'Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End' by Carles Torrens Review: An okay zombie title that aims to have a sequel

I used to love a good zombie film back in the day. I would always be searching online for a new one to watch when it felt like I had exhausted my options already. I have lost count of the number of times I have watched the films by George Romero, or England's own 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later titles. I'd even jump into the international scene in attempt to find new things, sometimes stumbling across a few gems here and there. Mostly just coming across a bunch of crap, to be honest. The zombie genre had a massive push not too long ago when things like The Walking Dead were still fresh and everyone was trying to capitalise on that success, and with a plethora of zombie titles appearing from all over the world, it came to no surprise that the genre had reached its peak, leading to that inevitable over-saturation and decline. I think it's actually quite difficult for filmmakers to create a unique zombie story at this point with how tried and done the genre is, how formulaic they all end up being. I didn't expect much from Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End, especially with the title it holds which seems a bit lazy, but it comes to no surprise that this is also based on a pre-existing novel series of the same name (yeah I guess this could mean a sequel or two to come).

It comes to no surprise that a title like this would end up with a streaming platform distribution. Appearing on Amazon's Prime Video for its release. This is a Spanish film though, and I have to say that I'm always happy to see a Spanish title appear out of nowhere and capture my attention. I don't think I've seen a whole lot of films from Spain throughout the years compared to other nations, and seeing a film industry thriving to the point of being able to make films like this is always nice. While I knew that I had high standards for a zombie film, I tried to go into this one knowing that a lot has changed within culture and cinema within the last few years, where zombie films like mentioned before, are in fact heavily overdone and a bit hard to do with much originality, but the realisation that there still could be something interesting to find here. Though funnily enough, in some aspects it did feel like it had pulled certain elements of interest from other recent titles to give itself that extra bit of attention and emotion. Primarily in how John Wick is about the loss of a dog, The Last of Us is about saving the youth. Here? Our survivor is a man with a cat. Of course, there's lots that could be done with such a concept, where the protagonist cares for something weaker than himself, something that needs protection that adds a layer of tension to every scene and moment.

I don't think this aspect of the film was utilised well enough, however. A lot of the time it was quite easy to simply forget about the cat. It was only really reminded to us in moments of high tension where the protagonist is in heavy motion, but little is done to remind us of the fragility of that animal. He'll pick it up and run off, and that's about it. I'm not sure if the books feature more of a challenge for the protagonist in this regard, but I would've liked to have seen more done, especially with how the film starts off and shows us the importance of the cat to the main character, with its own camera near its food bowl for him to watch at all times. Such shots almost hinted at something to come later, and it was disappointing when nothing was actually used in such a way. The rest of the film didn't have this feeling of the protagonist struggling to protect something that he cares for deeply that is entirely dependent on him either, which I think certainly would've given more emotion to the rest of the film, and emotion is quite a bit of a void here. With a two hour runtime, it's quite a long film, but it rarely feels like it's going anywhere meaningful. I found it quite difficult to connect with the protagonist for most of the film, very little is shown to us about his character and his life before everything goes south.

I think one of the more meaningful scenes was much earlier in the film, after the outbreak has already taken place and he's left scavenging the nearby homes for resources. He stumbles across an old disabled woman that has been left alone, to which the two form a friendship and take care of each other over the following few weeks. Much of this is told to us over a series of shots, like a montage of time passing with him roaming through homes and grabbing whatever he can, learning more of the surroundings and how to adapt in this new world of zombies. The opening scenes that detail the outbreak were done in a typical fashion: there's an illness being discussed in news reports and a lot of the information is constantly changing. It's something that certainly has more impact to us these days with how we saw the Covid pandemic unfold, which I think gives a bit more of an appreciation for such scenes after the entire world actually did in fact live in a similar situation of new reports on an unfamiliar illness with frequent changing of symptoms and threats, all unfolding in the background of our everyday lives. It was a bit of a slower introduction, but I don't mind it at all. I think the actual introduction to the outbreak itself was the more underwhelming side of things.

A lot of the film is more about the horrors of humanity and how the remaining people are often cruel and suspicious, it seems. With the introduction of, what was a strange addition, Ukrainians that seemed more from the mafia side of things that had ill-intentions with people they stumbled across. Not much was told to us regarding those people, but at first they were just survivors, to which it was revealed they were actually kidnapping people for some reason. It felt a bit random, a bit pointless to the story. I think this is when I started to lose some interest in the film as it began to be a bit unrealistic in the action side, the challenges that the protagonist would then face later on. A lot of zombie films pursue this direction, and I think I would've preferred if it just maintained the interest in the zombies, with less focus on how other people are more the threat. The whole point is for our protagonist to try to make it to the Canary Islands where a safe spot has been established, leading to the protagonist wanting to find his way to a nearby helicopter which is running routes to and from the islands. And this is where the film is definitely trying to set itself up for another title to come. And with this, the film is quite mediocre as it clearly serves as an introduction to what it hopes will be a franchise.

From a more technical standpoint, I think the film is directed and shot rather well. I liked the cinematography and how the film utilised depth between movements, giving us these hidden perspectives as the characters navigate throughout an environment. It utilised a variety of locations too which certainly added to that feeling of movement, from one place to another. From natural environments to the urban sprawl. It felt like it was mostly void of special effects too, which definitely gave a lot of these locations a bit more of an authentic feeling to them. I think the film did alright, it was nothing special. A fun way to pass two hours, but I think if you're going to go into this, you should keep in mind that it is absolutely just setting itself up with hopes of another story to come. Don't go into this expecting a start and an and; which is ironic given the title.