A Review of “All of Us Are Dead (2022)”

I’m a sucker for these zombie movies and shows. They always manage to pull me into watching it. Korea somehow manages to make zombies more interesting compared to western movies and shows. For example, Train to Busan was absolutely stellar. My hope was that this show was on the level of that movie. The premise is “Set in the South Korean city of Hyosan, things go berserk one day when a girl in the Hyosan High School is bitten by a rat infected by a deadly virus that turns happy humans into devastatingly ugly and ever-hungry human eating machines”. So does Korea deliver another excellent zombie action or is it a big miss?

Let’s get the obvious out of the way first, the zombie action is indeed exciting to watch. There are some exciting and creative sequences in this show such as the dining hall sequence which is filmed like one shot. There are some other creative sequences such as one involving a fight between two individuals on top of bookcases while zombies are underneath. Another is where the characters build a giant wall to hold off zombies while they escape the other way. Another is where they create a circular wall while getting from point A to B. All these sequences feel very original and I certainly enjoyed watching them. I also have to give a lot of praise to the makeup artist as the zombies look frighteningly good. The zombie actors also do a good job as well in making them feel inhuman and unnatural. The zombies here are definitely quite scary and that is quite a feat considering how oversaturated zombies are in media.

The actors all do a phenomenal job in their portrayal. They all manage to give their characters distinct personalities even if they are just minor characters. The actors who die and become zombies also do a great job as zombies. The story is also quite engaging despite just being mostly about surviving. The story focuses on the dynamic and relationship of the surviving school students. We see them work together but also argue and fight but it never feels over the top or anything. What the story does the best is in delivering on the emotions and there is definitely some emotional stuff. We also got a more interesting origin for the virus that is also quite sympathetic and we got some special zombies that give the situation more spice to it. They also spend a fair amount of time with the military in the series to give the audience an understanding of their response to the virus. There is also quite a bit of romance in this and it surprisingly works well despite the situation not being the exact best for this.

However, there is a lot of characters in this show and honestly maybe too many. The show doesn’t just focus on one group of survivors and instead multiple groups which lead to a lot of characters to pay attention to. What can be annoying is that a fair amount of these characters have nothing interesting to them but the series still spends a fair amount of time on them. If a character doesn’t have an interesting backstory or personality then they are probably going to die which results in predictable deaths. There are also some characters that are just in the series for no reason such as a streamer that I felt added nothing to the plot apart from taking screen time away from actual interesting characters. Additionally, there are so many moments in this series where a character makes a really stupid decision that is frustrating to watch. Also, the characters not going for the head is a big annoyance. It also gets annoying when some characters stand around instead of helping their friend who is being attacked.

The series is also a bit too long and can feel a bit exhausting to watch. It is 12 episodes but after watching, it definitely felt like the series could at least be cut down by 2 episodes. There is a lot of sequences where it does just feel like they are padding for time. For example, we will have scenes where we watch characters stand around or just building and not talking or a scene where they share chocolate and it all feels too long and pointless. There is a “villain” in the show and that person is WAY too overused and gets defeated in the same way like 4 times, to the point that it is kind of laughable. There are also some potentially interesting plot lines that they could’ve explored but it is never utilized or explored. There are also some characters that just die for shock value which sucks as it feels like the show would be more interesting if they were kept alive.

Overall, All of Us Are Dead is a thrilling and exciting zombie show that unfortunately stumbles on all the subplots created. I did come out a little disappointed that they didn’t utilize everything the show introduced effectively but it was still a really good time. It does end with a potential tease for season 2 and it might resolve some of the remaining plot threads from season 1. The ending is also quite interesting and it does make me wonder what direction they could go in. Thus I am hopeful for a season 2 despite the show’s shortcomings.