Apocalypse Z Review: Spanish Horror Film is Ideal for a High-Tension Evening
Apocalypse Z Review: Spanish Horror Film is Ideal for a High-Tension Evening - Filmyhype
Director: Carles Torrens
Date Created: 2024-10-31 18:04
3.5
Apocalypse Z (Apocalypse Z: El principio del fin original title), an Amazon Prime Original film based on the Spanish best-selling novel, follows a young cat-loving man who tries to survive a plague that has turned people into zombies. a Spanish horror film based on the novel of the same name (the first in a trilogy, in case you were wondering if there could be sequels) by Manel Loureiro, was released on Prime Video. Not to be confused with En fin – Day Zero, a Spanish dramedy series on Prime Video that also focuses on a (in that case failed) huge tragedy that strikes the world. Rather, if you don’t know Loureiro’s book and want a comparison to understand what kind of story it is, we could say that Apocalypse Z somehow recalls the settings of The Last of Us, or even I Am Legend. Here too, in short, there is a virus that transforms infected people into monsters hungry for the blood of other people to infect (and/or kill). But if you want to know more, let’s continue this review with a summary of the film’s plot, and then express our, as always, highly questionable, opinion.
Apocalypse Z Review: The Story Plot
The protagonist is Manel, who is named after the author of the novel. Manel lives in Spain, in Galicia, and after the tragic death of his beloved wife Julia, the only company he wants is that of his cat Lucullus, named for the hunger he shares with the famous Roman general. One day, about a year after Julia’s death, news is released of a fearsome virus that is spreading from Russia throughout the world. It should be noted that Loureiro’s book is from 2008, but those who have experienced COVID-19 already know very well that – especially in horror films – no government or health intervention will help, in the end, the virus will spread anyway.
When the pandemic has yet to break out in Spain, Manel’s sister, Belen, invites him to join her and her family in the Canary Islands, where the Spanish government and crown are taking refuge and where Belen’s husband, a soldier, is to be operated on. But when, the next day, Manel is about to board a plane for Las Palmas, it is already too late: all flights have been canceled, and the army is gathering the population in “safe spots”. Manel, on his sister’s advice, is not found when they come to take him to one of these centers, and so begins his solitary fight for survival. His goal is to reach Gran Canaria, but obviously, he will have to escape the hordes of infected people that now fill the streets. These are not the only dangers to watch out for, but we won’t say anything else to avoid spoilers: at the bottom of the article, you will find the official trailer for Apocalypse Z: El Principio Del Fin.
Zombie movies that seem to use cats as an important variable like A Quiet Place: Day One, in which cats are truly the key to the story. But for Apocalypse Z, it’s different. The cats in this story are more of a suspenseful element alongside the main character than the key to the story. The plot places ‘Manel’ as someone who is not ready to have children. Cats are a healing agent after losing their wife. Until the arrival of the plague that spread throughout Europe, with rumors that it came from an abandoned Soviet lab, causing Manel to stay in the house with the cats as advised by his brother-in-law who is a government soldier. But when the food runs out, he has to leave the house to encounter the disaster of the world that is the beginning of the end of this world.
The film begins by choosing to tell the period from the beginning of the event in detail, using the first hour as the starting point, which is like COVID-19 as a quarantine at home. The situation is not as severe as a real zombie movie, just like a widespread epidemic, but other people will be evacuated by the military to gather in other places to be quarantined. The story is set for him to set up a solar cell company to generate electricity to charge the battery by himself, but he just needs to find food. The story takes us to explore nearby areas and meet people who are quarantining to survive like him, which becomes a small relationship between neighbors who have never greeted each other before during this time of disaster. During this time, there are very few zombies, so it may seem boring like a low-budget film, but the film intends to show the sequence of events realistically. And if you are not really cornered, no one will go anywhere. Especially with a cat that we love and cannot abandon like this, it is even harder to decide.
Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End Review and Analysis
As mentioned, the idea behind this story is not the most original. There is a virus that leads to the extermination of the human race and in the meantime the infected transform into undead thirsty for blood and new subjects to infect. And there is the protagonist, a man with a trauma in his past who still retains a shred of humanity and hope for the future also thanks to the presence of someone at his side: in The Last of Us there is Ellie who raises Joel, in I Am Legend Will Smith walked around with a dog, here there is a cat that meows at the most inopportune moments. But then again, the story of the survivor who escapes death is as old as the hills, and a film like Apocalypse Z cannot be judged on the originality of its starting point. Rather, it should be judged on its ability to keep the audience in suspense, and in this sense, this Spanish film works very well.
Manel’s journey, as he gradually meets new friends as well as new enemies, keeps the tension high until the end (and we really hope for a sequel). Thanks to a direction that is just right, a gallery of characters with whom one can easily empathize, and in general to a story that, net of the suspension of disbelief that horror requires by definition (even if nowadays when we hear about a pandemic a shiver of reality runs down our spine), is interpreted and written so well that it seems true. For this reason, on Halloween or any other night of the year, we feel that Apocalypse Z is an excellent choice for a couple of hours of high tension. The first hour of the movie is so long that it feels like a drama, not a full-fledged zombie movie. But in the second hour, the main character decides to go out to find his sister on a government-run safehouse island.
The movie immediately changes its mode by having the main character ride a dirt bike through a horde of zombies that come from nowhere, even though there were almost none in the first hour. He carries a bag of cats with him as his burden. After this, the movie continuously injects zombies in several scenes, with a little drama about the accident that happened to his wife. There is a dramatic moment when he meets other survivors, armed with only a harpoon gun that can shoot one shot at a time. This movie doesn’t try to let the main character use a gun (he only uses it for a short time). He only uses things around him to fight. Therefore, the scenes in the story are all about escaping death using his abilities. The movie creates fun and thrilling escape scenes, while the script doesn’t write any characters in the story to act stupidly like many stories like to do to make it easy to escape from zombies.
But this movie doesn’t have that. Even the cat that he brings with him is just a necessary burden because the cat represents his wife. Therefore, this movie doesn’t have a scene where the cat is used to lure zombies in like in A Quiet Place: Day One, where the cat is really diligent in finding trouble. It makes the cat role look more realistic and helps to make the scene where the main character escapes from the zombies more suspenseful. For example, the scene where he runs away from the zombies while carrying a cat bag. Anyone who has a cat knows how difficult it is (actually, the main character should use a cat bag instead, so it wouldn’t be this difficult, lol). On the other hand, it also makes the cats in the story seem less valuable to the story than on Day One, which is key to the end, which makes even cat lovers a little disappointed. But this movie doesn’t end in one part, because it leaves us with a cliffhanger that there’s a sequel, so it’ll probably follow the novel, which now has 3 volumes (the story continues with the origins of the disease and Russia).
Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End Review: The Last Words
A thrilling and exciting cat slave movie about escaping from zombies. The story is set as the starting point in the first hour to gradually see the changes in the apocalypse in a small circle. Near home is a time when there are almost no zombies, but there is a drama about relationships with neighbors who do not know each other before in the normal world. Although it is slow and plain, it is quite realistic at the starting point. Before the second hour is a scene of escaping zombies. For zombie movie fans, it may not feel new because the zombies in the story are not more special than other stories. But for cat slaves, carrying a cat bag to escape zombies immediately increases suspense more than general zombie movies. And the movie does not use cats as bait or to cause these scenes, making the story look realistic. But it also makes the role of cats in the story seem like they are just supporting the events rather than being the real key to the story. (But the movie does not end, there are 2 more parts.)
Cast: Berta Vázquez, Iria del Río, Francisco Ortiz, Jesús Lloveras, Sergio Crespo, Alberto Ladrón de Guevara
Director: Carles Torrens
Streaming Platform: Prime Video
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3.5/5 (three and a half stars)
