Wagner Moura draws COVID parallel to The Last House: 'I don't think we did change'
Wagner Moura says he hoped the world would change after the COVID pandemic. It didn't — and that disappointment, he says, is exactly what he carried into the ending of Netflix's new sci-fi thriller The Last House.
Moura, an Oscar nominee, spoke to CinemaBlend about the film's final moments, where his character Jason and the Delgado family escape their Seattle home five years into a catastrophe that floods the world and unleashes ocean monsters. He told the outlet he hoped the family would find "good things about that change" once they finally stepped outside, according to Deadline.
The parallel to his own experience was explicit. "I think that we came out of COVID when, when COVID sort of happened in the end of the whole pandemic, I was like, Okay, the world is gonna change. We are gonna come out of this with a different mindset," Moura told CinemaBlend, as reported by Deadline. "And I don't think we did."
The Last House arrived on Netflix on 7 August 2026. Directed by Louis Leterrier, with a screenplay credited to Leterrier and Matthew Robinson, the film is rated PG-13. CinemaBlend describes it as a sci-fi thriller that leans into claustrophobic COVID-era themes — a family sealed inside their home by a mysterious, unrelenting rain.
Moura plays Jason, whose wife Ann is portrayed by Greta Lee. The family is trapped in their Seattle house as the deluge cuts everyone off from the outside world. Five years into the phenomenon, the Delgados must contend with rising water, encroaching creatures from the ocean, and the strain of confinement.
Lee and Moura also spoke to CinemaBlend about the fate of the family dog in the film, acknowledging that the cast knew the dog scene would provoke strong audience reactions.
For viewers who lived through lockdowns, the film's setup — sealed doors, an unseen threat outside, the slow erosion of normalcy — lands close to home. Moura's point is that the ending asks a question the real world fumbled: when the walls finally come down, do people actually change?
The answer the film offers, through the Delgado family's escape, is left for the audience to weigh. Moura's own verdict, at least on the real-world version, is plain. The world had its chance. He doesn't think it took it.
