All of Us Are Dead is a zombie horror TV series directed by Lee JQ, Chun Sung-il, and Kim Nam-su, and stars Park Ji-hoo, Yoon Chan-young, Lee Yoo-mi and Cho Yi-hyun, alongside other cast members. The series has 12 episodes, each around an hour long.
Netflix describes the series as:
A high school becomes ground zero for a zombie virus outbreak. Trapped students must fight their way out — or turn into one of the rabid infected.
– All of Us Are Dead review does not contain spoilers –
You’d expect high school to be a place filled with teenage drama, adolescent stupidity and banter. You know, a place that has a little bit of both – the good and the bad. You’d expect to enjoy these moments, after all, high school is the time of possibilities. The last remnants of your childhood and the stepping stone into adulthood. Even within the horrible mess and craziness that those times can sometimes entail, nothing is worse than your classmates turning into zombies.
Early on in the 12-episode Netflix series, we see a student getting bullied and then turning into a flesh-eating zombie. The question remains who is the greater evil in this scenario – the flesh-eater or the one inflicting pain and suffering on their fellow peer without any reason or compassion. All of Us Are Dead comes with tons of such moral questions and situations in the course of its almost 12-hour runtime. The fact that the series takes so long to come to a conclusion is, personally speaking, a cause for concern. I’ve seen that horror movies and shows work best when it’s precise and to-the-point, especially when it’s zombie horror.
Either way, it’s interesting how the horror series looks at the various issues already plaguing the lives of these students. The extreme competition and expectations from Korean students is a well-documented fact in media – it’s something that we have seen time and time again. We see how that affects the different students in the school and all of their unique personalities shine through when we see how they handle these stresses. However, the series really tries to juggle a myriad of other problems with the school system and the students themselves but not all of these depictions are done well or in-depth. Thus, some things feel a bit half-baked or just added for dramatic effect.
Another interesting but shockingly underdeveloped aspect is how the virus outbreak starts. I thank my lucky stars that they tried to tell us how and why something like this would happen in a high school and that it’s not supernatural – there’s a perfectly good scientific explanation for this mess, however misguided the intentions were. I don’t want to get too deep into it in this All of Us Are Dead review so that I don’t spoil the surprise, but I would’ve really appreciated a better look into the virus’s inception and the why’s and how’s of it all.
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But, if you’re someone who likes the drama of high schools in all its glory but also wants some great zombies and gore, then this will be a rather interesting story to watch. The drama is, honestly, pretty great. It might be a bit difficult to watch kids being mean and outright nasty, but it’s still delicious to get the tea about who’s dating whom and who said what to whom. The series, moreover, takes an empathetic look into what happens during the time between the bite and the turning. How different people deal with and hold on to the last embers of their humanity, knowing that it’s the last time they will be able to feel and do something for the people that they love.
Coming to the zombies, All of Us Are Dead has some really intense flesh-eaters to keep you glued to your screen. The blood and gore are really great to watch and the series does a wonderful job at designing and executing the monsters – the practical effects are top-notch and will keep you addicted. It’s scary, fast-paced and does a damn good job at showcasing the horror in controlled doses.
Summing up: All of Us Are Dead
All of Us Are Dead is a good watch. South Korean horror is always a great watch regardless of what monster we are dealing with. Zombies, specifically, seem to be their strong suit. Either way, this one is both a hit and a miss but is insanely entertaining regardless.
All of Us Are Dead is streaming on Netflix.
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WOOOOHOOO YESSS just what needet, great one, i had to check if it was made by NETFLIX like three times, still cannot belive it tought, gore, sexy, school, young people instead of old guys and boring grown ups getting bitten, now some of it im wondering, the gate too the school is wide open why is nobody of the zombies leaving the school at all!?! and some smal minor stupid things, anyway this could been a live version of the anime: highschool of the dead, but nobody even being in the labs can make a singel weapon or homemade granade/bombs, and thats was one of the stupid things, but in all i will watch this before i go to bed and proces to sleep like a baby, im only at 4 episodes out but i want more of this, sesson 2 please, PS: please try to make the episodes right UNDER 1 houer long, its sometime a bit to long inbetween, give some of the students weapons or one of the girls a sword or something ( it would be like the anime: blood c) it would be perfect, i give it a strong 4 score so far, im in qurantine for covid 19 for like a month, i need something good too watch, im rooting for korea horror ✌????✌