Let’s just say it. The zombie movie is the junk food of horror films. Think of the greatest horror films of all time – The Shining, Alien, The Exorcist, Psycho, King Kong…the list goes on.
While those films have been dissected for their insights into human nature and society, you can’t say that as much about zombie films. Like a slasher film, a zombie film is usually an empty diet that tastes really good.
That’s why I didn’t want to watch #Alive but had to watch it at the same time. Like a bag of Cheetos, I had to take it off the shelf and partake even though I knew I shouldn’t.
So I opened two browsers on my computer. On one browser, I started to watch #Alive on Netflix while on the other I began firing off an email. I thought #Alive probably wouldn’t get interesting for about 15 minutes while the obligatory get-to-know-the-main-character scenes rolled past. I figured I could watch #Alive on one screen while writing on another.
But that didn’t work out. Two minutes, 30 seconds – that’s how long it took before this film took off. I know it’s that long because I had to backtrack the film.
Now a lot of horror films and TV shows start off with a bang. The X Files TV show did this before every episode. You’d see someone who is not the main character, and will never see again, get creamed by an unknown force. Then the credits rolled with that iconic intro music.
This film took a similar tact. It started out of the box, which had mixed results in my opinion.
I never did return to my emails as I watched #Alive all the way through without distraction after that.
Overall, I enjoyed the film, but I love horror. If you’re not a horrorphile, it might not make the cut for you.
But if you like horror, this is a decent zombie film, but it will be quickly forgotten as it pales in comparison to others in its genre, but it’s a fun watch nonetheless.
Where’s the Set Up?
Joon-woo is a teen, or perhaps slightly older, who lives with his family in a high rise in South Korea. One day, while he’s home alone surrounded by his video games, the zombie apocalypse erupts. He’s trapped, surrounded by former neighbors who now want to eat him.
At no point in this film did I feel particularly scared. By that I mean I never had to pause the film to collect myself or hide behind my hands. At times, I felt more intrigued than anything and in places, I did feel bored but only fleetingly.
I think I wasn’t that scared because the zombie scenes with Joon-woo never lasted that long. A zombie would appear rather abruptly, threaten him, and in most cases, the zombie was dispatched relatively quickly.
In one scene, a zombie gets into his apartment. I thought now this will be great because the scare is primordial in nature. You’re alone, trapped in a small space with nowhere to go with a much stronger adversary. The mere set up elicits sheer terror on an instinctive level.
But instead of making the scene interesting, it’s never set up for tension, and when the zombie does arrive, it’s gotten rid of too quickly.
But I think there’s another reason. Remember when I made the decision to write an email and watch #Alive at the same time? I did this because I thought the beginning would be those perfunctory getting-to-know-you scenes.
It turns out you need that mushy start. I think my problem was I never knew Joon-woo, so I wasn’t terribly worried about him. If he died, he died. What did I care?
He’s a two-dimensional teen/young adult, who plays video games. That’s all I know. What about his hopes, dreams, desires or his shortcomings, character flaws or unrealistic ideals?
The film gave me two minutes of lead up before the zombies arrived in his life. That wasn’t enough time.
So, I think set up is important in a horror film. If I don’t like or know the main character, it robs the audience of a key ingredient of fear, which apparently is caring.
Contrast #Alive with the last scenes of Halloween (1978). Because Halloween employs great filmmaking, the ending scenes aren’t just scary – they are torturous to watch. But why?
If you look at the way the murders are structured in Halloween, the scenes leading up to the murders build tension.
Slasher Michael Myers doesn’t just show up and kill his victim. That would be boring. Director John Carpenter tortures his audience by drawing out the scenes. We know the victim will be killed, and we are left dangling, wondering when and how it will go down for just long enough. The wait for the murder is far worse than the actual kill.
Carpenter employs this technique masterfully in the ending scenes with Jamie Lee Curtis, who plays her character with everything she’s got but somehow never overdoes it. By this point in the film, I also like Curtis’ character Laurie Strode, and I desperately don’t want anything to happen to her.
Watching Laurie trying to escape from Michael Myers is physically painful to watch due to its classic horror filmmaking, where the storyline, acting and directing all come together beautifully.
Decent Pacing with Fast Moving Script
So what’s good about #Alive?
One of my criticisms of some horror films is the assault on reason. For instance, everybody knows you don’t go into the basement with a flashlight when you hear a suspicious sound, especially when it’s been established that your house is probably haunted.
Of course, that doesn’t stop anyone in many horror films. That’s part of the charm, so I’m not entirely criticizing, but it can be taken too far.
But I get it. The character has to go into the basement. It’s one of the scariest places in any house – dark, cold, cramped. But could you at least give me a halfway reasonable reason to go down there?
And I don’t care what it is either. If your hamster is in the basement, and you decide to save your small pet, so be it. But at least give me something.
So #Alive offers moments when it’s clear the director and writers were thinking about how to get the character to do what they wanted him to do within reason.
Now, if I had the choice between being eaten alive by zombies or starving to death, it’d pick the latter. I think most people would. Maybe not everyone, but a lot of people would be like me.
So it’s not good enough for a character to leave his or her apartment simply due to hunger. So how do you get him out of the apartment to advance the story?
After a few scenes showing us Joon-woo losing his mind and then something horrible occurs, which leads him to do something rash that happens to be perfectly understandable because of the setup. When I saw it, I thought, Aha! Someone is thinking here.
Here’s another example. Joon-woo is shown to be into technology, so it’s not off-putting that he uses it in the film to escape.
But the film does seriously depart from reason at least once. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have mountain climbing equipment in my home. The average person doesn’t either. So if you’re going to put mountain climbing equipment into the film so your character can escape, you should at least allude to it in a way the audience will certainly pick it up. Otherwise, it just looks lazy.
Another reason I liked this story is near the end it took a disturbing turn. I remember saying, “Whoa, this is sick.” If there’s a scary part of this film, it’s here. But again, it’s didn’t last long enough, and the issue seemed wrapped but too early. Still, I didn’t expect it at all, so it kept my interest.
Final Thoughts
I give the film credit for creativity. It’s not like a typical zombie film in its setup, and it did try to put a new twist on it. The ending satisfies too.
One of the drawbacks is it’s hard to make a film about a character who is alone. Joon-woo spends a lot of time alone before meeting another character who’s also in danger. That set up might have dragged the film a bit. It also lacked a proper setup, so I wasn’t attached to the Joon-woo enough to fear for him.
I also never saw one scene that blew me away. Some horror films are mundane as a whole but produce one unforgettable moment that knocks you back, making the whole film worth seeing. #Alive didn’t do that.
But for the most part, the film succeeds. It’s not classic, but it’s a fun ride in some parts. I never felt fear throughout, and it’s unfortunate that it didn’t exploit every avenue to terrorize that it had open to it, but it’s not a bad attempt either.
Rating (Out of 5): 
