When a rat poison COVID “cure” transforms entitled mall shoppers into brain-dead zombies with Karen haircuts, a group of retail workers must survive customer service’s ultimate nightmare.
Written and directed by Lutz Geiger, ApoKalypse is an audacious, genre-bending animated feature that dives headfirst into a world of undead chaos and razor-sharp satire. Overflowing with dark humor, hyper-stylized gore, and unexpected social commentary, this horror-comedy brings together nostalgic elements from the VHS-era splatter films and the irreverent spirit of 90s animated comedy to deliver a wild, visceral ride that refuses to play it safe.
Set against the unlikely backdrop of a zombie outbreak in Oklahoma, the story kicks off with Apo (voiced by Chris Koehne), a free-spirited slacker with a love for skateboarding and no real direction in life. His mundane job at a shopping mall fast-food counter quickly turns into a bloodbath when the dead start rising. Caught in the chaos with his quick-witted best friend Jamal (Ravin Wong), the two join forces with Cho (Ao Mikazuki), a savvy teen from a nearby Asian restaurant, and her badass parents. Together, they form a scrappy survival team, using everything from kitchen tools to makeshift blunt objects to fight their way through hordes of flesh-hungry zombies.
The mall setting, while familiar in horror lore, serves here more as a playground for mayhem than a direct reference. Rather than mimic past genre entries, ApoKalypse plays like a loving tribute to the over-the-top, blood-splattered antics of late-night rental store favourites, where humor and horror crash together in gloriously messy ways. This is a film that doesn’t just wink at the audience; it smirks, shrugs, and throws a severed limb your way for good measure.
Violence here is cartoonish in the best sense of the word. Heads fly, limbs snap, guts spill—and it’s all rendered with a twisted comedic flair that feels ripped from the rowdy VHS shelves of decades past. The action is gleefully excessive, sometimes jaw-droppingly absurd (one scene involving an undead childbirth pushes boundaries and earns laughs), and always infused with that unmistakable chaotic energy that made gory comedies of yesteryear so enduring.
The animation style perfectly matches this tone: deliberately rough around the edges, with bold lines, exaggerated expressions, and a saturated color palette that pops off the screen. While it doesn’t aim for high realism, that works to its advantage, allowing the violence and humor to coexist in a stylized, almost surreal visual world. Some sequences incorporate 3D animation to amp up the intensity, particularly during the explosive opening and slick, stylized end credits.
Character-wise, ApoKalypse balances simplicity with charm. Apo is the quintessential underachiever, whose laid-back vibe becomes oddly endearing amid the madness. Jamal, his partner in crime and chaos, adds energy and snappy banter, while Cho serves not only as a love interest but also a skilled and grounded counterpart. Her parents aren’t mere background characters either—they step up as reliable zombie-slayers with their own moments of comedic and violent glory.
Interestingly, the origin of the zombie plague—a bizarre mishap involving rat poison—adds another layer of twisted humor to the narrative. Once infected, the victims take on a sickly green hue and move with the expected undead sluggishness, but these zombies also occasionally speak, adding a delightfully weird edge to the traditional zombie formula.
Beyond the gore and laughs, there’s a surprising depth lurking under the film’s chaotic surface. ApoKalypse touches on themes like friendship, identity, young love, and even dips its toes into heavier waters, hinting at issues like social division, media obsession, and political disillusionment in modern America. These elements never overpower the primary goal of entertaining, but they give the film a bit more weight and relevance than one might expect.
In the end, ApoKalypse feels like a lost cult classic unearthed from a dusty video store shelf—part nostalgic bloodbath, part irreverent animated romp. It’s a love letter to the VHS-era comedy horror flicks that balanced humor and horror with reckless abandon. Viewers in search of highbrow sophistication might look elsewhere, but fans of animated anarchy, gore with guts (literally and figuratively), and unapologetic fun will find this to be a delightfully deranged ride from start to finish.
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