ApoKalypse is an animated feature that follows Apo (Chris Koehne), a young man trying to get his skateboarding accessory company off the ground with his friend Jamal (Raven Wong), while the two work at a burger joint in the mall called Buns of Steel. The problem is, it's the early 2020s, and while the COVID vaccine is available, a cadre of unserious Americans don't want to take it. That's where the mall's director, Mr. Degeneres (Andrew Helbig), finds a way to get more people to his dying mall: he pretends to be a health influencer who pushes rat poison as a cure for COVID, which causes all these unserious Americans to come to buy it. Unfortunately, one side effect is it turns the people who take it into zombies. Now Apo, Jamal, and Apo's friend Cho (Ao Mikazuri) from the Korean chicken spot in the mall, need to find a way to escape. Will they get out alive?
This movie gets a lot of stuff right, which is great, because we live in unserious times, especially here in the US, so watching something like this acts as a form of catharsis. Beyond the depiction of Karens and other MAGA types and how ridiculous they are, I also liked the depiction of Apo trying to find a way to make money in an economy that's increasingly more difficult for people his age. The other thing I appreciated was the animation softened the grossness of a lot of the stuff that happens, like when a pregnant zombie Karen kicks her baby out, and said baby is swung around by the umbilical cord to attack a fleeing patron, or when we get to the end and the mall is a pile of dead bodies, rotting zombies, and feces, it's a lot easier to take when it's all a series of drawings. There are some moments, especially early on, where scenes take a little longer than I'd have liked to develop, but the entire film clocks in at just over an hour, so none of it hurts too much. Especially after the year we just had, this might help you feel a little better, so it's worth checking out.
The concept of the Karen has grown in the age of social media and viral videos, to the point that content creators have turned to hiring actors to portray Karens in staged scenarios. What I liked here was Geiger was able to bring the concept of the Karen back to the racist elements that it was born from. It wasn't just about entitled upper- and middle-class white women asking to speak to the manager, it's about these specific women using the levers of society at their disposal to harm black and brown people, and that's what we see here, whether it's the Karen on the street trying to get Apo arrested for riding his skateboard, to the one at the burger joint trying to get Jamal fired for not giving her a free water. I think if you hear "zombie Karens" in 2025, you might think of the staged, viral version of that we see today, but that's not what we have in this movie, which I appreciated, and I think helped make this work.
Another area where the zombie metaphor worked for me is in this discussion around what people should do if they have these unserious, uncouth MAGA family members in their lives. It's fortunately not a discussion I've personally had to deal with, but when a close family member would rather eat horse paste than get a vaccine shot, or believes all of the ills of our society come from undocumented immigrants, trans people, and honestly teaching America's racist history in schools, there are no easy answers on how someone should approach that. Older generations have this idea that family relations are important no matter what, and everyone needs to agree to disagree; while younger generations are quicker to go no-contact and spend holidays with friends or alone instead of enduring uncomfortable family situations. That's where the zombie metaphor is best, because sometimes you just gotta get out and save yourself; but then later when Cho's parents are stranded in the mall, Cho convinces Apo to help her save them, because they're not racist zombies, they just give Cho a hard time. It's like, if they're full on zombified, you gotta get out of there; but if they're just a pain in the ass and don't have any abhorrent views, you can't just abandon them to the zombie apocalypse.
You may have noticed that Uwe Boll is tagged in this. He did the voice of the sleeping police officer in the mall, who sleeps through the entire mess, then wakes up and finds a finger in one of his donuts, which he proceeds to remove, lick the chocolate off of, and then toss aside. We haven't seen Boll on the site in almost 11 years, when we reviewed the third In the Name of the King movie. At that time we were close to our unplanned hiatus, we only had two more reviews after that until I came back in 2019, and Boll himself went on a hiatus himself in 2016. He was someone on track to be another Hall of Fame director, and looking at his bio, he has another 7 or 8 movies we could review, which would put him at 15 directed movies, more than enough to get him in. It might be something we look at going into the new year, especially since we're almost finished with Isaac Florentine's filmography, so we'll have open slots for other director posts.
Finally, one area that this film didn't get into as much, is the male equivalent to the Karen, the doughy guy in Ray-Bans with a late 90s goatee that probably wasn't in style when he had it back then, let alone 25 years later. Geiger opts for more militant types, thinner guys with shaved heads, which works, but I always think of that collage of profile pics where all those MAGA guys looked the same. And it is an interesting double standard, because while we have staged viral videos of actors pretending to be Karens, we don't have the same thing with actors playing those types of guys, even though here in South Philly I think you're more likely to see those guys than you are Karens. I'm not an actor, but being a bit on the doughy side myself, and being in my late 40s now, it is interesting to consider if a content creator in this area came to me to play the part of a MAGA guy in a staged confrontation with restaurant workers. I guess first off, if my day job found out they may not take it well, even if it was staged, but that aside, could I do it, especially if the money was good? First I'd need the goatee, which, when it was popular in the late 90s my facial hair hadn't matured enough for me to be able to do the mustache portion, let alone the connector to the goatee, so I've never had that look before. Add on the Ray-Bans for someone who never wears sunglasses, and I think I might scare myself, even before I put on the "These Colors Don't Run" shirt. I don't know what content creators pay for that kind of work--or if they provide their own Ray-Bans and "These Colors Don't Run" shirts, because I can't afford my own Ray-Bans, and without a car it's hard to get to the Shore to buy one of those ridiculous shirts--but if the number was good, maybe something in the four figures range, I could use that money to do some trips to see some ballparks I haven't been to before--again, assuming my day job never found out. I can see the Zoom call now, "hey Matt, what's with the goatee?" "Oh, you know... just trying something new out... you like it?" "Um... as long as you like it, Matt, that's what's important."
And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently rent this for $2 on Prime. It's a fun way to support an indie creative, plus I think it's cathartic as well considering the year we just experienced. Lutz Geiger and company do a great job handling these issues, and the animated aspect makes the gross parts easier to manage, so it all worked for me.
For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27166284
And check out my newest novel, Mark in Sales, on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.
