All of Us are Dead starring Park Solomon (Lee-Suhyeok), Park Ji-Hoo (Nam On-jo) and Cho Yi-hyun (Nam Ra) is the newest Korean original series on Netflix. The show revolves around a zombie outbreak at Hyosan High School, and the chaos that ensues when the outbreak eventually spreads to the city.
Zombie shows and movies are very hit or miss. Sometimes you get mediocre shows such as Fear the Walking Dead or Peninsula, but there are also great zombie movies such as Train to Busan and World War Z. Thankfully, Netflix’s All of Us are Dead is somewhere in the middle, it’s not bad but it's not extraordinary. The good parts far outweigh the bad, and if you can get over some unnecessary plot points, the show is worth binging.
Before I sing my praises, there are some ill aspects that should be acknowledged. One of those is the “hambies,” which are half-human half-zombies. Hambies can’t die and have superhuman-like strength, but sometimes exhibit zombie emotions. The antagonist, the school bully, is a hambie and I wasn’t the biggest fan of it. His immortality became repetitive and tired. That aspect complemented his character flaws, given he is a coward and scared of consequences, but I wish the writers did something different. Additionally, the plot dragged along at some points. With 12 episodes and a runtime of an hour each episode, some of the episodes are bloated with “filler content,“ like redundant side dialogue.
As I said previously, there is more good than bad in this show, especially with the opening episodes. The most interesting part about zombie outbreaks is when society crumbles and the zombies invade with chaos ensuing, and this show did not disappoint there.
One scene grasped my attention in a way that others could not. When all goes to hell in the cafeteria, the characters perfectly portray the panic, action, and emotions they are experiencing; it is golden. After that, the show keeps its eerie tone for the next few episodes as characters get bitten, and conflict within the surviving group begins to build. For the most part, the characters are pretty easy to understand. It’s also great how the show acknowledges the zombies and how the zombie outbreak started. It’s something tragic and thought-provoking and extremely emotional. The show also doesn’t try to hide the fact that it is a zombie show, even mentioning Train to Busan, a popular zombie movie from Korea that is personally one of my favorite movies of all time.
All of Us are Dead is enjoyable if you are looking for a zombie-thriller to binge-watch for a few days. It’s nothing special, but it’s still a fun experience that I would heavily recommend.
Rating: 4/5
