Gustavo Hernandez’s zombie-horror Virus- 32 is a Spanish-language film that was released today and stars Paula Silva and Daniel Hendler in the lead roles. When a deadly virus breaks out in a city and starts turning people horrifyingly violent, Iris needs to protect her daughter Tata inside a massive club as more and more infected barge in. As zombie flicks go, this is somewhere in the middle tier because of the poor plot, but if you’re in a mood for some recent Z-horror, this one might be for you. Here’s what happens in Virus- 32.
Spoilers Ahead
Who Are Iris And Tata?
You couldn’t tell by looking at Iris that she had a little daughter from her carefree attitude and the way she carried herself. Probably, Iris didn’t feel like a mother herself, with her self-destructive habits like drinking rum during the day and smoking multiple cigarettes with her friend. With her pink hair and disheveled room, one would be forgiven for mistaking Iris for a 21-year-old girl. From the moment we learn about Iris, she seems tardy, forgetting to pick her daughter Tata up or not being mindful that she needs to go to work today. However, there’s one somber moment when she fishes out an old photograph of a family of four and stares at it intently.
Iris’s reverie is interrupted when her husband, Javi, drops off their daughter Tata. Unable to take a day off from work, Iris takes the little girl into the club where she works as a security guard. Once inside the massive establishment, Iris is in a playful mood with her daughter, showing her the flares she used to take selfies with at the gymnasium and throwing a basketball around. But duty calls, and Iris needs to go on her rounds, leaving Tata to play with the ball.
What’s Going On In The City?
Unbeknownst to the mother-daughter duo, something is very wrong in their city. People can be seen chasing others with the intent to kill, and there’s a sudden, unexplained spark in violence. While walking down a corridor, Iris is terrified to spot a man beating a helpless person to death with immense ferocity just next to the club. Already pained because Tata had reminded her that today was her deceased son Nico’s birthday, this sudden burst of violence alerted the security guard stationed outside. But danger has already snuck in. Unknown to Iris, one of the many CCTVs across the several sections of the clubs, picks up a large man making his way into the basketball court through an open window.
Iris can’t reach Tata through the walkie-talkie she left her with, and upon visiting the basketball court, she finds the device lying on the floor, broken. The first brush with certain death happens when the man who had snuck in sprints headlong toward Iris with murderous intent. His eyes say that something is extremely wrong with him, and in all certainty, he’s fallen prey to something that turns people into ferocious beasts. Iris is barely able to defend herself by slamming the charging attacker on the head with Tata’s skateboard, but that’s not enough to end this former human. Iris secures herself in her office and finds Tata wandering one of the rooms. She uses the telephone in the room to ask her daughter to hide, but soon after, the attacker makes his way into the office.
What Does Iris Discover About The Infected?
While holding her breath and stifling her panicked tears, Iris watched as the infected man walked around the office, searching for the woman he’d charged at. Just moments before he can look under the table where Iris is hiding, the tabby cat that lived in the club walks in and immediately falls prey to the madman. This monster hurls the animal through a glass window, and Iris watches with horror as he thrashes the cat to death. However, the more surprising thing is that after killing the cat, the intruder sits catatonic in his position, not moving.
Not willing to find out, Iris flees the scene but has to hide again because more of these infected people are starting to break into the club. Meanwhile, Tata hides behind a wall while the door is banged on viciously by one of the infected before the child is taken away by an unseen hand. Trying to process the nightmarish things she’s just witnessed, Iris goes through the CCTV footage on her phone in an attempt to locate her daughter when something strikes her. In both videos, the killers become strangely catatonic after taking a life and stay in that position for 32 seconds. The movie doesn’t explain this phenomenon in any way, but this becomes a very key aspect in Virus- 32.
Who Is Luis, And What Is His Ultimate Motive?
Iris does her best to sneak out of the changing room, where multiple infected are dragging their bodies around until one of them lunges at her. Iris is inches away from being bitten when someone gets the infected away from her, and she manages to run to the swimming pool but is chased here as well. Her savior throws her into the swimming pool and jumps in, followed by the infected, but it’s interesting to note that the infected can’t swim and drowns. The man introduces himself as Luis and promises to help Iris look for her daughter, but needs Iris’s help in delivering his baby from his pregnant wife, Mimi. He also explains that the infected have a red scar on their palm, and that’s the way to identify them.
Initially willing to help Luis out, Iris suddenly becomes suspicious of her new benefactor when he names Tata, even though she’d never mentioned her. As it turns out, Luis was the one who saved Tata, and he’s kept her in a safe place. As soon as Iris helps deliver his baby, he’ll take her to Tata. The task itself, however, sends Iris running for the door because Mimi herself is infected and has been restrained in a wheelchair while she tries to break free. Iris is forced to agree, and they’re carrying the wheelchair-bound Mimi to a clean place when Iris spots her husband, Javi, lying on the floor of an empty swimming pool with a severe gut wound. As Javi dies, Iris begs for his forgiveness for being careless enough to let their 1-year-old son Nico drown in a pool as hordes of infected rush in. Iris uses the flares to create a smoke cloud, and they manage to escape to a safer room.
Does Iris Deliver The Baby?
Terrified but forced for the sake of her daughter, Iris has to deliver the child from the infected Mimi, but Luis wants Mimi to touch the child. After calming the sick mother by letting her kill a pigeon, Luis lets her hold their newborn son, but a power cut happens, and Mimi is found in the next room with the newborn in her arms. After begging the infected Mimi not to hurt their son, Luis had to shoot her dead moments before she tried harming the baby.
Luis keeps his word and points Iris to the boiler room where he’d kept Tata. However, the scene in the boiler room is terrifying. Iris spots a man lying dead, with patches of blood everywhere, and Tata’s rucksack lying in the corner. Iris had only begun taking in the cast that Tata had been wearing on her arm when the sight of the charred corpse of a young child inside the boiler leads to Iris screaming in unimaginable pain. Her screams attract the infected to the boiler room, but at this point, Iris doesn’t care anymore; she’s about to shoot herself with a gun she’d found lying next to the man when she notices an unlocked door.
Does Iris Reunite With Her Daughter?
Iris knocks on the door, and Tata opens it; the mother and daughter are reunited. It’s time to make their escape, and Iris lets out a group of rats into a horde of infected crowding a narrow corridor and waits as they go berserk on the rodents. Then, the duo makes their way through the catatonic zombies, praying that the 32 seconds don’t run out. In the end, though, they need to fight their way out, and they manage to escape, but they’re being watched by the first intruder who killed the cat.
Iris and Tata make it to the car outside and start it, but it’s soon surrounded by the infected. However, the car is empty as the duo has escaped using one of the manholes. While walking through the underground basement, Iris spots the injured Luis with the baby in his arms, and he pleads with her to take the child with them. He asks them to take the Albatross boat and live out in the sea since these creatures can’t swim. However, the first infected arrives, and Iris sacrifices herself to protect her daughter.
‘Virus- 32’ Ending Explained: Do Iris And Tata Escape To Safety?
Having severely beaten Iris into a bloody mess, the zombie turns catatonic, but Tata decides not to abandon her mother. She takes a nail gun and points it at the zombie’s head, thinks back to her happiest memory of the day Javi, Iris, Nico, and Tata spent on the beach, and pulls the trigger, killing the zombie. We witness Iris and Tata make their way out, with Luis’s baby in Iris’s arms, and they take the Albatross to set off into the sea. However, the infected, who had apparently drowned, comes back to life. This can only mean that the infected do know how to swim, and even escaping into the sea won’t be enough to survive.
