Netflix Is Hiding the Scariest Zombie Survival Thriller You Probably Missed
Zombies don’t have a great deal of life left in them (pun intended). While they were everywhere in the late 2000s and early 2010s, the undead subgenre has been all but buried. Sure, a few indies here and there look to resurrect the appeal (Uruguayan film Virus-32 comes to mind), and maybe 28 Years Later will be the nudge the subgenre needs to get back on track, but presently, we’re living in an age of the living, not the dead.
For some, I’m sure that’s great news. The Walking Dead fatigue is real, and for everyone who lived through that (ongoing) era, I’m sure they’re thrilled to see zombies die off. I, however, can’t get enough of ‘em. I binge zombie anime– Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead is so good—and I’m always seeking out the subversive imports that electrify old tropes (MadS is great). If I had to pick this decade’s best, however, I’d have to go with Cho Il-hyung’s #Alive. It is the best zombie movie I’ve seen since 2020, and with it streaming on Netflix, I encourage you to check it out.
Per Netflix: As a grisly virus rampages a city, a lone man stays locked inside his apartment, digitally cut off from seeking help and desperate to find a way out.
As a South Korean zombie thriller, #Alive is often compared to the seminal Train to Busan. Sure, the latter is a classic, but they’re not really apt films to compare. #Alive is smaller, more earnest, and incidentally one of the best pandemic movies ever made. It’s still plenty terrifying, of course, and the micro-scale often feels larger and more dangerous than what we see, but what affected me most was how #Alive imbued its stakes with more than just the need to survive. That’s the core goal, yes, but #Alive probes further, interrogating why, in the face of a crisis of this scale, anyone would even want to keep living. I teared up at the end.
In one of my first editorials ever for Dread Central, I called #Alive the most life-affirming zombie movie I’d ever seen. I wrote, “There are times when my mind browbeats me into submission, a delusional notion that it’s all just too much, and that there’s an easy way to escape all the pain. Movies like #Alive remind me to keep hope alive in those darkest of moments. There’s always someone or something there that can change my mind– I just have to be around to see it.” Not to be too existential, but yeah, after #Alive scares the hell out of you, it might just change your life.
What do you think? Do you have any plans to check out #Alive on Netflix? It’s one of my favorites from the decade, so if you do, let me know what you think over on Twitter @Chadiscollins
Categorized: News
