Wednesday, November 1, 2017

NETFLIX AND KILL: TRAIN TO BUSAN (2016) ***


A workaholic father takes his daughter aboard a train to see her mother.  A woman bitten by a zombie and stumbles aboard the train just as it is leaving the depot.  She soon becomes zombified and begins biting other passengers, spreading the virus throughout the train.   

Train to Busan is a zombie movie, but it also functions as a metaphor for how one should act during a crisis.  Our hero is selfish and is only concerned with saving himself and his daughter.  She is a bit more idealistic (or naïve, depending on your point of view) and tries to help others aboard the train.  (“You only care about yourself.  That’s why mom left.”)  Naturally, her father slowly learns not to be so selfish throughout the ordeal. 

The group of survivors that band together are pretty interesting for this sort of thing.  We have a pregnant couple, a pair of elderly sisters, and a baseball team.  There’s also a bit of an implied class struggle going on as the one rich asshole constantly forces the porters to cave in to his demands during the attack. 

The zombie attacks on the train are simple yet effective.  The World War Z type of zombies seen later in the picture at various train stations are less successful, but it is kind of cool to see them spilling into rooms in hordes and falling off rooftops and second story windows like lemmings.  I’ll admit, some of the new zombie rules are kind of lame (they can’t see in the dark?!?) and the two-hour running time could’ve been a lot shorter.  However, the ending, while predictable, hits all the right notes. 

In short, this was a great way to end Netflix and Kill.  Sure, I watched thirty-one horror movies in thirty-one days (although it took me thirty-two to review them all), but that doesn’t mean the horror is going to stop.  I’ve still have plenty of horror movie reviews in the pipe for a column I’ll be calling Halloween Hangover, which should probably take up most of November. 

AKA:  Invasion Zombie.

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