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What is the plot?

New Zealand lies broken and fenced. The Government has forced the remaining citizens into guarded camps while the countryside fills with ravenous undead known locally as Howlers. In the opening sequence Rory works alone in a bleak paddock beneath a cold sky; she digs a shallow grave and lays down the body of her daughter Matty. Rory closes the grave after a short prayer and turns away with mud on her hands and a hollow expression. The narration of her actions makes clear that Matty died at the hands of her husband after he turned into a Howler; Rory also carries the memory of having once been forced to end the life of a daughter who became infected. She walks back toward a weatherboard homestead on a ridge where she lives with her father Otto, moving through a landscape of boarded windows, rusting farm implements and horse tack. Rory keeps a pistol at her hip and a bottle of pills in a drawer; she begins and ends each day under the weight of grief and repeated thoughts of killing herself to reunite with Matty.

Far from Rory's property, two men race across scrub and gravel in a commandeered utility, chased by Government patrols. The men are Noah and Lockie. They have broken out from a guarded Government camp with evidence of a medical breakthrough: a serum that can treat the Howlers. During a violent roadside ambush led by Logan, a hard-eyed Government operative with military bearing, the pursuit becomes deadly. Logan closes with the escape vehicle as it scrapes across a bend; he leaps aboard, guns blaze. In the melee Logan shoots Lockie dead. Lockie dies at the scene, collapsing into the mud as the patrol secures the area. Noah survives the encounter but is hit and wounded--he staggers away into the scrub, leaving Lockie behind.

Noah stumbles across country and finds the farmhouse where Rory and Otto live. He collapses on the porch; Rory takes him inside only after Otto insists she can treat him but that Noah must leave by dawn. Rory examines Noah's torn pack while she cleans his wounds and finds a sealed vial wrapped in oilcloth--the serum. For a long stretch of the night Noah lies weak on a pallet. At one point a Howler prowls the property and begins scratching at the farm shed. Noah wakes, grabs a rifle and follows Rory outside. Under a moonless sky a gaunt, fast Howler noses at the shed door and slams its head into the wood. The creature smells them, then lashes out through the gap with yellowed teeth. Rory raises a shotgun; Noah shouts and fires. The blast knocks the Howler back but does not finish it. Noah leaps forward, driving his boot into the creature's skull; Rory brings a hatchet down on its neck until it stops twitching. The two catch their breath in the cold air; Noah's hand shakes and Rory studies the serum in his pack. In the quiet afterward Noah speaks openly: he intends to take the cure to his aunt, who lives beyond the Government checkpoints and might be able to move it to a secure facility or distribute it. Rory listens; she finds herself softening toward him because he defended her and Otto's home when the Howler attacked.

At first light Otto keeps his promise: he moves among the animals and warns Noah to leave when the sun climbs. Noah promises to go immediately, packing the serum into a canvas satchel and mounting a horse that Otto loans him. Rory, who has not trusted anyone since Matty's death, looks at Noah and then at the satchel; she cannot bring herself to stop him. Before Noah rides away the sound of approaching motorcycles and jeeps breaks the morning air. Government agents cut through the paddocks with Logan leading the column and two subordinates named Brooks and Scout at his side. They have tracked Noah to the homestead and they circle the farmhouse.

Otto moves to meet them in the yard with a Winchester rifle across his forearm. He stands at the gate and calls for identification. Logan answers that they are reclaiming fugitives and confiscating contraband. Otto refuses. Logan steps forward and draws a service pistol. The situation escalates into a firefight. Logan fires first, bullets tearing into fence posts and splintering the wood. Otto returns fire from behind a haybale, picking his shots with the cool precision of a man who has butchered and hunted for decades. Brooks advances down the drive and exchanges fire with Otto. Rory, in the doorway with Noah, ducks as a shot punches into the kitchen wall. She reaches for a rifle and fires twice to cover Otto. The gunfight grows louder and more chaotic; flashes of muzzlefire etch the landscape. Otto maneuvers and manages to put a shot into Brooks, who falls to the ground and expires in a spray of dust and blood. Otto steps back, panting, and watches Brooks lie still in the grass.

Logan, furious, steps from behind his jeep and walks straight up to Otto. He shoots Otto at close range. Otto collapses on the rough ground; the bullet pierces his chest and he falls like a tree. Rory screams his name and runs toward him, but Logan's men already move to secure the homestead. Otto reaches out and whispers something to Rory before he dies; he clasps her hand, his fingers limp as he goes. Logan looks at Rory with contempt and gives the order to search the house. In the confusion Noah and Rory seize the opportunity. While the Government men gather bodies and check the homestead, Rory throws a pack on a horse, shouts for Noah and pushes him into the saddle. The two ride hard down the lane and out over the hill, taking advantage of the smoke and dust from the firefight.

Behind them Logan does not give up. As Rory and Noah gallop for the gravel road, Scout glances after them and then at Logan. She hesitates; the cruelty Logan has shown--killing Lockie, executing Otto in cold blood--disturbs her. Scout slips away from Logan's group and blends into a side track, abandoning the pursuit. Logan snarls but he does not call her back immediately; his attention turns toward tracking the fugitives. He mounts his vehicle and takes the direct route after Rory and Noah.

Noah knows the terrain but he is wounded from earlier and the soils are soft with the country's chill rains. He leads Rory along rough tracks through tussock and willow, steering toward a route that will put them around Logan's lines. After hours of riding they stop to rest near a stand of manuka. Noah examines his wound and grimaces; he is bleeding and his face is drawn. He tells Rory he must reach his aunt and deliver the serum. Rory says little, pressing her thumb to the wound to try and slow the blood. Her own mind turns toward the pills in her drawer--she calculates distances in her head and thinks of Matty's grave.

Logan finds them sooner than Noah expects. He corners them in a narrow valley where the only exit is a muddy track lined with jagged flax. Logan reappears with a small team; he dismounts and walks forward, pistol in hand. Noah rides straight at him, desperate to keep the serum out of Government control. The two men exchange fire at close range. Noah aims to wound Logan enough to break the pursuit; Logan aims to stop Noah permanently. Bullets pepper the earth; Logan slumps as Noah gets a bullet into his shoulder, but Logan returns fire. A single round tears into Noah's abdomen; he reels, gravity dragging him to a crouch in the dirt. Blood darkens his shirt. Rory watches from a rise, pistol lifted and shaking, and then swings down through the flax to reach Noah.

Logan stumbles forward and tries to take the satchel; Noah attempts to stand and she pushes him back. Logan fires again and Noah falls. As Noah slumps, Logan moves forward with a triumphant gait to finish him. At that instant a pack of Howlers, drawn by the gunfire and the scent of blood, emerges from the surrounding manuka. The undead collapse on Logan with a sudden, animal ferocity. They claw at his face and throat, their jaws working. Logan struggles, firing wildly, but the Howlers tear him apart, ripping through his jacket and flesh. For a long, brutal moment Logan is dragged to the ground and chewed; his screams cut off as the Howlers overwhelm him. Rory, close enough to watch, registers the sight in stunned silence.

Noah, though mortally wounded from the earlier shot, is still conscious as he sees Logan's death. He reaches for the satchel and coughs blood into his palm. A Howler, beating its way through the menagerie, turns toward Noah. It bolts at him with animal speed and sinks its teeth into his midsection. Noah convulses, letting out a single, ragged breath. Rory tries to pull the creature off him with the butt of her rifle, but another Howler dives in. Noah is bitten again and again; within minutes the Howlers have stripped him. Rory screams and slashes at them with a knife she pulls free, but too late--Noah dies under their jaws, his body dragged into the scrub. Rory manages to pry one hand free and snatch the satchel before she is forced backward by a snapping maw. She collapses at the edge of the carnage with the satchel clutched to her chest.

During the attack Rory herself is bitten. A tooth sinks into the inside of her forearm; she feels the searing pain and tastes iron. She pushes the gun into a Howler's eye, stabs at its throat and finally manages to drive it off with an axe handle. As dawn breaks she sits on a rock with blood on her sleeve and the serum bag tucked under her jacket. The Howlers, having consumed the immediate fresh flesh and perhaps sensing sub-odor changes from their newcomer, lose interest in Rory and drift away into the hills. Rory watches them go, rigid and shaking. She notices that after being bitten they hesitate and do not attack her further; when they stand back they mostly pass by her, sniffing and moving on. This observation is immediate and literal; the Howlers that chewed Logan and Noah do not return to finish her off.

Rory drags herself to a nearby cave as the light flattens the landscape. She tends to the wound with cold water and ragged bandages, pressing the bullet holes and bite marks. She wraps Noah's satchel against her chest and speaks aloud to the hollow walls, telling herself she will do what Noah asked. At night she curls up on a ledge inside the cave and thinks of Matty. She removes the pills from her pocket and watches the mountains beyond the cave mouth. She plans to ride to Noah's aunt the following day and hand over the serum, then kill herself to be with Matty; she has resolved it precisely, timing each step like a list.

At first light Rory packs her horse and departs the cave. She rides through burned scrub and broken fence-lines, signaling no militia that approaches. Word of the earlier firefight with Logan has already traveled--Government patrols comb the roads but they do not find her. She rides into a small settlement where Noah's aunt lives in a fenced garden ringed with solar panels and stacked water barrels. Noah's aunt is an older woman with a stern face and sudden tears when she sees Rory arrive with the satchel. Rory hands the serum to her and explains the transfer in a few terse words. The aunt tears open the oilcloth, examines the vials and murmurs. She thanks Rory, then calls in help. Workers gather supplies and load the serum for transport to another safe place where it might be tested and replicated. Rory watches the process without expression and watches the aunt place a vial into a dry box.

With the serum delivered, Rory returns to the ridge road. She rides to the place where she had earlier buried Matty and dismounts. She kneels beside the small grave, brushing away lichen and stones. Her hands are stained; she presses her forehead to the cool earth and tells Matty she is coming. She unwraps the pills and places them in her mouth, swallowing them one by one. She lays down next to the grave, closes her eyes and waits for the medication to take her. The film's closing sequence shows Rory breathing shallowly in the grass while clouds move across a bright sky. She imagines Matty at her side and then the screen goes to black on her slow exhale.

Throughout the film all significant deaths are recorded in sequence: Lockie is shot and killed by Logan during the Government ambush; Brooks is shot and killed during Otto's defensive stand at the homestead; Otto is shot and killed by Logan when he confronts the agents at the gate; Logan is overwhelmed, killed and devoured by a pack of Howlers during the valley ambush; Noah is mortally wounded by Logan's gunfire and then attacked and eaten by a Howler; Rory is bitten by a Howler but, after the attack, the undead no longer attack her and she survives long enough to deliver the serum to Noah's aunt and then ride to Matty's grave to end her own life. Scout, present during the homestead confrontation, deserts Logan during the pursuit, leaving his command. The final image rests on Rory's still form on the ground beside her daughter's grave as the landscape holds the serum in the hands of Noah's aunt and the Government's presence recedes in the countryside. The story closes with the transfer of the cure out of Rory's reach, the deaths of the men who tried to control it, and Rory's decision to join Matty in death.

What is the ending?

The ending of Forgive Us All (2025) concludes with Rory, the bereaved mother surviving in isolation, choosing to risk everything to pursue hope and redemption after meeting Noah, a desperate wounded stranger fleeing a totalitarian group. Despite the dangers of the cannibal-infested forest and her dark past, Rory commits to helping Noah and confronting her painful memories to find a new reason to live.


In greater detail, the final sequence unfolds as follows:

The movie builds to its climax in Rory's isolated mountain cabin, where she has taken refuge since losing everything to the virus-driven apocalypse. The heavy silence of her solitude is shattered when Noah, a wounded man escaping from the authoritarian G.M.A., stumbles to her doorstep. His arrival injects a flicker of hope into Rory's bleak existence.

First, we see Rory wrestling internally with whether to trust Noah and what risks his presence might bring. She is haunted by the loss and death that have scarred her, but Noah's desperate story kindles a spark of something she had shut away--hope for redemption and a chance to make amends with her past.

As Noah explains the oppressive reach of the G.M.A. and his theft of something valuable from them, Rory realizes that the only way forward might be to face the dangers lurking not only outside but within herself. Together, they plan an escape through the heavily cannibal-ridden forest that surrounds the cabin.

In a tense and harrowing journey scene, Rory and Noah navigate past ravenous, aggressively fast cannibals--virus-infected humans driven by violent madness. The landscape is unforgiving, but their determination pushes them onward. Rory's protective instincts surface, reflecting her growth from isolated survivor to someone willing to fight for another soul's chance at life.

As they progress, flashes of Rory's tragic backstory intertwine with the present, deepening the narrative tension. The final confrontation is charged: Rory must confront the hunters pursuing Noah and the ghosts of her past grief. The movie ends with Rory surviving the ordeal, transformed by the experience and embracing hope amidst the apocalypse's devastation.

This ending emphasizes Rory's evolution--moving from despair and isolation to embracing vulnerability and courage. It portrays the human capacity to find redemption and hope even in a fractured, cannibal-infested world, underscoring themes of survival, trust, and reconciliation with one's past.

Is there a post-credit scene?

The movie Forgive Us All (2025) does not have any official information or confirmation about a post-credits scene available in the sources reviewed. The detailed review and synopsis of the film do not mention any post-credit scene or additional footage following the credits. Additionally, no specific details about a post-credit scene have been reported for this film in the available 2025 movie news or reviews. Therefore, it appears that Forgive Us All does not include a post-credit scene.

Is this family friendly?

The movie Forgive Us All (2025) is not family friendly and may be unsuitable for children or sensitive viewers due to several intense thematic and visual elements. It is a neo-Western post-apocalyptic thriller involving a highly contagious virus that turns people into violent, zombie-like cannibals. The film contains:

  • Violence and gore: Scenes with slow or fast-moving cannibalistic attacks and threatening chases by violent groups.
  • Disturbing themes: Post-apocalyptic despair, death, and loss that permeate the story's atmosphere.
  • Psychological intensity: Elements of grief, guilt, and moral ambiguity that may be upsetting.
  • Threatening and suspenseful moments: Characters fleeing from totalitarian regime forces and facing life-or-death decisions.

While no explicit plot spoilers will be detailed here, these elements indicate the movie includes potentially objectionable or upsetting scenes for children and sensitive people, including graphic violence, intense tension, and mature thematic content typical of horror and thriller genres.