Hallowatch 2026 No. 10: Train to Busan (2016)
Wikipedia synopsis • Casual spoilers follow
Let's start with: This was pretty good. I had a good time watching this movie. I have gotten this pitched to me as "it completely revolutionizes zombie movies" and I do not agree with this, this is very much a "one of those" in the post-28-Days-Later zombie milieu, which as far as I am concerned doesn't get reinvented until 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, but it's an enjoyable and well-executed One of Those zombie movies.
This movie did a typical zombie movie maneuver of reducing its characters to broad archetypes — The Social Climber, the Executive, the Pregnant Lady, The Kid, the Aunties, the Student Athlete, the Lower Class Bruiser — which then lets you map that character's anxieties and actions onto their archetype as a whole to represent the filmmaker's perspective. "The one who will be infected and wreck it for everyone will be the Executive; the social climber will do the right thing, even if it goes wrong, because he does it for love of his family, so shoosh, go back to the suburb, don't notice yourself turning into the executive". It does this well.
I think basing the zombies' movement in part on the silent hill nurses was great. Making the zombies have to see you to get you was a fun twist on the fast zombie (and hey, Rings did that yesterday but in reverse; I have to wonder if they pulled that from this). The effects are really well done.
I expected to have more to write about this but it's really not that different than a 28 Days Later/Dawn of the Dead [2004]. Maybe there's a little more of a broad-spanning perspective but it's still "beware the opportunist with social power" at its core, and less pitch black than Dawn of the Dead in its ending.
Rewatch/Remake/Sequel? Pass for me. I know Peninsula exists. I'm in no rush to see it. ■
