Zombieverse: New Blood Review: Continues to be Absolutely Annoying

The first season of Zombieverse was definitely interesting in a confusing sort of way, and Zombieverse Season 2 is here to make things more interesting and action-packed. The second season goes beyond the streets of Seoul to a wider space and throws in more interesting, unique, and confusing challenges for the participants to solve as bloodthirsty zombies overrun the world. How many will survive in the new season?

The series has 7 episodes, each with a runtime of around 60 minutes.

Zombieverse: New Blood Review

Whenever I watch an episode of Zombieverse, I find it hilarious that everyone and everything seems to find it/themselves revolving around Dex and his shocking ability to overcome any and all obstacles in his path. Zombieverse Season 2 or Zombieverse: New Blood is not very different in that regard, and continues on its journey of taking these well-known public figures through a reality TV show-like situation where they have to save their lives from the hands of the undead. Thankfully Andre Rush proves himself to be quite capable of handling the zombies as well!

This season, Ro Hong-chul turns out to be a half-zombie, half-human person whose blood might just be able to cure this viral outbreak.

However, credit must be given to the fantastic world-building, makeup and practical effects department of the series. I think it’s safe to say that the series doesn’t really make you fearful for the participants in any way because, well, there aren’t any zombies here for the time being. However, the talented people behind the camera make every part of this post-apocalyptic world believable and the stunt artists are so amazing that it’s difficult not to believe their performances!

That being said, it’s the cast that always fails me with these shows. While we all can attest that reality TV shows aren’t really “real”, the cast’s behaviours are just so annoying sometimes that you wish for them to become some zombie’s dinner. Most of the cast, like last time, are so inept that you wonder if they have any survival instinct at all. It gets on your nerves after a while because you just can’t believe any of this is real and neither is this fiction, so you are just left in the middle wondering where to go with your perception of what you’re watching.

Thus, just like last time, I couldn’t help but wonder what was expected of me while watching the series. Sure, it’s funny in bursts and leaves you laughing. The actors do a good job of portraying their characters. However, the series just doesn’t work as reality TV. You don’t believe this to be real in any way because of the situations that the cast finds themselves in. I can’t believe we got almost 7 hours of content once again when it was already overkill in season 1. This season still tries to add some narrative twists with the vaccines and whatnot but again, it’s not a very novel idea because every other zombie-themed movie/show has something similar.

On top of that, the series wants us to believe that there’s a lot of politics and tension between the cast in different situations. For example, they made a big deal of choosing whom to take on the helicopter in episode 2 but none of it feels genuine in any way. I am still left confused, even after so many episodes, whether or not we are expected to feel scared or tensed for the actors because clearly, this isn’t real life – there are no zombies outside my window (yet). So, during the action-packed moments, you don’t feel this nagging tension for the people. It also becomes a bit much to suspend our disbelief, ending in us just laughing at some of the funny sequences and then feeling thoroughly confused the rest of the time.

Also Read: Taeyeon Letter To Myself MV Review: Soulful Anthem of Self-Reflection and Healing

In the end, thus, Zombieverse Season 2 is just goofy. I am thoroughly confused about the point of watching the series – is this a zombie survival guide, a fictional series or a reality TV show? The problem, however, ends up being that the series does not take anything seriously. The zombie attacks seem orchestrated (because they are) and the interactions feel scripted. The miscommunication gag between Andre and the others feels cringy after a while and you just wish it to stop for the sake of your mental wellbeing. I wish the series would just commit to one thing instead of being a soupy mess consisting of anything and everything under the sun. The odd format, thus, does not stick.

Final Thoughts

Just like season 1, Zombieverse: New Blood doesn’t stick because the makers create a messy mix of genres. There’s no commitment when it comes to the kills or the dangerous situations and considering we never really get to the bottom of whether this is a reality TV show or a fictional series, everything just seems unimportant and without thrills. It’s hard to understand why one might want to watch this because, after a while, the randomness of it all might give viewers a headache.

Also Read: Brewing Love Episode 5 Review: Min-ju is Head Over Heels for Yong-ju