Have we reached peak zombie? – British GQ

The only thing more terrifying and relentlessly unavoidable than a zombie is... the zombie movie. Since the celluloid dawn of the dead officially, that was 1932s White Zombie, but everyone knows it was really George A Romero who brought them back to life with Night Of The Living Dead in 1968 the lurching, lumbering, reanimated deceased have spent the past 50 years haunting our dreams, invading our cinemas and infecting our TV screens with ever-increasing regularity.

Turn on the TV these days and you cant move for corporeal creatures risen from the grave/morgue/ditch and hungry for flesh. Even those that were committed vegans back when they had a pulse go hardcore carnivore as soon as their eyes glass over. Ordinarily, of course, we would advise that anyone who doesnt like zombie movies go to the pub and wait for all this undead stuff to blow over, but the pubs are currently shut and, even if they werent, zombies arent going anywhere.

Thats right even the onset of a real-life killer global pandemic hasnt sated our appetite for fictional killer global pandemics.

And weve had them all... fast zombies (28 Days Later), slow zombies (Day Of The Dead), alien zombies (Zombies From Outer Space), classical zombies (Pride And Prejudice And Zombies), historical zombies (The Diary Of Anne Frank Of The Dead), scatalogical zombies (Zombie Ass: Toilet Of The Dead) and even sex zombies (Big Tits Zombie, AKA Big Tits Dragon: Hot Spring Zombie Vs Stripper 5 its Japanese). And no, were not making this up.

On TV weve had The Walking Dead, plus the sequel, the prequel and the World Beyond.

Then there have been rom-zoms (Warm Bodies), zom-coms (Shaun Of The Dead), dom-zoms (Spanking The Zombie), zom-moms (Mummy, Im A Zombie), yom-zoms (Jewish zombie flick Jeruzalem) and tom-zoms (as in Tom Waits in The Dead Dont Die).

And it is an international obsession. Weve had French zombies (The Horde), German (Rammbock: Berlin Undead), Canadian (Ravenous), Spanish (Rec), Mexican (Ladronas De Almas), Italian (Zombi 2), Indonesian (5 Cowok Jagoan), Norwegian (Dead Snow), Hindi (Rise Of The Zombie), Malaysian (KL Zombi) and Australian (Cargo).

Weve also had zombies in the mall (Dawn Of The Dead), zombies in a school (Detention Of The Dead) and zombies in a pool (Undead Pool). We've had zombies on a plane (World War Z) and, of course, zombies on a train. Which brings us, slowly, painfully and somewhat inevitably, coughing up blood, bile and body parts along the way, to Train To Busan Presents: Peninsula.

If you are still with me, congratulations you must really love zombie movies.

Now, the South Koreans love a zombie movie. Theyve made #Alive, Doomsday Book, Seoul Station and The Wailing, to name a few, but Train To Busan was the box-office monster. Released in 2016, it was described by critics as one of the best horrors of the year and a non-stop zombie thrill ride and told the story of a Seoul-to-Busan bullet train infected with an ever-growing horde of remorseless undead (whose only flaw was being unable to open doors) who systematically turn every carriage into a blood-soaked buffet car. And it brought new, err, life to a genre that had become as tired as one of Romeros early slo-mo ghouls desperate for braaaiins.

It was director Yeon Sang-hos first live-action movie (thats not a zombie gag his other work had all been in animation) and he made it distinctly Korean, ignoring the temptation to Westernise his feature, and he mixed horror with social commentary and satire to create a worldwide hit. In the wake of the acclaim, and despite the obvious rumours at the time, he denied having any intention of making a sequel. I want to do new things, he said proudly.

Unfortunately for him, like a zombie with a lump of endlessly chewable intestine in his mouth, Yeon Sang-ho has had no choice but to swallow his pride and revisit his old haunts...

Picking up four years after the initial outbreak and South Korea is in a big undead mess. Cut off from the rest of the world (even North Korea is zombie-free maybe they did what was suggested in World War Z: removing the teeth of every member of the population in less than 24 hours. Or maybe Ive just been watching too many zombie movies), Busan has gone from infected train wreck to hell in a handcart and now the whole peninsula is infected.

Unsurprisingly, the rest of the world is no hurry to come to South Koreas aid, writing it off as a rather unfortunate state of affairs that should probably be avoided at all costs but for a criminal gang in Japan it is a situation that presents an opportunity. Back in Busan there is a truck full of money and the gangsters decide to recruit some South Korean survivors to go and get it. What, you may be wondering, could possibly go wrong?

Led by Captain Jung-seok (Gang Dong-won), an ex-soldier tortured by the guilt of failing to help a stranded family during the evacuation, the specialist crew get to work and the concept of a clever heist amid a horde of the undead has loads of potential. Alas, the filmmakers fail to hold their nerve.

Instead of an audacious robbery, Yeon Sang-ho decides to throw every action movie concept into the zombie pot with distinctly mixed results. The CGIed car chases are an infuriatinglyunrealistic take on Mad Max, the ruined city populated by scavenging humans is The Warriors, helping rescue a group of survivors is Escape From New York and the grotty zombie gladiator pit is all a bit, well, Gladiator with zombies. One idea, done well, would have been enough. After all, thats what worked so brilliantly with Train To Busan.

Peninsula isnt a bad film, but it could and should have been better. The zombies are ferocious and frightening, you do root for the escapees and you do wish for an unpleasant end for the psychopathic survivors, but the tension never builds sufficiently to get palms sweating, pupils dilating or pulses racing.

Then again, perhaps we have now reached peak zombie and it is we, the viewers, who have become dead-eyed and emotionless, mindlessly consuming each new movie with no sense of pleasure or pain, damned forever, cursed never to be satisfied.

Train To Busan Presents: Peninsula is available on digital download on 23 November.

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Have we reached peak zombie? - British GQ