Prime Video's 8-Part Zombie Series Is Like The Walking Dead Meets Prison Break
Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies, television, culture, and politics online and in print since 2017. He worked as a Senior Editor in Adbusters Media Foundation from 2018-2019 and wrote for WhatCulture in early 2020. He has been a Senior Features Writer for ScreenRant since 2020.
It might sound tough to mix the claustrophobic premise of Prison Break with the wide-open wastelands of The Walking Dead franchise, but one propulsive Prime Video action horror show managed this. While Shudder’s Creepshow is arguably the best horror anthology series of the 21st century so far and the streaming service’s Slasher deserves credit for pushing small-screen horror further than it has ever gone before, the horror-forward service isn’t the only one making great horror TV.
Not only are Mike Flanagan’s Netflix horror shows superb, but the streaming service also has plenty of memorable entries into the genre outside of the legendary writer/director’s output. The one-off anthology Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities, the underrated vampire horror Van Helsing, and the South Korean zombie series All of Us Are Dead are all modern classics, and this is without even mentioning the Japanese horror thriller mashup Alice in Borderland.
As such, perhaps it should not come as a surprise that another streaming service, Prime Video, found a way to mix the lone location thrills of Prison Break with The Walking Dead franchise’s zombie action. 2021’s S.O.Z. Soldiers or Zombies followed a narcotics kingpin who escapes from prison and reunites with his son before hiding out in a rehab facility, only to discover that a failed US army medical experiment has created an army of super-strong mutant zombies that are a far bigger threat than any rival cartel or the US border patrol.
S.O.Z. Soldiers or Zombies Blends Prison Break’s Premise With The Walking Dead’s Outbreak
Created by Nicolas Entel, the director of 2009’s Sins of My Father, Prime Video's S.O.Z. Soldiers or Zombies is a complex blend of crime thriller, action adventure, and zombie horror. While many shows would treat Sergio Peris-Mencheta’s Alonso Marroquín as a straightforward villain, Entel’s experience exploring the story of Pablo Escobar’s real-life son in Sins of My Father provides the fictional drug trafficker of S.O.Z. Soldiers or Zombies with a more complex and surprisingly sympathetic role in the story.
However, for all the unexpected depth of the show’s character writing, that’s not what brings viewers to a series with a title like S.O.Z. Soldiers or Zombies. Like The Last of Us, this series ultimately only works if its monstrous infected villains feel like a tangible threat, and the show is a complete success in that regard. The zombie attacks are brutal, violent, and unpredictable, and the fact that these zombies were once highly trained soldiers makes them much deadlier than most.
Compared to the shambling hordes of The Walking Dead or even the frenetic, vicious, but feral and mindless monsters of 28 Days Later, the zombies of S.O.Z. Soldiers or Zombies can communicate and plan, retaining much of their human intelligence despite their infection. Fast-moving, smart, and unrelenting, the zombies of this Prime Video hit are in a league of their own.
S.O.Z. Soldiers or Zombies Revived The Zombie Genre On Streaming
While hits like HBO’s Lovecraft Country prove that there is no shortage of great horror shows on streaming in 2026, S.O.Z. Soldiers or Zombies still deserves credit for reviving a specific subgenre. The horror show made zombies intriguing again in an era when endless spinoffs from The Walking Dead franchise had made the entire premise of the classic movie monster feel played out on the small screen.
Perhaps it was shows like Z Nation, Black Summer, Netflix’s own Resident Evil reboot, Santa Clarita Diet, and iZombie that made the monsters feel uniquely overexposed in the early 2020s. Perhaps it was a family-friendly series of Disney Channel original movies entitled Zombies that proved the final nail in the subgenre’s coffin. Whatever the cause, Prime Video's S.O.Z. Soldiers or Zombies’ unexpected mix of Prison Break and The Walking Dead brought the walking undead back to life with a bang.
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