All of Us Are Dead spoilers follow, but they're pretty minor.

All of Us Are Dead opens with a group of bullies who mercilessly beat a fellow student to the brink of death. As brutal as that is, this might also be an apt metaphor for the zombie genre as a whole.

Over the past decade, horror fans have been hit time and time again with a relentless number of films and shows that try to rejuvenate this genre with varying degrees of success. Often, the problem is a lack of originality, but there have been some highlights too — and more often than not, these have hailed from South Korea.

2016's Train To Busan might be the most famous, but in that same year, The Wailing impressed audiences too with its genre-defying chills. And since then, the last five years have brought us films like #Alive and Peninsula (the Train to Busan sequel) alongside TV shows such as Kingdom, Sweet Home and the brilliantly named Zombie Detective.

all of us are dead
Netflix

There's a veritable horde of Korean zombie content out there, and what's so impressive about this is how most of these stories spin tired, undead tropes into something far more appetising. While #Alive and Train To Busan take us to new claustrophobic settings inspired by the very best of George A Romero, shows like Kingdom and Zombie Detective are like no other corpse-driven dramas you've ever seen.

So how does All of Us Are Dead, Netflix's latest zombie offering, compare to the very best horror stories that Korea has to offer?

Very well, it turns out. There's plenty of meat to dig into here thanks to a dense script from Chun Sung-il, which in turn is based on Joo Dong-geun's webtoon, Now at Our School. Like all good zombie tales, this one digs deep under the rotten flesh of society to pull out the maggots that infest our world at large, holding them up to the light.

In this case, the high-school setting enables All of Us Are Dead to tackle the pressures of high school, but in a far more specific way than Western viewers might be used to. School isn't easy anywhere, but Korean high school is a particularly pressurised environment for students and teachers alike.

The demand to excel, especially when it comes to those all-consuming university entrance exams, means that the characters in this show are already struggling long before the zombies show up. Whether they withdraw entirely, like Choi Nam-ra, or take their anger out on others, like Yoon Gwi-nam, the students already exist in a terrifying pressure cooker that often dehumanises young people who just need a break.

While All of Us Are Dead doesn't feature the sex and controversy that typifies American teen shows like Euphoria, the dynamics explored here are certainly reminiscent of shows in that vein, particularly when it comes to the ins and outs of school politics.

yoon chanyoung, all of us are dead
Yang Hae-sung/Netflix

Backstabbing, gossiping, and some truly disturbing bouts of bullying will unsettle viewers long before the outbreak finally kicks off in full. Yet, amongst all that, there's still some scope for banter and even romance.

Twelve hour-long episodes might seem like a lot for something like this, but All of Us Are Dead really makes good use of its runtime by creating space for quieter moments that humanise each character in meaningful ways that pay off later down the line.

Far too many inferior zombie shows simply treat the victims as one part of a larger buffet. Here, the kids' hopes and dreams will pull you in like any good teen drama does, except there's a lot more blood and severed body parts to contend with too.

And just when you might think that the pace is shuffling along a tad too slow, a new twist comes along just before the midway point to infect you all over again and kick things up a notch.

It helps too that the direction is dynamic and exhilarating throughout thanks to stellar work from Lee Jae-kyoo and Kim Nam-su. Obvious angles are often sidelined in favour of far more inventive camerawork that enhances, rather than distracts, from the frenzied horror that unfolds.

While All of Us Are Dead might not hit the dizzying highs of Kingdom or Train To Busan — a film that even the students in this show are aware of — there are more than enough horrifying set pieces here to keep you up at night.

And most crucially of all, they work precisely because you actually care about these characters. That emotional resonance is what ultimately sets All of Us Are Dead apart from other zombie shows of its ilk, and that's why young stars like Yoon Chan-young and Park Ji-hoo are destined to become even more popular than they already are now.

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All of Us Are Dead is now available to watch on Netflix.

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David Opie

After teaching in England and South Korea, David turned to writing in Germany, where he covered everything from superhero movies to the Berlin Film Festival. 

In 2019, David moved to London to join Digital Spy, where he could indulge his love of comics, horror and LGBTQ+ storytelling as Deputy TV Editor, and later, as Acting TV Editor.

David has spoken on numerous LGBTQ+ panels to discuss queer representation and in 2020, he created the Rainbow Crew interview series, which celebrates LGBTQ+ talent on both sides of the camera via video content and longform reads.

Beyond that, David has interviewed all your faves, including Henry Cavill, Pedro Pascal, Olivia Colman, Patrick Stewart, Ncuti Gatwa, Jamie Dornan, Regina King, and more — not to mention countless Drag Race legends. 

As a freelance entertainment journalist, David has bylines across a range of publications including Empire Online, Radio Times, INTO, Highsnobiety, Den of Geek, The Digital Fix and Sight & Sound

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