Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End (2024)
★★★ — Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End (2024)
There's a very specific kind of zombie film comfort food, and Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End sits squarely in that category. You know the type: lone survivor, apartment block, the world going to hell just outside the window, and a dog (of course there's a dog). It's familiar almost to the point of parody, and yet my girlfriend and I sat through the whole thing without once reaching for our phones. That counts for something, even if it doesn't count for much.
The setup is well-trodden ground. A regular bloke, stuck in his flat as a zombie outbreak tears through a Spanish city, has to figure out how to stay alive on dwindling supplies while the streets below become increasingly uninhabitable. It's the same basic premise as The Night Eats the World, or the South Korean film #Alive, and it wears those influences pretty openly. What it brings to the table is a Spanish flavour and a protagonist who's grounded and easy enough to root for. There's genuine tension in those early scenes of watching civilisation unravel from behind a pane of glass. The city doesn't collapse in a blaze of spectacle. It just... quietly stops working, and somehow that's unsettling in its own low-key way.
But then the film starts piling on subplots and that's where things get wobbly. Cryptic radio transmissions. A military presence lurking in the background. Whispers of a possible cure. Each thread gets introduced with just enough intrigue to make you lean forward, and then each one fades away without resolution. It's frustrating in a way that feels less like deliberate ambiguity and more like a script that wasn't quite sure where it was going. You keep waiting for the conspiracy to crystallise, for the military angle to mean something, for any of it to pay off. It doesn't. The film seems caught between being a quiet survival drama and something more propulsive, and it never really commits to either.
The zombies themselves are surprisingly underused. They're more of a backdrop than a genuine threat for long stretches, which could work if the film was leaning harder into the psychological isolation angle. But it doesn't do that convincingly enough either. There are no big scares here, no sequences that'll stick with you, and no deeper ideas being explored beneath the surface. If you came hoping for something as grim and inventive as Nightmare City, you'll be left wanting.
What you do get is a film that's competently put together. It looks decent, the pacing is reasonable, and it doesn't overstay its welcome. The lead performance is solid enough to carry the quieter moments, and the production does a reasonable job of making one man's flat feel both claustrophobic and, eventually, like something worth defending. There's craft on display. Just not ambition.
Honestly, it's hard to be too harsh on it. My girlfriend and I finished it without hating it, which is the correct metric for this kind of film on a rainy evening. It's not going to win over anyone who isn't already predisposed to zombie fare, and it's not going to add much even if you are. No standout moments, no big ideas, no real reason to seek it out over the half-dozen similar films already on your watchlist.
Three stars. Watchable, forgettable, and perfectly adequate for a Sunday afternoon when you want something on that doesn't demand too much of you.
Rating: ★★★ | Year: 2024 | Watched: 2025-09-02
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)
