On Friday, during Amazon’s Comic-Con@Home panel, showrunner Nico Entel treated viewers to a first look at what he called “the craziest show to ever come out of Latin America.”
“S.O.Z. Soldiers or Zombies” is an all-new Spanish language Amazon Prime series that tells the story of the charismatic and unpredictable drug lord Alonso Marroquin, who escapes from a Mexican prison to hide in a remote facility located in the middle of the desert. On the U.S. side of the border, a U.S. Army experiment with minipigs conducted in a military base goes wrong, and the Mexican police unit pursuing Marroquin gets infected, transforming themselves into a new enhanced zombie species with special abilities. The army and this new species converge on Marroquin’s hideout, where the battle for survival will begin.
While the premise may sound crazy, Entel explained during the panel that the series was actually inspired by a supposed true story told to him by the son of Columbian drug lord Pablo Escobar. Legend has it that while Escobar was hiding deep in the jungles and his son came to visit him, the only light allowed at night was that of candles. Bored and with only candles to keep him entertained, the son allegedly tried to perform spiritism on his bodyguards.
“So I asked myself,” says Entel. “What if a drug dealer was calling on the spirits of the dead, and it actually worked? And that was the starting point of this crazy idea.”
“S.O.Z. Soldiers or Zombies” premieres on Amazon Prime Video on August 6, 2021. And if you’re wondering why you should watch yet another zombie series, Entel had this to say about the show when asked by panel moderator Tim Kash why it was a must-watch:
“It has elements of many genres. It’s a zombie show, it’s a drug dealer show, it’s a horror show, it’s a drama, it has a little bit of comedy. And I think on the surface it is very, very entertaining.”
