Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End

Manel is a lawyer who has lost his wife and shut himself in the house. When a virus called Tsj spreads and turns people violent he has to go outside. He has one living thing with him: his cat. He moves through the collapsed cities of Spain trying to reach his family. Carles Torrens directed. The source is the first book of Manel Loureiro's trilogy of the same name. Francisco Ortiz stars. The novels already had a wide readership in Spain, and at the centre of the book is a lawyer trying to survive with his cat, a detail the film keeps. The hero of a zombie film usually has a dog; here it is a cat, and moving with a cat makes the story concretely harder. It went out on Prime Video on 31 October 2024 and became the platform's number one. The reviews split straight down the middle. Genre audiences found it sufficient; the other side called it competently made and short on ambition. Who it is for: viewers who like zombie films and one-man survival stories. Who it is not for: anyone expecting something new from the genre. The film takes the known steps in order and keeps its originality to the cat.