Killing zombies in Madrid: the Catalan saga that is a worldwide phenomenon returns to Amazon

BarcelonaIn 2024, a zombie movie produced in Catalonia by a Catalan team with a budget that was tight by standard action cinema criteria became the most-watched non-English language film in the history of Amazon Prime, nearly reaching number 1 on the weekly top 10 in the United States. Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End, which adapted the first book of the zombie trilogy by the Galician writer Manel Loureiro, was an unexpected phenomenon even for those responsible for it, from director Carles Torrens (Barcelona, 1984) to the Barcelona-based production company Nostromo and the streaming platform itself, which immediately commissioned a sequel, arriving this Friday—just in time for All Saints' Day—after having passed through the Sitges Film Festival.

But Apocalypse Z: New World is not a typical sequel, as it breaks some of the unwritten rules of cinematic sagas, starting with unceremoniously doing away with the absolute protagonist of the first part, Manel, that lawyer whom the zombie pandemic catches while depressed over the death of his wife. Francisco Ortiz's performance, quite solid as an accidental hero who never separates from his cat, was the great asset of the first Apocalypse Z, which ended on an open note: Manel and a handful of survivors flying in a helicopter toward the Canary Islands, an uncertain refuge. But instead of continuing his odyssey, as the second installment of Loureiro's literary trilogy does, Torrens and his screenwriter (Ángel Agudo) have come up with a new protagonist, a soldier from what remains of the army in the Canary Islands, forced to participate in a suicide mission to obtain food and medicine in a Madrid devastated by the zombie pandemic.

“It seemed more original to us,” explains Torrens about the decision to get rid of the protagonist from the first installment. “The character’s journey was limited, and it didn’t make sense to have him just loitering there for the sake of it. Platform movies are accused of following a formula, but we have had a lot of freedom. In fact, this second film is not an adaptation of the second book in the saga, which was Los días oscuros [2010] and was very tied to the reality of 2008. And in twenty years, society has changed a lot, so the film also had to change.” In the movie, Manel’s fate—the protagonist of the first part—is mentioned in passing, but Torrens asks that it be kept a secret. However, he does point out that “it was Loureiro’s idea,” the author of the books.

In Apocalypse Z: New World the saga pivots from the survival thriller of the first film towards war cinema tinged with horror, with a more ensemble focus on the squad of soldiers flying to Madrid to obtain supplies. A leap in which Torrens wanted to emulate references such as Aliens, Starship Troopers, and Zero Dark Thirty, but with plausibility as an obsession. “I hired a military advisor named Joaquín Rivera Chamorro, an armed forces commander who is also a writer,” explains the director. “And I imposed on myself that, even if the trigger for the action was fantastical, the army’s response had to be realistic, both in the way of speaking and in the tactics and protocols.”

Torrens acknowledges that among Spanish filmmakers there is a “fear of making an Americanized film” and that perhaps this is why war cinema is so scarce. In any case, he wanted to “strip the Spanish army of any ideological reading” and simply use it as “a professional army,” adding unique touches such as a particularly feminized composition. “We took dramatic actors from independent cinema, people you wouldn’t imagine in this type of film,” he explains. “We sent the script to Mónica López thinking she would turn us down, but she was very excited about it.” To portray the hundreds of rabid infected people the soldiers face, Torrens also tried to be original. “They aren’t those rotten-flesh zombies, so the makeup is rather basic,” warns Torrens, “but, in exchange, we worked a lot on body expression with choreographer Oscar Valsecchi, who designed the movements of our infected, who were all dancers or contortionists and did a week-long training course with Oscar.”

The Apocalypse Z saga has brought Torrens back to cinema after a handful of years directing series episodes. The director debuted in 2011 with a found footage horror film (Emergo) and in 2015 he surprised with the sick love story Pet, which was presented at the Sitges Festival. Afterwards, he was supposed to direct a horror film about the underworld of Santería produced by Blumhouse, but the project fell through and Torrens returned to Barcelona to be closer to his family. The Apocalypse Z films are ideal in this sense, since despite being set in Galicia, the Canary Islands and Madrid, they are mainly filmed in Catalonia. “It would be good if the next one were set in Barcelona,” he says, “because I’m tired of breaking my back to make it look like local settings are from somewhere else, like the Madrid bullring in New World, which is actually the Monumental, from which we digitally erased all the Modernisme.”