Cho Il-hyung

(Netflix Streaming, December 2021) I wasn’t expecting much from #Alive — zombie films are overplayed, and it takes more than a slightly askew premise (such as a young man stuck in his apartment as the rest of the world goes crazy) to get beyond the genre fatigue. Still, there is something in the way the film approaches its premise that just happens to match recent real-world pandemic experience: the sense of isolation as illness sweeps the world outside, the fragile domestic bubble only valid as long as we don’t try to get out. #Alive get a lot of mileage out of this — the first half of the film, easily the best, doesn’t upset this spatial unity even as the apartment’s surroundings are presented in detail. Things get slightly weirder and less cohesive once our protagonist ventures outside, makes an ally and has to physically battle hordes of zombies weeks into the crisis. But that’s inevitable in a script that creates an atmosphere of claustrophobia without necessarily being hermetic in its presentation. One of the big advantages of #Alive over other lesser zombie movies is that it does take the time to clearly show the protagonist’s environment, allowing viewers to invest themselves in what-if-I-was-in-this-situation scenarios. Like it or not, the COVID pandemic will alter our conception of extraordinary events for the rest of our lives, and zombie films (as exemplars of the genre) will come to take many of the cues explored during that time. The South Korean origin of the film isn’t as much of a barrier as many would think — thanks to writer-director Cho Il-hyung, the film is accessible and compelling for wide global audiences. While it’s too early to see how well it will age (there’s a real chance it will be dated rather than enhanced by its timeliness), #Alive does rank well in an overexposed genre.