In the post-Romero era of zombie horror filmmaking, there are only a handful of titles that truly stand out, and one that deserves to be considered among not just the best zombie movies but greatest horror movies of this century is Yeon Sang-ho’s Train to Busan. The high-speed masterpiece of ravenous zombie apocalypse taking place on a train from Seoul to Busan became an instant classic. While the action sequences, gore, makeup, and effects all make it a glorious feast for horror fans, the fleshed-out characters and resonant themes of family duty (particularly fatherhood) made it a fully rounded tale of disaster and survival. This is all to say, the director returning to the zombie outbreak with Colony, premiering at the Midnights section of this year’s Cannes Film Festival, set expectations higher than Ralph Fiennes’ skull tower. Alas, it all comes crumbling down, as Colony is a mere shadow of the director’s former victory.
Taking place in a Seoul skyscraper that is home to a conference space and a busy shopping center, a deadly pathogen is released by a vengeful employee at biomedical company Chains Bio. Our main players are ex-spouses and colleagues Professor Kwon (Jun Ji-hyun) and Professor Han (Go Soo), who are attending the conference held by the CEO, who swiftly becomes patient zero. As people around them become flesh-eating zombies, Kwon and Han form a survival group with others as the building is quarantined. Every few minutes they witness the zombies all experiencing a shared state of trance, and quickly realise that when one zombie learns something new, they can communicate it to the rest of the hive.
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Colony wastes no time in getting to the good stuff, which works to get the audience into the swing of things but also results in every character feeling limp. Kwon is our protagonist, but we don’t learn much about her other than than her ex-husband has moved on with a new family while she remains alone. The rest of the group falls into every character stereotype imaginable in the genre: the sketchy police officer, the determined underdog, the hysterical teenage girl, and the arrogant businessman. No one ends up with any semblance of an arc, with much of the two hour runtime is devoted to the human villain, Seo Young-cheol (Koo Kyo-hwan), who is responsible for the outbreak.
The repetitive and lore-heavy script reinforces the gimmick upon which the entire story seems to revolve around: the fact that the zombies can communicate. While it’s always interesting to see how an age-old genre can be reinvigorated, this new “development” isn’t nearly revolutionary enough to hang a two-hour film on. The action sequences are far more scarce than Train to Busan and nowhere near as exhilarating. Yet it’s worth mentioning the zombie acting – particularly in those hive mind moments – is excellent, with the haunting facial expressions and erratic body movements being some of the very few sources of fear. It’s just not enough to compensate for a lack of suspense, a cast of lifeless characters, and a corny script plagued by predictable tropes.
