Valley of the Dead () is a 2020 Spanish zombie action film directed by Javier Ruiz Caldera and Alberto de Toro set in the Spanish Civil War. Its cast features Miki Esparbé, Aura Garrido, Luis Callejo, Álvaro Cervantes, Jesús Carroza and María Botto.
Plot
The film is set in 1938, during the latter phases of the Spanish Civil War. A column of SS troops arrive at a small village during a wedding. The SS officer in command takes a toast of the strong alcohol the wedding guests are drinking, but coughs and sputters, causing the guests to laugh at him. Angrily, he orders one of his men to open fire with a machine gun, slaughtering the wedding guests. The SS men then put on gas masks and open numerous canisters containing a strange gas, which float towards the corpses of the villagers.
Captain Jan Lozano's high ranking uncle arrives just in time to save him from a firing squad. Jan has repeatedly run afoul of the Nationalist government, and it is only through the intervention of his uncle that he has been spared. General Lozano informs his nephew that in return for sparing him, the regime wants Jan to deliver a message to a unit in a dangerous area of the front. Private Decruz, a deserter that Jan had saved, is assigned to be his driver for the mission, which is seen as extremely dangerous. Wounded nationalist soldiers are seen being loaded onto a train manned by the same SS troops from the beginning of the film. Jan and Delacruz choose to take a shortcut through a valley contested between the two sides, only to stumble upon a roadblock manned by additional Germans. A German officer attempts to prevent them from passing through the area, but Jan subtlety threatens him into letting them through. As they pass through the valley, Jan and Decruz watch as an Italian Fiat fighter is shot down by a Soviet Polikarpov fighter; spotting a parachute from the downed Italian aircraft, Jan decides to take a detour to rescue the pilot, to Decruz' dismay. While searching, they stumble across barrels labeled with the insignia of the SS unit from the film's opening. They soon after reach a clearing, discovering the mangled corpse of the Italian pilot. Before they can return to their mission, a group of Republican soldiers emerge from the forest and capture Jan and Decruz.
The Republicans search Jan, discovering that the message he'd been ordered to deliver is meaningless. The Republicans threaten to execute Decruz, but Jan lies and claims he has a wife and two kids; the Republicans decide not kill him, and decide to take both men prisoner instead. The Republican unit's photographer hangs back to take a photo of the corpse of the Italian pilot, only for the dead man to suddenly reanimate and kill him. Two of the Republican soldiers, Brodsky and Mecha, rush to intervene, physically hurling the corpse away. The zombie immediately goes on the attack, however, rapidly crawling towards Brodsky, who riddles it with submachine gun fire to no effect. Just as it is about to bite him, the unit's sergeant kills it with a shot from his revolver. The corpse of the photographer then gets back up, shocking Mecha, who had checked and was sure he was dead. It attempts to attack the group, but is swiftly dispatched. The group leaves the area, spotting Junkers bombers passing overhead as they move.
The group hears sounds of explosions coming from the Republican camp, discovering it in ruins. The group discovers the corpses of the Republican soldiers left in the camp have begun reanimating. Carlos, one of the Republican soldiers, sees his father amongst the reanimated Republicans, and attempts to greet him, only to be attacked and killed. The Republican soldiers open fire as the rest of the zombies attack them; Jan notices that the zombies have to be hit in the head to be killed. That knowledge helps the group escape, making their way to a nearby boat. They travel along the river, heading for another Republican base in the area. Once they make landfall, they are attacked by another group of zombies; Brodsky is killed as the group continues to flee. The group makes it to a small cabin, only to find it occupied by a pair of Nationalist soldiers--Jurell and Rafir-- and a nun, Sister Flor. A standoff ensues, which Jan manages to defuse, convincing the two sides to call a truce. The Nationalist soldiers reveal that they were accidentally attacked by a Junkers aircraft, which killed most of the patrol, and the reanimated dead promptly attacked them. They fled, meeting up with Sister Flor, and the group had made it to the base.