Train to Busan.
It’s that time of the year again, where I submit myself to 31 horror movies, show or books for the next 31 days. This will be my fourth year and each year it becomes harder and harder to find good quality flicks, but that’s part of the fun.
So let’s start this off with Train to Busan.
This movie is a couple of years old, and I’ve been meaning to see it for some time now. I was/am a fan of the Zombie genre and now finally we have a Korean director and production giving the westerners their take on the genre. This is not your Romero zombie though, this is more of a 28 Days Later, fast-hyper zombie. It’s not my favorite interpretation of zombies, but it still works.
The idea is simple, you are on a bullet train going from one city to another and you are trapped with one infected person. Doesn’t take long for that to spread and now you have a zombie flick.
It’s wonderfully shot and visually very nice. This is not a cheesy foreign film, it’s serious and it works. Starts off pretty quick, we get a little character setting up, a father and his daughter and then they get on the train to visit mommy in the city of Busan and it’s off to the races.
The make-up is good, quality that you’d expect in a modern film. There is some CGI, but it works, and not distracting. It’s 2-hour run time is longer than most western zombie films which I was intrigued by. It doesn’t over-stay it’s welcome, I think it works at this length.
It’s not a shadowy, dark film, everything is day-time and lit, so the horror is not the spooky, jump in the darkness but a more Day of the Dead style where the apocalypse is happening in broad daylight.
You can watch it on Netflix now, and I think it’s worth your time. It’s not the best horror or zombie film, but better than many of the current horror films out there.
Andres
Andres Salazar is the author of the horror western comics www.pariahmissouri.com