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Do you recall the huge surge in zombie media after the release of AMC’s The Walking Dead in 2010? It is correct to say that the zombie genre has been overdone, but I believe that this period produced very amusing (often wonderfully self-referential) spins on the premise. The audience just needed to know where to look instead of falling for the low-quality cash-grabs and shoddy reproductions.
This brings me to Manel Loureiro’s Apocalypse Z. This blog recounts the tale of an ordinary man trying to survive during a more realistic version of a zombie apocalypse. Interestingly, the blog became so popular that Loureiro published a trilogy of books that focused on the journey of a man named Francisco and his cat traveling around a zombie-infested Europe.
These books outperformed the blog and became hits in other countries. They spread rumors about their film adaptation. Fans will have to wait a bit longer to see the story on the big screen. The official Apocalypse Z movie will come out in 2024.
The TV adaptation is definitely better than what I expected. Even with the many flaws it has, like lack of originality and narrative, I am looking forward to seeing what else gets implemented. Amazingly enough, it is easy to stay entertained, unlike many zombie inspired stories that came out after Loureiro’s blog.
Carles Torrens directs this movie under the production of Nostromo Pictures. In Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End, Manel, a Galician lawyer played by Francisco Ortiz lives in isolation after losing his wife. His only companion is a well-mannered cat named Lúculo. Unknown to Manel, a strange viral outbreak is spreading across Europe, leading to an evacuation by the Spanish government. Manel’s sister and her family are also evacuated to the Canary Islands. As Manel refuses to join the evacuation, he is left alone in a deserted city with the infected, all of whom have become cannibalistic zombies.
I have seen variations of this setup countless times before, so I especially appreciate how Apocalypse Z seems to spoon-feed the viewer the slow-building chaos surrounding the sequel first origin narrative. From the lackluster government response, to the quarantines and public panic (supermarket riots and traffic jams), it is clear that the filmmakers drew inspiration from our lived experience during a global pandemic. In fact, it is these quieter moments of thoughts during the catastrophe – like Manel building a home-made security camera, or watching youtube tutorials on how to defend against zombies – that sets this film apart from other films of its kind.
What I do think is that the film loses some of its charms when Manel finally decides to embark on a journey to look for his sister in the Canary Islands because the movie transitions into something more along the lines of a conventional zombie thriller instead of the grounded character study presented in the first half. Fortunately, things are not as outrageous as something like World War Z, but I was thoroughly enjoying watching Manel having to scramble for food and build a new post-apocalyptic lifestyle.
It’s apparent that while the narrative does touch on a wider scope of the world, it doesn’t have the level of grandeur that it wishes to showcase, notably due to the budget’s downside (at least when assessing it against American productions). The portrayal of the zombie plague is certainly on the lower end because of that reason. While I still posit that the much more interesting tale is that of a man trying to get out of a bad situation rather than an action hero blasting through a horde of zombies, I would just like to point that a much more in depth (and possibly more gruesome) account of the devastation left behind doesneed to be showcased.
On the other hand, Ortiz accounts for how much of the psychological devastation there truly is, and he does an excellent job in making Manel a relatable and brilliantly resourceful protagonist. The best part is that he is in fact engaged with a phone screen and a cat, and his interactions are extremely limited, yet it is very evident that this journey is testing him to the limits without needing to turn him into an over-the-top zombie slayer.
The film’s secondary characters are also relatively weak, usually depicted as sympathetic survivors in distress or malicious raiders. Indeed, it is one of those zombie movies that has made it a point to show how a real threat is a desperate human, but the ‘generic militarized’ enemy omnipresent in Apocalypse Z feels like something straight out of the worst episodes of The Walking Dead. To be honest, this was a problem in the books as well, but at least in here, Loureiro had the space to give nuance to the villains. It is worth noting that the original novel is fragmented, meaning that while Manel’s journey has a beginning, middle, and end, there is no closure to it. Which, in turn, means that the viewers can expect a lot more sequels to come. Hopefully, they will not turn Loureiro’s work into another poorly executed streaming show. I do appreciate that Prime Video now has the opportunity to expand on this amazing trilogy, and so far it hasn’t been horrible. If the filmmakers choose to adapt the later books into movies, I hope that they will be more willing to spend money because if the films maintain their quality (and I believe they will) then I wouldn’t mind seeing some grounded zombie horror.
Apocalypse Z does not put a new spin on anything nor did it try to add any commentary on the overall zombie genre, but it does exceptionally well as a performance rendition. While I think the second half of the experience is somewhat lacking and wished the budget allowed for the inclusion of larger hordes of zombies, I appreciate how everything feels crafted with great love and attention to detail, which is why I would endorse it to those with an affinity for classic zombie films.
For myself, I found the realization that my cat would never allow me to stuff them into a bag to accompany me on my post apocalyptic adventures is by far the worst part of the experience.
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