Director: Cho Il
Year: 2020
Country: South Korea
Alternate Titles: #Saratida
Genre: Zombie
Plot:
In the middle of the city, a man witnesses a zombie pandemic carrying on in the streets around him and barricades himself in his apartment in order to get away from the ravenous beings, but the more he stays isolated by himself the more he feels the need to survive the zombie pandemic.
Review:
For the most part, this was a rather enjoyable and entertaining effort. Among the more enjoyable aspects of this one is the immediacy of the film to drop us into the zombie apocalypse. The pre-credits sequence showing how he gets isolated with the TV news reports and live-action scenes showing the creatures overrunning the area grabbing and biting everyone they come across gets us into the film exceptionally quickly. That the ferocity and intensity of their actions are given rather early on makes for a much more thrilling and intimidating threat through these impressive sequences is fun with the way it sets the film going.
Moreover, this early build-up causes the film plenty to like when it comes to the attempts at out-maneuvering the creatures later on. With either the shots of survivors getting overwhelmed as he can’t help them in time or the various encounters that emerge later on when both he and the neighbor across the street are forced to deal with the creatures trying to get into their apartments, the second half here picks up on the action nicely which sets up the fantastic finale. Featuring their escape into the complex and dash to get away before the final series of battles to get out of the apartment. Combined with the stellar zombie makeup and effects, these are the film’s positives.
This one does have some flaws with it. One of the biggest issues is the fact that so much of the film seems to consist of useless padding to beef up a running time that still goes on way too long. The idea of what he does by himself while he’s alone isn’t that interesting, from struggling to get a signal for his devices, recording videos for an internet channel that doesn’t exist anymore, or acting as an excitable idiot around the girl who doesn’t really bring anything new or interesting to these type of scenes. These are commonly utilized in these kinds of films, building up plenty of clichés and suspected moments that highlight how utterly stupid the character is.
The other flaw to be had here is the film’s highly problematic final half which is quite chaotic and meandering. There’s little need to introduce yet a third survivor into the mix simply to pull out a series of random twists with the character to keep his surprise outcome from being logical which is what makes no sense. Then to just dismiss it all with a resolution that alerts the creatures to them and makes their escape all the more difficult because it has to keep up the inclusion of this completely doesn’t need to be there and could’ve been taken out completely to shave off time and the typically overdone and useless Korean melodrama. These are what hold this one back somewhat.
Overview: ***/5
A solid and watchable enough effort that keeps its interest even in the sea of clichés and stupidity that pop up which drag the film out far longer than necessary, this one is watchable and enjoyable enough despite these flaws. Give it a look if you’re a hardcore zombie fanatic, curious about the effort, or a massive Asian horror fan, while those who aren’t or find themselves turned off by the flaws should heed caution.
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