Netflix has had a pretty good stack of South Korean shows lately. Squid Game took off as a big success, but if Kingdom and Hellbound are any indication, it’s Korean horror that the streaming service likes. Fortunately, they’ve got a new terrifying tale on the way in the form of the upcoming All of Us Are Dead.
The setup is fairly simple: a group of South Korean high schoolers have to band together to survive a zombie outbreak that’s begun at their school. Bad news: there’s a lot of students at the school, and it won’t be long before the infection naturally spreads to the rest of the city. But the good news is that the kids have seen zombie films (Train to Busan gets a shoutout) and know how to defend themselves, either with martial arts or whatever’s lying around in their school like archery equipment. With no food or way to contact their families, the kids are effectively on their own. While they do their best to survive, the high school teacher will be confronted about his connection to the accidental outbreak and what, if anything, can be done to prevent the world from being zombified.
Like Hellbound, the show is based on a Webtoon: 2009’s Now at Our School by Joo Dong-geun. As far as zombie shows go, it looks pretty good, and seeing a horde rapidly shamble through the streets or hallways is indeed pretty terrifying. Big as they are, it’s very easy to get overwhelmed in a high school, which makes it a natural fit for such a terrifying premise.
All of Us Are Dead is one of several Korean dramas coming to the platform in 2022, along with a Korean remake of the Spanish crime drama Money Heist and the crime thriller Surname. The eight-episode season will hit Netflix on January 28.