Welcome to JOE’s 31 Days Of Hallowe’en. For each and every day of October, we’ll be bringing you a horror movie to tuck into for the lead up to the big night. It could be new, old, an undiscovered gem, or a classic you’ll have seen a thousand times. No matter what it is, we guarantee you that it is brilliant, and it is SCARY.
For Day 27, we’re looking back over 2016’s insane South Korean zombie apocalypse, Train To Busan.
We’re betting that out of all the movies we’ve been recommending over the last month, this is the one that the fewest people will have seen.
Set on a super-fast-moving train that brings passengers from Seoul to Busan, it tells the story of a a business-man father who doesn’t have much time for his daughter, when the zombie apocalypse breaks out and he and the rest of the train’s passengers are suddenly forced to fight for their survival.
Or, in some of their cases, sacrificing some of the others in order for them to continue living.
Clip via Zero Media
If you want, you can find the political allegory to this zombie movie (hint: pretty much every zombie movie is a political allegory), such as in Dawn Of The Dead (mindless consumerism), 28 Days Later (fear of man-made diseases), Night Of The Dead (race wars) and so on.
With Train To Busan, the message is clear that there is a lot of hate still simmering for the rich folk who sorted themselves out with Golden Parachutes once the local economy went to hell.
Or, if you don’t want to look for subtext, you can just enjoy the World War Z-esque zombie action-sequences set against the nearly-always-in-motion setting, while the father-daughter relationship proves to be a hugely effective emotional spine to pin everything to.
There is, apparently, a US remake on the way – Train To Brooklyn – but whether they can match the kinetic energy and vicious fear on show in the original here remains to be seen.
Check out our previous recommendations below:
Day 2 – The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Day 13 – Friday The 13th (1980)
Day 19 – The Blair Witch Project
Day 25 – Dawn Of The Dead (2004)
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Aideen McQueen – Faith healers, Coolock craic and Gigging as Gaeilge
