Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End (2024)
★★★ — Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End (2024)
Spain has a longer and more interesting relationship with horror than it's often given credit for. From the pulpy shocks of Nightmare City through to a steady stream of genre work produced in the decades since, Spanish cinema has returned to the horror well often enough that a new entry in the zombie survival subgenre doesn't arrive without some pedigree behind it. Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End, released in 2024 and produced by Nostromo Pictures, is based on a popular Spanish-language novel series by Manel Loureiro, which already had a devoted readership before the film went into production. That built-in fanbase, and the familiarity of the source material in Spain at least, gave the project a certain commercial logic from the outset.
The film is directed by Carles Torrens, a Catalan filmmaker who has worked across both European and American productions and has experience in genre territory. The premise, as set up here, is relatively contained: a viral outbreak turns the infected into something resembling the rabid rather than the classically reanimated dead, and the story centres on one man, Manel, holed up in his flat with his cat as Spanish society collapses around him. What begins as a survival-in-isolation story eventually pushes its protagonist out into a world that is, by any measure, no longer safe. Francisco Ortiz leads as Manel, with José María Yázpik, Berta Vázquez, Iria del Río and Marta Poveda rounding out a cast that is largely drawn from Spanish television and film. For audiences more familiar with English-language genre productions, some of these names may be less well known, though Yázpik in particular has a considerable body of work across Spanish and Mexican cinema. The film runs to 119 minutes, which is a fairly generous runtime for what is, at its core, a single-man-against-the-apocalypse story. Whether that length feels earned or stretched is the kind of question that tends to define how a viewer walks away from this sort of thing. It's worth noting, for context, that 2024 was a reasonably busy year for action-inflected genre fare, with films like Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga setting a high bar for visceral, large-scale survival spectacle, while smaller productions such as Moshari demonstrated that genre horror can achieve real unease on a modest scale. Where Apocalypse Z sits on that spectrum is something the review below addresses directly.
Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End is a decent enough zombie flick if you’re in the mood for something familiar and low-key. It follows the now-familiar pattern (loner protagonist, sudden outbreak, barricaded apartment, slow descent into isolation) kind of like The Night Eats the World or #Alive, but with a Spanish twist. The main character, a regular guy stuck in his flat as the world collapses, is easy enough to root for, and there’s a certain tension in those early scenes of watching the city fall from behind a window. The problem is, it doesn’t really bring anything new to the table. The zombies are underused (more background threat than real menace) and the film spends too much time on half-baked subplots: cryptic radio messages, a mysterious military presence, a possible cure… none of which go anywhere satisfying. You keep waiting for one of them to pay off, but they just fade away. It feels like the movie can’t decide if it wants to be a survival drama, a conspiracy thriller, or a full-on action horror. My girlfriend and I finished it without hating it, which is something. It’s competently made, looks decent, and moves along well enough. But if you’re not already into zombie films, this won’t win you over. It’s by-the-numbers stuff. No big scares, no deep themes, no standout moments. Harmless, watchable, but forgettable. Perfect for a rainy afternoon when you just want something on in the background.
That comparison to The Night Eats the World is one that kept nagging at me too, and it's not entirely flattering for this film. The apartment-siege structure has been done so well elsewhere that you really do need something distinctive to justify returning to it, and I'm not sure Apocalypse Z ever finds that thing. The cat is a nice touch, genuinely, and there are moments in the first act that have a quiet, creeping dread to them. But the trailing subplots are the real frustration. A film at nearly two hours has a responsibility to pay its storylines off, and when several just quietly evaporate, you start to feel a bit cheated. Fans of the Loureiro novels might find more to hold onto here, given how much of the setup presumably comes from the source material. For everyone else, it's a polished but unremarkable addition to a very crowded genre. Worth an afternoon, I'd say, but maybe not a Saturday night.
Rating: ★★★ | Year: 2024 | Watched: 2025-09-02
Trailer
▶ Watch the official trailer for Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End (2024) on YouTube
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Stream: Amazon Prime Video · Amazon Prime Video with Ads
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
Watch in the US
Stream: Amazon Prime Video · Amazon Prime Video with Ads
Physical: Amazon US
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Related on Movies With Macca
More from Spain: Nightmare City (1980) · Birdboy: The Forgotten Children (2015) · The Others (2001) · Land Without Bread (1933)
More from the 2020s: Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain (2024) · Mononoke the Movie: Chapter II - The Ashes of Rage (2025) · The Long Walk (2025) · Americana (2023)
More drama: Viy (1967) · Wonder (2017) · A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Beautiful Boy (2018)
More action: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · The General (1926) · Hand of Death (1976) · Daredevil (2003)
