Summary
Reality series attempts to innovate the zombie genre by blending horror and humor. While entertaining, it feels disjointed, confusing, and overly hectic.
Here is our review of the Netflix South Korean survival reality series Zombieverse Season 1, which does not contain spoilers.
Netflix is stepping up its zombie game by partnering with Kakao Entertainment to bring its viewers a reality series called Zombieverse. While there are plenty of films and television series around zombies and an apocalypse, it’s barely touched reality series.
The only thing that comes to mind is Derren Brown’s Apocalypse. So fans should be ready to sit down and freak out watching this hyper-realistic zombie invasion.
In this series, a variety of contestants are thrust into the heart of Seoul amidst a zombie apocalypse, and they must fight for survival. The opening first few minutes make you feel as if you’re watching a movie.
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The makeup and acting are scarily real in an almost fascinating way. It then felt a little downhill from there.
Zombieverse Season 1 Review
The series starts with all the contestants getting to know one another, acting as if they’re on a dating show called “Love Hunter,” but one contestant looks very unwell, and when everyone thinks she’s kissing her partner, she is, in fact, biting and eating him. A weird opening to a reality series, as now the contestants are on the run.
They quickly learn that zombies react to sound, and now the fight for survival begins. Every day the contestants must complete tasks in order to earn the supplies they need as they search for food, water, transport, shelter, and the rescue boat.
However, if any of them are bitten, then they should be left behind. This is where we get the “half-zombies.”
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Similar to a video game, with wider shots, there are icons above the zombies’ heads with their health and state of play. A question mark implies they’re simply wandering, and an exclamation mark means they’re startled.
This isn’t something the contestants can see, so it’s simply for the audience’s benefit. As well as diagrams about the virus/human body.
The filming is done mostly through handheld cameras, with some eagle-eye overhead shots when watching the people run through the streets and through what looks like CCTV.
The acting is pretty incredible from the zombies, and at times I was scared watching this show, but only from thinking what I would do in this situation.
The letdown for me was the contestants/what they were asked to do — I can see the show is trying to be as realistic as possible, but at times it did feel scripted. Especially when we see recordings of their FaceTime/final messages to family and when contestants were laughing.
I also began to question what was the point of this series. Is it a social experiment, or is it just for entertainment? There were times the production felt extremely professional and other times it felt poor or as if some students were messing around with cameras, which made it feel disjointed and hard to stay invested in.
The most exciting episodes are the final two, where we’ve learned more about the contestants and the gameplay, and we’re finally coming to an end. Without many spoilers, there are some twists, and we’re given a glimpse into life one year later, which includes zombie dancing.
Is Zombieverse Season 1 good or bad?
It is good. Overall, it has an interesting concept and tries to innovate the zombie genre.
While the series has a sense of originality, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would. I think there is a lot of potential here — even for a reality game show. There are times when this series feels cheesy and forced.
It could have been good to have one or two presenters watching and commenting behind the scenes to give the show another dimension and purpose (Instead of a voice-over trying to lead the series along.) That being said, it is entertaining, shocking, violent (pushing zombies out of the way, cars smashing through walls), and full of suspense.
Is Zombieverse Season 1 worth watching?
Yes – It is worth trying to invest in. There are eight episodes with a runtime of roughly between forty minutes to one hour each.
I think for a first season, they could have done with fewer episodes, as 8 is a lot of time to invest in.
What did you think of the Netflix South Korean survival reality series Zombieverse Season 1? Comment below.
