Apocalypse Z – The Beginning of the End movie review: Prime Video’s unoriginal zombie thriller compels you to zone out

Apocalypse Z The Beginning of the End movie review: Despite a solid emotional core, the Spanish-language film on Prime Video demands comparison to older (and better) zombie thrillers.

Influenced by every zombie thriller ever made, but more specifically, by the video game series The Last of Us, Prime Video’s Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End is a competently crafted thriller let down by a lack of ambition. The Spanish-language film unfolds across a year in the life of a grieving man named Manel, who is caught by himself in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. Manel is heartbroken over the death of his wife in a car crash not too long ago — the movie opens with this tragic scene — and is hanging on by a thread when the fast-spreading virus breaks out. Having survived the pandemic, everybody assumes that they can handle this outbreak as well. But they have no idea just how terrifying things are going to get.

Initially, Manel decides to stay put at home and ignore the government’s instructions to participate in a military-aided evacuation. But after a couple of months in isolation, he has no choice but to make a move. Manel’s sister left with her family for the Canary Islands just as the outbreak got out of control, and even though he lost all contact with them a while ago, he decides that the smartest thing to do would be to make his way to them. Apocalypse Z is divided into chapters; not literally, like a Quentin Tarantino movie, but more structurally.

Manel’s epic journey towards the Canary Islands serves as a narrative highway of sorts, but director Carles Torrens doesn’t mind making pit-stops and detours along the way. For instance, Manel spends much of the first act developing a friendship with a largely immobile elderly neighbour. These scenes are reminiscent of the many side encounters that Joel and Ellie had in The Last of Us, most memorably with the couple Bill and Frank. The first act of the movie goes a long way in grounding it in an emotional reality, which is necessary in the moments when Manel is doing little else but evading hordes of the undead.

Speaking of which, the film’s action sequences are by far its weakest link. They’re filmed frenetically, relying more on jarring bursts of gore than sustained dread. Apocalypse Z is also severely lacking in suspenseful set-pieces like the ones in John Krasinski’s A Quiet Place movies — scenes with clearly defined and often very basic stakes. There’s only so much zombie violence that one can stomach, after all. Especially when it begins to feel a little repetitive. Perhaps if the action was shot in a less convoluted manner, it would’ve been more palatable, but as things stand, your eyes are likely to glaze over the 15th time Manel is chased by a bunch of zombies.