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| All images courtesy: Cleopatra Entertainment |
After racking up an impressive amount of film festival honors at horror-film fests throughout Latin America and around the globe, the 2024 Argentinian horror anthology Portraits of the Apocalypse arrives in the US, from Cleopatra Entertainment. As is often the case with Cleopatra Entertainment, it’s a fairly apathetic release: DVD-only when it comes to physical media (though it can also be found on Tubi), with some obvious use of AI on the cover, no extras, and with the audio defaulting to a bad English dub (though fortunately the original Spanish with English subtitles is an option). But despite the less-than-stellar disc release the film has been given, Portraits of the Apocalypse is a solid, unnerving anthology which definitely earned those horror-festival wins. Interestingly, it is fairly unconcerned with the zombies themselves, with few moments when zombies are actually on-screen. Instead, it is a film about the collapse of society, and the unease, grief, and anxiety the people caught up in the apocalypse experience. This is definitely the right choice: we have seen a million low-budget zombie films, and not much more can be said about the undead themselves, while the behavior of humans under pressure and crisis always remains interesting.
Portraits of the Apocalypse presents four stories, directed by three directors (Luca Castello, Fabián Forte, and Nicanor Loreti), taking place before, during, and in the aftermath of a world-ending zombie outbreak in Buenos Aires. In the first story, a corrupt detective with multiple-personality disorder attempts to stage a crime scene to earn herself a promotion, and starts spiraling into panic when it all keeps going wrong (and of course we the viewers have the looming anxiety of knowing that at some point zombies have to show up). In the second story, a bickering dysfunctional family starts to come apart at the seams when the already-simmering tensions in the house boil over as a result of the zombie outbreak starting in the background. The third story is a found-footage document, from well into the zombie apocalypse, which finds a pregnant woman recording a video-diary for her unborn daughter, while things get worse and worse around her. And the fourth story takes an unexpected supernatural turn, as a strange religious order conducts a séance-like ritual, trying to use a chained-up zombie as a vessel for a grieving man to communicate with the spirit of a dead loved one.
As always in anthologies like this, the segments are a mixed bag, but the baseline quality is quite good. And despite clearly being a low-budget indie, the movie is consistently well-shot, with strong compositions, effective atmosphere, and a nicely grimy sense of dread. The first two segments both begin before the zombie apocalypse has really kicked off, and in both cases, even when things are “normal” we are greeted with a pervasive sense of unpleasantness and unease, which is very effective. The production is certainly a little rough around the edges, showing typical low-budget flaws in technical aspects and performances, but overall it is very well-done.
The first segment is a tad disorienting, as you don’t expect a zombie movie to start out with a story about a scheming cop with multiple personalities. It almost feels like it could have been a separate short written in another context, with the zombie hook added to justify the inclusion in this film. But that said, it is quite good, and very effective, as our antihero digs herself further and further into a very stressful hole. The second segment about the dysfunctional family is pretty exhausting for a while, as the characters are extremely grating and obnoxious to be around. But the slow burn starts to build extremely effectively to a point of chaos, and the payoff is absolutely worth it. The segment also includes some genuinely creepy images.
The third segment – the found-footage video-diary – was probably the highlight of the film for me, and was a great little pressure-cooker of a short. The video-diary format allows it to be extremely internalized, in a very effective way. We don't see the zombies at all in this one, and we don't need to - the threat is external, and the horror comes from watching this couple crumble under the pressure. It’s grim, but very effective. And given how overplayed the zombie genre can be, it feels very welcome that the fourth story does something very different and injects some occult horror. I’ve never seen a zombie used as a tool in a séance in a film before, and it’s a really neat idea. This segment also gives us some very strong imagery, mixing zombie iconography and the occult. I dug it.
Still, Portraits of the Apocalypse doesn’t reinvent the zombie genre or give us anything totally fresh and new. I wouldn’t call it a must-see, and I would put it in “good, but not great” territory. But it’s definitely a respectable and well-made indie, and I would say that it’s well worth checking out, for fans of independent horror and unusual takes on the zombie genre. Each segment has some interesting strengths and things to appreciate; the last two more than the first two, but none of them are bad. The variety between the four segments is quite cool as well, with all four being quite different from one another. If these filmmakers wanted to make a second installment with more portraits of the apocalypse, I would certainly be curious to see them.
- Christopher S. Jordan
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