A couple on the verge of divorce must confront the traumas that caused their imminent breakup and reignite the flames of their love during the zombie apocalypse.
Death Do Us Part (2018)
This Rotten World: No More Heroes by Jacy Morris
With Portland in their rear-view-mirror our survivors encounter new perils, some undead, some very much alive. Morris keeps the action moving, and the threats coming, and the multiple storylines flowing.
This Rotten World: Let It Burn by Jacy Morris
“Portland, Oregon, once a hipster haven, the progressive jewel of the Northwest, was now nothing but a collection of buildings on the precipice of becoming a ruin.” As the plot continues, survivors try to escape the unrelenting threat from the undead, shifting perspective offer depth to the characters that make this a compelling read.
This Rotten World by Jacy Morris
First in the series begins with the fall of civilisation at the teeth of the undead. A disparate collection of survivors, forced together by circumstance, battle to escape Portland.
Last Ones Out (2015)
An okay zombie flick, offering a certain extra interest because of its African pedigree.
Blood Quantum (2019)
An interesting take on the zombie genre, swinging an axe at issues of racism and colonialism faced by First Nations people, as isolated Mi’kmaq community discover they’re immune to the zombie plague. The gory bloodbath is let down by a sometimes weak screenplay that struggled to pull everything together.
Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End by Manel Loureiro
This first novel by Manel Loureiro, started as a blog before its publication as a book, follows a lawyer, his cat, and a Ukrainian helicopter pilot, as they fight to survive the undead.
Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula (2020)
This plays out in the same universe as the brilliantly unrelenting Train to Busan (2016). Anyone infected with a mysterious virus dies, comes back to life, and then charges teeth first at the living.
If the original film chronicled the spread of the virus across South Korea, this picks over the bones of a country abandoned to the hordes of bloodthirsty undead.
We follow a small crew, living as refugees in Hong Kong, as they are given the chance to make some fast cash. All they have to do is go back to South Korea and retrieve a truckload of money.
Once in-country they quickly find the truck, but their good fortune doesn’t last. While being chased by a horde of zombies they’re attacked by a small army of hardened survivors, capturing the truck because they think it’s full of food.
Separated from the truck, and more importantly the satellite phone essential to arranging a pickup, our hero is saved by a couple of young girls, badass sisters, junior destroyers, who’ve been surviving, thriving, in this crazy new world.
If the first act is inspired by Escape from New York (1981), the second is like having the last three Mad Max (1981-2015) films in one place. It’s a fun ride with a nice look. The players sometimes feel histrionic, but I think that’s an idiosyncrasy to Korean cinema.
If zombie films are your thing, it’ll fit nicely into an evening’s entertainment.
#Alive (2020)
A smart horror film from Korea that doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but is interesting enough to keep you watching.
Reality Z (2020)
An interesting reworking of Charlie Brooker’s series Dead Set (2008).
Transposed to Rio de Janeiro the original Big Brother backdrop is turned into something more Brazilian, a gameshow called Olympus.
The first five episode run close to the original storyline. Then it runs off in a new and interesting direction. These additional episodes blends perfectly with the original, opening out the story, and bringing all kinds of new drama.
As you’d expect from the genre the blood and gore is viscous and sticky. But while Brooker’s original is a swipe at unreality of reality television, and a critique of that kind of celebrity. This deals with a more authoritarian world, plagued by corruption and criminality.
There’s a bleakness to the way this all plays out perfectly in keeping with the genre, and more importantly with the series.
Definitely worth watching.
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