Apocalypse Z (The Beginning of the End) is a Prime Video zombie flick from Spain. It’s a pretty standard zombie outbreak film that offers very little new… but what it does, it does well enough to get a solid recommendation. Plus it has the second best cat in horror for 2024… a net positive in my book (your results may vary).
The flick opens in the early days of a new viral outbreak happening just around the corner. But a fast-spreading variant hits that transfers via bite and, yeah, nobody has ever seen a zombie movie before. All the countries lock-down and/or evacuate and our hero finds himself alone (except for his cat) and scavenging his middle class neighborhood.
For a zombie apocalypse, there aren’t many zombies in the first half of this nearly two hour film. Which is a bit of a surprise and maybe a bit disappointing but I was engaged watching a dude try to survive and feed himself (and his cat). It’s not the best and it begs the question of why zombies if there are no zombies, but I was still engaged.
But we do get zombies eventually… the fast kind. They are the infected and not the undead… so a good axe murdering kills them dead. They are a bit typical for the dead (they travel fast) but the film does have some novel ideas. For example, our Spanish hero decks himself out in a bite-resistant wet suit and challenges the walking dead with a spear gun (I guess you can’t get a Glock at the local Five and Dime in Espana).
The flick is fairly bloodless so if you are looking for hard-core zombie chomping Olympics, this one won’t be to your taste. There’s a body count, it’s just not a hard core flesh ripper.
As far as the overall story goes, you’ve seen the journey this dude goes on before in a bunch of other movies like this. He finds humans, some good, some bad… he fights zombies, etc. It works though just because it’s well shot, decently dramatic, and maybe even a little scary. In other words, it gets the job done.
It’s also part 1, as evidenced by a cliffhanger-y ending. So be prepared for the Apocalypse Z: The Middle of the End (I guess). Or maybe The End of the End if they don’t get more ambitious than two parts. But I’d welcome a sequel… even if it’s just more of the same.
Score: 84