After so many zombie movies, what could possibly be left? Train to Busan shows us with what is very nearly a bottle episode movie. When a biotech company has a leak, the ensuing zombie apocalypse happens very, very quickly. In fact, the whole movie takes place over the course of about twenty-four hours. We don't get to see the precipitating incident and we barely see the run-up: a truck driver hits a deer and right after he drives off, the roadkill resurrects itself. The carnage kicks in quickly, however, as various horror movie stereotypes board a passenger train (to Busan!) and one infected woman manages to board just as the train leaves the station. Once en route, the train can't stop - all the cities have already fallen to the fast-rising zombies - Busan is supposed to be a safe haven. One larger group of the living has barricaded itself towards the front of the trail; the smaller group of our heroes must make their way from the back of the train up to the rest of the humans, battling their way through multiple cars of vicious zombies.
Train to Busan does a pretty good job of setting the rules for its zombie universe - although I was never quite clear on whether the zombies could actually be killed. The human characters were sketched pretty thinly, all stereotypes like overworked businessman who ignores his child, said ignored child (very cute), redneck with a heart of gold and a pregnant wife, high school baseball team, self-serving asshole who we hate as much as the zombies. You know the drill. Thin characters aside, being trapped on a train - a la Snowpiercer, to which I kept getting flashbacks - focused the action and made it more exciting than the usual running through woods/cities/etc. from lurching zombies. Good zombie gore, sad but slightly hopeful ending, solid genre entry.
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