethal virus. She no longer recognizes Neil and is after his blood. In the next few scenes, we see Neil desperately trying to establish a communication network back at the ranger station looking for help to resuscitate his now zombified wife.
Outbreak (2024) Movie Ending Explained:
Unveiling the Truth: Grief, Guilt, and Neil’s Unreliable Reality
Finally, the network enables Neil to tap into Gibson’s signal. When Neil pleads with Gibson to save Abby, Gibbs explains that he knows what has conspired to this situation. He asks Neil to meet him at Neil’s house. Back at his house, it seems Gibbs has only invited Neil to the lair of the devil, instead of helping him ward it off.
However, the film demystifies itself at this point. Neil gets shot by a zombied Gibbs and as he looks in his rearview mirror he encounters the zombied version of himself. The film then switches back and forth between the points of view of Neil’s unreliable narrator self and the reality of the world he is in. Since we have been invested in Neil’s narration of the world struck by the virus, we endowed Neil with the responsibility of a trustworthy and unbiased judge. In doing that we completely forsook the possibility of Neil being powerless in the face of the enormous grief of his son’s death.
Did Neil’s Grief Create a World of Monsters?
The film in the end shows us that Neil was the final person Ben met before succumbing to his accidental death. In fact, Neil witnessed Ben falling off to his death in the woods. The shock is so otherworldly that Neil has chosen to mute that part of his brain where his trauma resides. To cope with the grief, Neil’s mind has given him the weapon of concocting a makebelieve world where post his son’s disappearance a virus has turned the world upside down.
The world being upside down is a reflection of his world being upside down. It is also hinted, although not directly stated, that all the imaginary zombies that he attacked throughout the film were actually healthy people. Therefore, they were not monsters to be exterminated but healthy people whose deaths were entirely Neil’s responsibility. In the end, Neil has to die. Neil, surrounded by Abby, Cortez, and Gibson, is shot point-blank. Abby’s frenzied cries to save Neil and bring him back to his senses ring in the air but make little difference.
I soooooo love that you “get it” you’d be surprised at how few do and were instead just hoping for zombies!!
The big picture takeaway was meant to be… be careful whose “bandwagon” you jump on, believing you’re on the right side of
In the end you may find what you’ve been shown isn’t the whole truth.
Appreciate the review 🙏🏼
though I’d have given it a solid 8 😎🤷🏻