A zombie-stomping, ‘Argylle’-coded Spanish flick hoards attention and squares up with Megan Thee Stallion on streaming

It’s easy to appreciate a subversive take on any genre regardless of its cultural relevance in the moment, but some films aren’t quite creative enough in that arena. Such flicks will leave you wondering why it was made today rather than the early 2010s, where all the rote zombie movies like Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End belong.

But the thing about streaming is that that roteness comes in handy when your viewing habits can be chalked up to consumption for the sake of consumption, and Apocalypse Z certainly exemplifies that. Per FlixPatrol, it’s charting at second place on the United States’ Prime Video rankings at the time of writing, two places ahead of the fourth-place Megan Thee Stallion documentary In Her Words. Also of note is Apocalypse Z‘s first-place ranking worldwide, where it’s absolutely dwarfing its competitors in terms of overall engagement.

The film, based on the Manel Loureiro novel of the same name, stars Francisco Ortiz as Manel, a lawyer, owner of a solar power company, and recent widow who could not care less about the TSJ virus pandemic currently spreading across Europe, nor the fact that it turns those affected into flesh-eating zombies. As the government mandates become increasingly violent, zombies begin falling down the threat ladder as other, violent survivors begin to rear their heads, and Manel must find a way to reunite with his sister- and brother-in-law in the Canary Islands before he falls victim to this dark new world.

Apocalypse Z bears the aforementioned distinction of “Argylle-coded” for three reasons. The first and most obvious is that Manel’s cat, Lúculo, is along for the ride this whole time, nestling idly in Manel’s backpack as he trudges his way across a post-apocalyptic Spain, not unlike Elly Conway’s feline companion Alfie. His presence functions as both a reprieve from the tension, and a key instigator of it, as Lúculo is the absolute last individual we want to see come to harm in this movie.

The second reason is that this film shows every intention of entering franchise territory, which should come as no surprise to those familiar with Loureiro’s books (two sequel novels in the Apocalypse Z series were penned by the author; Dark Days in 2010, and The Wrath of the Just in 2011). The scope of the first film’s streaming success is a great sign; certainly better than Argylle‘s paltry box office performance (which, unfortunately, reflects the quality of the film itself).

That brings us to reason number three, which is that Apocalypse Z isn’t that great of a movie. It’s casually competent zombie fare with a slack fatherhood throughline and enough of a passive belief in love to at least break even with the cynicism. It’s not bad, but it’s also thoroughly uninteresting. This is at once the sort of movie you would put on for the sake of an undead distraction, but if that’s how you choose to watch movies, then you’ll probably be put off by the fact that it’s in Spanish, and subsequently pivot to something like World War Z or Army of the Dead instead.

If you actually enjoy watching movies sincerely, though, pop on over to Netflix and queue up Outside, which full-sends the zombie subgenre’s narrative potential in an incredibly refreshing way.