Seoul of the Dead: K-Horror Triple Threat

In this episode, we dive deep into three pulse-pounding Korean horror hits: the zombie blockbuster Train to Busan, the tense apartment survival thriller #Alive, and the terrifying found-footage nightmare Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum. From high-speed undead chaos to isolation dread and pure ghostly terror, we break down what makes these modern K-horror classics so effective. Buckle up — this one’s a wild ride.

Transcript

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Welcome to Dad Bot of Horror, Season 1, Episode 22. I'm your host, Butch Barr. Again, no co-host and no guest. So hope you enjoyed the last episode with a guest. She may be back. So I'm back from vacation, but uh I did watch some movies on vacation so I could talk to you and have an episode this week. So I have no other housekeeping, so we can get right into the movies. So movie one is Train to Busan from 2016. You can find it. You have to rent or buy it on Prime. I couldn't find it anywhere else. I did buy it because it's a great movie. Production companies are Next Entertainment World, Red Peter Film, and Move Comics. Or Move Comic. I think it just said comic. So this was made in South Korea. So you're gonna have to forgive me on some of these names. Park Jusuk and Young Sang Ho. And it stars Gong Yu, Jung Yu Mi, and Ma Dong Suk. That's a lot of guesswork on the pronunciations there. The plot. While a zombie virus breaks out in South Korea, passengers struggle to survive on the train from Seoul to Busan. So why this movie? I'm looking to do episodes where all of the movies are from one specific country that is not the United States of America. So all of these movies uh were made in South Korea. How did I see it? So the first time I heard the movie was good. So you know, Trading Poisson came out and I heard it was good. And I think my guess is that weirdly enough, it ended up being a movie that I think I watched during COVID. I think it was on Netflix, and that's how I saw it. So I'm pretty sure when I watched it, I'm pretty sure it was dubbed at that time. I watched it a few times since, and it's always been subtitles. So I haven't been able to find a dub one, and I'm okay. I'm okay with dubbed or subtitles, to tell you the truth. Uh favorite kill. So, you know, it's a zombie movie. They're really all the kills are basically the same. Someone gets, you know, bit. So I don't think I have any favorite kills in this movie. So I really do like this movie. I think it's a really good movie. I think it's a it's a very interesting movie. So it's like it's like, you know, so the passengers are on this train, and you know, there's each their each trains have cars. So the passengers are on this train and they've isolated themselves from the zombies by being in cars and and basically closing out the zombies in certain cars, and then the humans are in their own cars. Uh and the trains moving along, and each stop they get to, they're hoping that it'll be safe. Um while they're in while they're in the train, you know, they're they're they're getting word from the outside about all the chaos that's going on. So it's really interesting. Um the movie kind of opens in a funny way, and then it's kind of a slow crawl, because it it builds a story and it develops as characters long, and then excuse me, you have the first action segment, and then they do like an action segment, and then they do like a quiet time, and the action segment, quiet time. Like during the quiet time, you can see how each character is developing and changing in their own way. It was very well done. Good writing. There are like very good characters and character relationships in this movie. So you have like the workaholic dad and the estranged, like little child, daughter. You have the loving husband and his pregnant wife, you have the rich, you know, egocentric, you know, CEO of business. You have these two elderly sisters, you know, that have basically, I think, basically, I think spinsters. Either way, they're they're older sisters and they're traveling together. And then you have this the high school baseball team that's on there, and and uh there's a girl that's also on there that has a crush on one of the team members, and it's you know, very I don't know. I always think Gilligan's Island. That was my my I think my first interaction with seeing all these people from from different like classes thrown together into something very different outside of the scope of what they're normal normally deal with and and kind of see how everybody deals with it. It's kind of neat. So, you know, one of the things and and you know, in the how does everybody react, I think with zombie movies, it one thing that gets pointed out is in the long run, like man is its worst enemy. You know, in this movie, there are there are times when you know the the idea of every man for himself comes out, and like granted that's it's a saying, and there's a reason people say it. You know, but not everybody's like that, and and and thankfully. Um I think it would have been a really short movie otherwise. The ending of this is kind of tough. Um it's it it's uh it's uh it's a poignant ending. So you know, you have the the the the the uh the workaholic dad who uh you know in the beginning of the movie everything was about himself and and granted he's he's working hard and he's making money and he's raising his daughter, and uh, you know, in the beginning when the zombie outbreak, he is very much all about protecting himself and his daughter. He's very much you know, every man for himself kind of thing. And then as the as the movie goes along, you know, he he through the help of the uh the loving husband character, he he understands that you know we're in this together, and man is in this together. We can't we all have to help each other in order to survive. And and unfortunately, at the end of the movie, and spoiler alert, you know, he ends up kind of you know getting bit after the uh the CEO who uh who was very much every man for himself ends up getting turned into a zombie and attacks, and you know, the father ends up having to sacrifice himself, and it's a horrible ending. Uh, I mean it's a it's a beautiful ending, but it's a horrible ending at the same time. So, yeah, sorry about that if you haven't seen it. And if you haven't seen it, what the hell? It's been 10 years now. Come on, go see it. So, some interesting things. There's the girl that I talked about earlier, uh, the girl on the train has a crush on one of the baseball players, apparently. Um, well, she was played by An Sohi, who was a K-pop star before this movie and was a member of Wonder Girls. I know nothing about K-pop. Um, I read that somewhere. Something I think interesting also, the word zombie is used only once in this movie. I think it's interesting because zombie movies and TV shows, there's specific ones that are very much do not use the word zombie. Like Walking Dead calls them walkers, you know, and even, you know, they probably call them zombies a lot in movies, but like the Living Dead movies, you know, you know, uh Night of the Living Dead, you know, Return of the Living Dead, you know, they say Living Dead, they don't say zombies, and then there's other movies that just say zombies all the time. So I don't know, I think it's interesting that some movies that very much don't want to use the term zombies. Um think of cadaver Christmas. Anyway, sorry. And also, you know, in this movie, so unlike the United States, South Korea has a very strict uh gun law, has very strict gun laws. So there's very few instant instances in this movie of guns being used, so they are using bats, you know, police batons, police shields, like anything else, because no one has guns. Now, you can make some commentaries that maybe it'd be easier if they'd all been packing guns, but quite frankly, the way that the humans act towards other humans, probably not. I I could just see the humans ending up shooting each other before even having a chance of being turned to zombies. So, yeah, that's I think everything I have for Train de Pousson. Good movie, you should go see it. So, movie number two for episode 22 of season one of Dad Bod of Horror is hashtag Alive. It's from 2020. You can find it on Netflix or Pluto TV. The production company is Zip Cinema and Perspective Pictures. Director E. Cho. Or possibly Il Cho. I think it's Echo. The writers Icho and Matt Naylor. I'll get into that later. Starring Yu A-In, Park Shin Hee, and John Baisu. This is all guessing and trying not to be too Pennsylvania Dutch when I'm saying these names. Plot. The rapid spread of unknown infectio of an unknown infection has left an entire city in ungovernable chaos. But one survivor remains alive in isolation. It is his story. Kinda true. That's kinda the plot. So again, why this movie? It was made in South Korea, you know, and that's what I'm doing in this particular episode. How did I see it? I watched it for the first time for this episode. Favorite kill. Again, these are zombies, you know, they bite you. That's just what happens. So there are really no favorite kills in this. So this is kind of your standard trapped in your home during the zombie apocalypse type movie. Um, it's pretty good. It takes you through a guy who is kind of strained by himself for a bit, and it takes it kind of shows you a little bit of what he goes through. And this guy's a gamer. So as long as they had electricity and internet, he was fine. I don't think he even noticed the zombie apocalypse. But then when it happened and and power was lost, well, then he was he was effed. Now, the one thing I did notice his phone lasted a long time. Like my phone's done with his charge after one day, and he's gone through a couple of days and he still has charged on his phone. So I didn't get that. But anyway, eventually in the movie, because you know, in the plot it says, but one survivor means now there's other survivors. Eventually there are others, and one actually one of the survivors, one of the extras survivors, helps him out get some food, you know, because he's he didn't have a lot of food because he was a young guy, you know. You don't usually have your shelves stocked, you know, you're usually ordering from DoorDash or whatever they have in Korea. You know, so there was a a female survivor that showed that helped him out, and then there was also others that show the awfulness that is in humanity, you know, and while I was watching this, I was thinking about it a little bit. Like, you know, what if you know my wife and I were trapped in the house, in this house, when the zombie apocalypse happened. I live in the suburbs, so it's not like we're overrun with people here necessarily. It's not like uh, you know, Korea and where they happen to be. I mean, they were in this complex, like large apartment complexes with lots of people and busy and close to each other, so there was a lot of people that got turned into zombies really fast. Like, I think it'd be almost difficult, like a zombie outbreak because there's so many people that are like inside an individual individual house. Like, I I don't know. Anyway, and even like even where I live, there's a single guy in the house to my right, and a single woman in the house to my left on my block. Now, across the street, though, our family, and behind me, there are families, but you're talking, you know, there's not many people in a row here. We also around our backyard have a half-decent fence, and we have dogs, so I think that would help A protect us from zombies coming in the back and also help us be able to take our dogs out still. My wife is here with me, of course. So, um, and I we have a bunch of drinks in the house and a bunch of food. So I think we'd stand so we could do pretty well. And our basement and garage are stocked with different types of tools that definitely could be weapons. So, quite frankly, I think our biggest threat would be other humans, which again, which is usually the biggest threat in any zombie situation. So, humans should be band together, not not you know, not taking from each other, you know. And I I think we're also really close to a school. So I think we run out of food and stuff. I'm sure they have food in their cafeteria, lots of it for, you know, they feed hundreds of students every day. So yeah, I and it's not that far. It's definitely since I think we'd be thinned out on zombies here, I think definitely we'd be able to, I'd be able to get in the car, get over there, get food, and get back. Or just you know, I think it's school is very it's almost a good place to be. You know, you have uh most of them have very heavy doors. They have, you know, that the you know the the the glass has the metal through it, so you can't just break through. I think I think oh school is almost a very defendable position. Anyway, sorry. So this film was adapted from an original script titled Alone uh by the American screenwriter Matt Naylor, and weirdly enough, uh they let a the script get dual license. So the director of this one adapted it to be this uh film alive, and then a completely separate American version titled Alone uh was filmed and released also. Now I have to watch Alone. You know, the movie's interesting, the movie plods along. I think it's a a good watch. I don't know if anything is spectacular about it. I it won awards and stuff, but I'm I I don't understand that part of it. It's a good movie, it's an entertaining movie. So I would say watch it, but there's not there's not a lot to point out and talk about because again, it's that's a it's mostly a guy stranded type movie. So I will move on then. Movie number three uh for season one, episode 22 is I'm gonna butcher this name, Gonjum Haunted Asylum from 2018. You can find it on Prime, Screenbox, Haya, Fossum, Plex, Roko, sorry, Roku, and Toobito. Production company is Hive Media. The director is Jungbumshik. The writers were Jungbumshik Sangming Park, and it stars O Ayun, Wee Hajun, and Yu Jayun. Again, I apologize for how much I may have butchered up all those names. The plot. It soon encounters much more than expected as it moves deeper inside the nightmarish old building. That makes it sound like a much better movie than it is. Again, why this movie? As I said before, this movie is made in South Korea. That is why. How did I see it? Again, watch it for the first time for this episode. Favorite kill. So this isn't a zombie movie, so there were, there is, was the possibility of good kills, a favorite kill for me, but there really weren't because it just seemed you really didn't see the kills. They were inferred seen, maybe the aftermath, but yeah, it there weren't any good ones. So this movie is your standard ghost hunters and a real haunted building type movie. You see them all the time, you know, ghost hunters that like fake the the ghosts and all that stuff. I mean, hell, every every ghost adventure show on there is basically that way. Bunch of guys walking around the dark with green lights on, scaring each other. And and this, you know, this is what they were, and now they've encountered like a real haunted building and bad things happened to them. It was shot in a found footage type style, you know, where like, and it really was shot this way, where guys were wearing cameras. They were wearing, according to they were wearing rigs that were showing like their face, but apparently they also had like it was a reverse, and also could you could see what they were seeing. I guess 90% of the footage in the movie was you know from these cameras that were mounted on on the different uh actors. I really don't care for this style. I don't I don't care for the oh, this is the all these people are dead and we just found their things, you know. Like Blair Witch, that was the worst. I realized in some cases, like this one, uh, where you use cameras mounted on on the actors that you get some really good shots uh by accident, and that may have happened here too, regardless or irregardless. I don't care for the feel of those movies for the most part. The first 15 minutes of this movie is is just all padding. Maybe the movie wasn't long enough, they needed to add it, was it was it was poor. I didn't care a lot for this movie. It seems like instead of like sticking with like one thing, like one scary thing, they decided to whole throw a whole bunch of different scary things into the movie in one location, and um it didn't seem to be a great reason why that was. And if if there was a good reason, it wasn't really spelled out that well, it was like Oh, there's this funny noise person. Oh no, there's this weird thing, and there's no, there's this, and this it was too much. Just pick one. Pick one and go with it. You know, I I don't know. A funny thing, the the camera work, so because of the way the cameras were mounted, like I think they were mounted maybe poorly. Like, so the cameras were mounted on the people that were facing into them, like really low, and so you had this like really tight angle on them and a really low angle. So, you know, basically you're seeing their teeth and up their nose, and it was terrible. It was just weirdly distracting, it's just just not good. The ending is just strange, like just strange, a strange ending, weird. Um, so there is an actual Gonjun hospital, but they weren't allowed to film in it. Right before the movie hit theaters, the the owners of the uh the abandoned Gun Jum building filed a massive lawsuit to block the release. Um, they claimed the movie's terrifying reputation would ruin their ability to sell the property, uh, but the court ruled in favor of the film, and eventually the building was was torn down and demolished. I don't I don't get this that apparently people found this movie terrifying. Obviously, I did not find it terrifying. When the movie exploded in Korean theaters, it sparked a viral social media trend where audiences posted pictures of theater floors completely covered in spilled popcorn because people were jumping out of their seats during the infamous gibberish whispering scene. I find that very hard to believe. The gibberish whispering, I get maybe. I mean, I was in a well-lit room, kind of lounging on a bed watching this. I guess if you're in a dark theater and prone to being scared of things, I guess it could be terrifying. Again, I just think this movie was just a mishmash. Um, and I don't think things were explained well, and it just happens, everything just kind of happens, yeah. So, okay. I guess, yeah, I'll stop going off about that. So that's all I have to say about that one. So, yeah, so for next week, I haven't next episode, I should say, should be next week, but we'll see. Again, I'm trying to get these episodes out because I know when soccer season starts in a couple of months, it'll be tough for me. So, um, yeah, I'm not sure which ones I'm doing. So we'll see what happens when it happens. So, everybody, have a wonderful day and have fun.