Shhhh, don’t meow!
With A Quiet Place: Day One and Apocalypse Z: The Beginning Of The End, it looks like the “protagonist and cat surviving the world’s end” thing might be a growing subgenre.
While Day One lit up theaters in spring and early summer, Apocalypse Z is a zombie flick out of Spain, currently sitting atop Amazon’s Prime Video charts as a major crossover hit.
It stars Francisco Ortiz as Manel, the owner of a small solar power business and servant of a talkative cat named Luculo. Manel’s brother-in-law works for the Spanish military, and as reports of a deadly and spreading virus hit the news, his sister relays privileged information from her husband warning Manel to hide during mandatory evacuation and find a way to join the family on the Canary Islands, where Spain’s military and civil leaders have fled.
After weathering the initial wave of the virus by huddling in his apartment in Galicia, Manel seeks out a way to make the 2,400km (about 1,500 mile) journey to safety.
One thing I loved about this movie was Manel’s absolute devotion to Luculo. When he tries to stock up at a store being ransacked by panicked locals, the first thing he does is grab cat food. When he finds a set of wheels at one point — a sporty motorcycle — he straps Luculo’s carrier securely to the back of the seat.
No matter how impractical, no matter how much danger it puts him in, Manel refuses to abandon his pal, even though the little guy can’t keep his mouth shut.
While watching Day One, all I could think about was how conveniently silent Sam the cat was, and how dead I’d be trying to survive with Bud in the same situation.
Luculo is incapable of being quiet, although he’s not as loud or insistent as Bud is. He’s named after the Roman statesman and conqueror Lucinius Lucullus, described as “the greatest glutton of antiquity, who stunned Rome with his lavish feasts” and his dedication to bringing recipes for the tastiest dishes from the provinces back to the capital.
“He came, he ate, he conquered” might be an appropriate motto for Lucullus, and his feline namesake is similarly food-obsessed, often seen scarfing down yums as if the apocalypse is just a minor obstacle between meals.
Apocalypse Z isn’t a walk in the park, given the genre, but it’s significantly less gory than The Walking Dead, The Last of Us or even Zombieland. The film’s infected are Danny Boyle-style zombies, the terrifyingly fast baddies from 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later, rather than the slow shufflers of Romero-influenced productions. Accordingly, they’re much more dangerous and enable more intense action sequences.
Finally, because this is a cat blog and I’ll most certainly get emails and comments if I don’t address the tabby in the room: nothing terrible happens to Luculo. His greatest ordeal is having too many admirers, who are shocked to see a guy who’s survived so long with his pet cat.
Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End is the first part of a bigger story, as the title suggests. It rocketed to the top as the most-streamed movie in more than 90 countries, so we should be hearing news about a sequel soon.
If you’re a fan of genre movies and escapism, Apocalypse Z is a fun way to spend a few hours.
Apocalypse Z is available now to stream on Amazon Prime Video. The stream will default to an overdubbed version, but we highly recommend enabling English subtitles and switching the audio track to its original Spanish.
via Pain In The Bud